Day in and day out, the Philadelphia Phillies continue to find new ways to add to their loss column.
Poor offense, bad defense, and inconsistent pitching have led Philadelphia down one of their worst stretches of the past decade.
A roster littered with top-of-the-line talent has seemingly lost its ability to put together a complete and clean game of baseball.
Wednesday night in Chicago, the Phillies would fall by a final score of 7-2.
Keeping up with their recent trends, the Phillies have been non-competitive in this losing streak.
After several poor showings to start the season, Taijuan Walker was given one final opportunity in a "starting" role.
The Phillies opted to use an opener, allowing Walker to begin his outing in the second inning.
Trying this option was an effort to eliminate Walker's first-inning struggles, where he has allowed the most first-inning runs in Major League Baseball this season.
Rob Thomson opted to use Kyle Backhus, who promptly allowed a first-inning run anyway.
Walker would enter the following inning, where an error by Justin Crawford would lead to another run coming across for Chicago.
The veteran right-hander allowed eight hits, five runs, four earned runs, walked one batter, struck out one hitter and allowed two home runs. He simply did not give the Phillies much of a chance early on to try to keep the game close.
In the second inning, the Phillies managed to put two runs on the board, giving themselves an early 2-1 lead.
Rookie Felix Reyes led off the inning with a single. Reyes is hitting .273 with an .818 OPS in his first handful of big league games.
Alec Bohm would then single to place another runner on base. Bohm's two-hit night may be a sign that he is coming out of his early slump.
Edmundo Sosa, starting for Bryson Stott, then doubled home Reyes, moving Bohm to third. Sosa has often found himself as the club's sparkplug, coming through with another big moment.
Justin Crawford would drive in Bohm with a groundout to second base, but the Phillies now had a lead.
The issue, however, was that they did not cross home plate again in the ballgame.
Entering play on Thursday, the Phillies are now 8-16.
They trail the Atlanta Braves by 8.5 games for first place in the National League East.
The Phillies and New York Mets are now tied with the same record after New York managed to snap their 12-game losing streak on Wednesday night.
Philly must bounce back and win their finale against the Cubs on Thursday afternoon. Cristopher Sanchez toes the rubber for the Phillies and likely will give them their best chance at snapping this drought.
Then, the Phillies head to Atlanta, where they can use the series to make up ground in the division. However, if they remain cold, they will virtually eliminate themselves from division contention just one month into the season.
