Missed Opportunities Haunt Phillies as Club Flounders in Miami

Noah Syndergaard hasn't been exactly as advertised, but he is what you might expect from the type of back-end starter the Philadelphia Phillies were pursuing at the trade deadline.

Since joining the Phillies, "Thor" has a 4.79 ERA and 3.83 FIP. He has done well to avoid walks, but gives up far too many weakly hit singles and home runs to poor lineups. Opponents are batting .305 against him since he joined Philadelphia.

Those issues were as apparent as ever Thursday night, when he gave the Phillies length (6.0 innings), but struggled to prevent the long ball.

The Miami Marlins took a third inning lead when Jordan Groshans curled the first long ball of his career just inside the left field foul pole for a 1-0 lead. The Phillies were put in a deeper hole one inning later when Bryan De La Cruz crushed a three-run homer to put Philadelphia down 4-0.

But the 2022 Phillies have been a different team in Miami than their predecessor. 4-0 should have been just another hurdle in the race.

Kyle Schwarber began to chip away with his National League leading 38th home run of the year, making the score 4-1, but in a perfect world it would have been 4-2. Several innings prior, Brandon Marsh hit a leadoff triple, but the Phillies were unable to bring him home, with Schwarber popping up for the final out of the inning.

Despite Schwarber's home run, the sixth inning did not have an entirely welcome outcome. Edmundo Sosa, slashing .315/.345/.593 as a Phillie, exited with hamstring tightness after running out a groundball. There has been no update on his status.

In the seventh, Brandon Marsh tightened the score further, on the second of back-to-back doubles with Bryson Stott. It was Marsh's third hit of the day, and the score stood at 4-2.

Andrew Bellatti held the Marlins scoreless in the seventh, but only just, after walking the bases loaded with two out.

Finally, it seemed the Phillies were ready to break through in the eighth, after leadoff single from Nick Maton and a walk from Schwarber, the Phillies had runners on first and second with none out. With Rhys Hoskins day-to-day, the Phillies two-hole hitter was Jean Segura, who promptly grounded into a double play to end the threat before Bryce Harper struck out.

The Marlins worked another run across the plate in their half of the eighth, so Philadelphia went to take their last cuts down three instead of down two. In a day full of missed opportunities, however, it hardly matted.

The Phillies did threaten in the ninth, bringing five men to the plate and getting one run in on Marsh's fourth hit of the day, an RBI single, but it proved to be inconsequential as Matt Vierling grounded out weakly to end the series finale.

Truist Park and the Atlanta Braves will be the next stop for the Phillies. Eight games back of the top Wild Card, the Phillies were one win away from controlling their own destiny for that spot going into this series.

Friday will see a face-off between Ranger Suárez and Max Fried at 7:20 p.m. EST.

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