PHILADELPHIA – For a second straight night, the starting pitching faltered for the Philadelphia Phillies (34-30).
Andrew Painter could not command any of his pitches consistently on Saturday, making it an uphill battle for the rookie and the Phillies early in a 6-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox (34-30) on Saturday at Citizens Bank Park.
The righty got in trouble two batters into his outing allowing a leadoff hit by pitch and then a walk. An Andrew Benintendi RBI single, two RBI groundouts and a Tristan Peters run-scoring double followed making it a 4-0 deficit for the Phillies before they grabbed their bats.
"The first inning is what hurt him obviously," interim manager Don Mattingly said postgame.
"It put us behind. He hung in there, almost got us through five."
Painter tried to find a rhythm. After facing one over the minimum in the second inning, he served up two solo home runs to Colson Montgomery and Jacob Gonzalez. The latter being an upper deck blast for Gonzalez’s first-career big-league home run on an 0-2 hanging slider for
The 23-year-old surrendered six earned runs on eight hits, walked two and struck out four in 4 ⅔ innings. It marks the second-most runs he’s allowed in a start this season and he has allowed 10 earned runs over his last two starts spanning just eight innings of work.
Even if Painter didn’t stumble, the offense was held in check for the majority of the game being held to just five hits on the night
Alec Bohm blistered his seventh homer of the season in the fourth inning to get the Phillies on the board. The third baseman is starting to heat up at the plate and is 7-for-hist-last-15.
In the sixth, Brandon Marsh hit his seventh homer of the season as well, making it back-to-back games with a long ball for the outfielder who continues to make a case to be named an All-Star for the first time in his career.
Adolis Garcia singled home a run to cut the deficit in half 6-3, but Edmundo Sosa, who pinch-hit for Justin Crawford against lefty Sean Newcomb who came out of the bullpen for Chicago struck out looking to strand runners at the corners.
The Phillies and White Sox will play the rubber match of the series on Sunday at 1:05 p.m.
