PHILADELPHIA _ When the Phillies departed Clearwater, Fla., an innocent time that feels like forever ago, they liked their bullpen. It was a deeper unit than the one from a season ago. Pete Mackanin trusted a handful of arms. He could deploy them in various situations.
Then, they played some games. The bullpen was bad. Later, the whole team was bad, and the bullpen was spared. The bullpen was bad again Sunday, in a 5-4 loss to Arizona, another reminder of a broken unit on a team full of flaws.
The Phillies have lost 46 games, and 17 of those were by one run. No other team in baseball has suffered more than 13 one-run losses.
The bullpen is to blame for more than a few of those defeats. Closer Hector Neris needed just 10 pitches to walk a batter and allow two singles that cost Ben Lively a win. Rey Fuentes, 26, crushed Jeanmar Gomez for his first big-league homer in the 10th inning. Gomez has a 7.20 ERA.
The Phillies have blown 12 of their 22 save chances. That 45 percent success rate is worst in the majors. The league average is 64 percent.
There is a twinge of irony: The Phillies' likeliest all-star representative is Pat Neshek. He pitched a scoreless seventh inning against the top of Arizona's lineup. His ERA is 0.67. He has thrived as a setup man, and both team and pitcher are happy to have him in that role.
Sometimes, the Phillies are permitted nice things. They had hope Sunday for eight innings. They pelted Robbie Ray _ one of the game's top lefties and unhittable for the last month _ for four runs.
Ray, before Sunday, had pitched to a 0.27 ERA in his previous five starts. Opponents had batted .115 against him, with a third of them striking out, in that span. He had permitted one home run in his last 37 innings.
He surrendered two within the first five batters he saw Sunday.
Ray tried to blow a 97-mph fastball past Aaron Altherr in the first inning. Altherr turned on the 2-2 pitch for his team-leading 12th homer. An inning later, Maikel Franco attacked a first-pitch, elevated fastball. He did not try to pull the pitch. He smashed it to the opposite field for a solo homer.
Franco has eight homers this season. Five have come on the first pitch of an at-bat. When he has put the first pitch in play, the third baseman has succeeded. He is 17 for 36 (.472) on first pitches, with eight of those hits for extra bases. Those figures are well above the league averages.
Franco added two walks Sunday. He now leads the Phillies with 21 walks.
He also leads the majors in double plays, with 13. Franco batted with two outs in the ninth and the winning run on second base, fought Diamondbacks reliever Archie Bradley for 10 pitches, but popped out.
The Phillies have won once in the last 12 days. Here's a scheduling oddity: Just five teams in the National League have a winning record. The Phillies have played 68 games, and 22 were against those five teams. They have 19 games to play before the all-star break. Just four will come against a team with a winning record _ the four next weekend in Arizona.
But everyone, of course, has a better record than the Phillies do.
