PHILADELPHIA -- Humberto Mejía had an up-and-down outing in his second start for the D-backs -- but he would have had to be nearly perfect to give his club a chance on Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park.

Unfortunately for Arizona, Mejía was not that and the offense managed just four hits behind him in a 7-0 loss to the Phillies.

• Box score

The 24-year-old right-hander gave up a lot of hard contact, including back-to-back homers in the third inning, though he ultimately battled his way through six innings. Mejía allowed four runs off eight hits while striking out three and walking one.

After giving up a pair of runs in the first, Mejía served up back-to-back one-out jacks to Odúbel Herrera and Jean Segura in the third. Those homers marked just two of the 10 hard-hit balls (exit velocity of at least 95 mph) off of Mejía.

Offensively, the D-backs' lone threat came in the fifth inning, when David Peralta hit a leadoff single and Daulton Varsho followed two batters later with a base knock of his own. After they advanced to second and third on Nick Ahmed's groundout, manager Torey Lovullo opted to let Mejía hit with Arizona trailing, 4-0, against Phillies starter Kyle Gibson.

It was a tough decision at a potentially key juncture of the game, but Lovullo said the deciding factor ultimately had nothing to do with Mejía’s pitch count (63) or the way the first four innings had gone. Instead, it came down to the fact that the D-backs had used five relievers in each of their last three games while asking for 13 1/3 innings from their bullpen during that stretch. With a quick turnaround for Sunday’s game, Lovullo said he “wouldn't be 100% certain” his team had enough coverage to get through not only Saturday’s contest, but Sunday’s finale, as well.

Mejía grounded out weakly to short, ending what proved to be Arizona’s lone threat of the night.

“I wish I could have predicted that'd be our only opportunity,” Lovullo said. “I felt like since that was the fifth inning, we were probably going to get at least one more shot at [Gibson]. Maybe because he got nicked up, we'd create some more run-scoring opportunities and then dig into their bullpen a little bit. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.”

Instead, the D-backs did not have another runner advance beyond second base en route to being shut out for the 13th time this season. Only the Rockies (15) have been held scoreless more often.

On the bright side, Lovullo’s decision to let Mejía hit allowed him to see how the 24-year-old righty handled some adversity. Despite getting knocked around a bit in the first three innings, Mejía finished his outing with three straight scoreless innings.

“From the beginning, I came to battle,” Mejía said via interpreter Alex Arpiza. “I didn't give up or surrender in any particular inning, but after I gave up the four runs, I set out to continue to compete, put up zeros and I think that's what I did.”

That certainly caught the attention of his skipper.

“Sometimes a young pitcher, at 4-0, crumbles. He didn't,” Lovullo said. “He stood up and got better. Those are things that stand out to me and stand out to the rest of the staff.”

On this night, however, there wasn’t much Mejía could have done about the bats going silent against Gibson, who allowed three hits and did not walk a batter over six scoreless innings. Though Lovullo gave credit to Gibson for commanding the zone throughout the night, he also acknowledged that the offense needs to start answering the call in some of these tough assignments down the stretch.

“In order to get to where we want to get to, we've got to find a way to win baseball games like this. There's very good pitching out there, and I respect that,” Lovullo said. “And there are pitchers who are going to feel it like their starting pitcher felt it tonight.

“We've got to find a way to win those games. And we will.”