April 15, 2025
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
A bad second inning did Taijuan Walker and the Phillies in on Monday night against the Giants.
Taijuan Walker fell into a full count against Mike Yastrzemski before the Giants leadoff hitter flew out way into left, and you just knew where the night was headed from seeing it too many times before.
Walker survived the first inning, thanks to a pick-off of Willy Adames at first and a six-pitch strikeout of Jung Hoo Lee looking, but the second crumbled.
The righthander got tagged for six runs (four earned), and in a single frame, the Phillies went from leading by three to trailing by as much on the way to a 10-4 loss to San Francisco Monday night at Citizens Bank Park.
Walker, after battling to 10.2 scoreless innings across his two starts to begin the year (to many's surprise), fell back to earth.
He let up a one-out double to Heliot Ramos, LaMonte Wade Jr. drew a walk, and the snowball started rolling.
Wilmer Flores singled to score Ramos and push Wade to second, Walker's throw to second on a double play try back to the mound from Patrick Bailey went flying past the glove of Trea Turner to score another, and then Tyler Fitzgerald cleared the bases and the Phillies' lead with a three-run homer to left.
Adames tacked on one more with a solo shot to right to make it a 6-3 ballgame before the bleeding finally stopped with a groundout to short.
To Walker's credit, he hung in there for three more innings and didn't let another run cross while only allowing one more hit, but the damage was done. It was brutal, and all too familiar.
"Just started trying too hard to get the next out," Walker said from the clubhouse postgame. "Just leaving stuff over the middle instead of pitching my game back in the zone like I was doing.
"Just one inning that got away from me. Six runs hurt us. I was able to settle down the next three innings, but just that one inning sped up on me."
"Tyler's started to put together a few better at-bats"
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) April 14, 2025
You don't say 🤔 pic.twitter.com/N1KWrfNYGw
For the night, Walker's line registered at 5.0 innings pitched, six hits, six runs, four earned runs, a walk, five strikeouts, and two homers. He threw 99 pitches, with 62 of them for strikes, but they only carried so far with major parts of the Phillies' lineup still struggling at the plate.
The club dropped to 9-7 to continue the recent rut they've fallen into with last week's Braves and Cardinals series, and now with more increasingly pressing questions.
Ranger Suárez is still on his rehab assignment, so the likelihood is that Walker will see at least one more start before the Phillies begin to figure out how to bring their lefty back into the fold, but they'd be doing so now with either the Walker that gutted out two clutch appearances early or the one on Monday night who looked way more like the 2024 version that struggled mightily and never found stable footing.
It's another dilemma that the Phillies have to solve, among a list of them that are really starting to hurt them now.
Here's a rundown...
Brandon Marsh was taken out of the lineup for Monday night as a chance to reset.
The outfielder was batting an abysmal .108 coming back to South Philly, and was in an 0-for-26 spiral leaving the Cardinals series.
It was clear that manager Rob Thomson couldn't keep rolling Marsh out there in center field hoping that he would naturally work things out, so in went Johan Rojas...who struck out swinging three times.
"Just a little bit overaggressive," Thomson said postgame of Rojas at the plate.
Rojas left Monday night batting .250. He has four hits on the year so far, and none of them have gone for extra bases.
Kody Clemens pinch-hit for Rojas in the eighth, and then Marsh was back out there in center to finish up the game.
Center field has become a black hole for the Phillies when it comes to offense, and with no direct answer in sight.
Giants starter Landen Roupp recovered from a three-run first to make it through five innings.
The righthander had the Phillies biting on his curveball, especially Bryce Harper, who swung and missed on the pitch six times.
Nick Castellanos finally got a hold of one, though, with two outs in the fifth.
Roupp left one hanging on the low inside corner in a 3-1 count. Castellanos golfed it and knew the ball was gone as soon as he heard the crack.
He knew. #RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/xdVGft70Tf
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) April 15, 2025
It was a solo shot, but one that brought the Phillies back within two and with some life...then J.T. Realmuto struck out swinging...Roupp's changeup got him.
"We put a lot of pitches on him in the first couple innings, but the breaking ball was really good and the changeup to the lefties was good," Thomson said of Roupp. "I think we got out of the zone a little bit tonight."
"He's got a funky breaking ball," said shortstop Trea Turner, who doubled early on Monday night to drive in the Phillies' first run. "He kind of settled in after that and made some good pitches, got ahead, and we could've done a little bit of a better job in a couple spots. We got some guys to third base and just couldn't get the job done."
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Realmuto was up for another pivotal at-bat in the seventh with two out and the Phillies down four, but with runners at first and second from a Harper single and a Castellanos walk.
The catcher worked a full count, and on the payoff pitch, San Francisco reliever Erik Miller threw a slider that landed outside the plate.
Realmuto started leaving to take first base, but umpire Tony Randazzo called strike three.
Realmuto was in disbelief, and that just took whatever wind was left out of the Phillies' sails as the Giants coasted to the finish line with a couple of more runs.
"Yeah, it was off the plate," Thomson said bluntly of the call afterward.
Umpire calls this a strike on JT Realmuto pic.twitter.com/h4OO4dsHyL
— Philly sports complex (@philly_complex) April 15, 2025
Just a brutal night.
Thomson was direct about that as he sat in front of the microphone to talk to the media postgame.
"I mean, we've got a good club," Thomson said.
They just don't have things going their way right now, which gets frustrating, especially at the plate.
The Phillies went 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position on Monday night, and left eight runners on base.
Going back to the start of the Atlanta series last week, they're 7-for-54 with runners in scoring position.
"That's gonna change," Thomson said. "Those balls that are put in play, they're gonna fall at some point. They're gonna produce."
It just hasn't been happening at nearly the clip the Phillies would want of late, but Thomson could chalk that up to the ebbs and flows of a long season.
And there were some promising signs leaving Monday night, even if that's the last thing anyone wants to hear after a 10-4 loss.
Max Kepler outran a double play chance in the first inning to get the Phillies' third run across the plate, beat another throw on an infield single in the fourth, then lined a sharp double into the right-field corner in the sixth; and Alec Bohm, mired in a much more glaring slump, finally got solid contact on a pitch and drove it off the left-center wall for a double in the fourth.
Before then, Bohm only had one other extra base hit, and that was on Opening Day.
"I think he wanted to hit so bad that he put a little bit too much pressure on himself," Thomson said of Bohm. "But that was good to see tonight. Hopefully he can build on that."
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