PHOENIX _ After the second game of this series, a loss in which the Philadelphia Phillies somehow scored four runs despite going 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, Rhys Hoskins put the blame on himself because, well, that's what team leaders do.
"I need to be better," Hoskins said Tuesday night. "If I'm better, we win that game."
Oh, if only it were that simple.
Hoskins is far from the only Phillies slugger in a slump. Bryce Harper hasn't hit enough lately either. And when neither Hoskins nor Harper are hitting, it doesn't much matter what else is happening. The Phillies are in a bad way.
It's difficult to imagine things getting worse than Wednesday night. The Phillies mustered only five hits in a listless 6-1 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks here at Chase Field that further tightened the bottleneck wild-card standings in the National League.
The Phillies fell into a tie with the Milwaukee Brewers for the second wild-card spot. The St. Louis Cardinals and surging New York Mets are both a half-game back, while the Diamondbacks are more than hanging in, 1 { games off the pace.
That's five teams separated by 1 { games in pursuit of one playoff spot.
Crazy.
Gabe Kapler describes himself as a "scoreboard-watcher," though the Phillies manager insists he isn't obsessed with the standings, especially in the second week of August. Besides, his players appear to be pressing enough without worrying about how four other teams are doing.
Two outs from getting shut out for the seventh time this season, Harper lined a solo homer into the bleachers in left-center field in the ninth inning. Otherwise, the Phillies were shut down almost completely.
For five innings, they were muted by rookie right-hander Zac Gallen, who was making his Diamondbacks debut after being acquired in a trade last week. Gallen held the Phillies to one hit and three walks.
It didn't get any better against the Arizona bullpen either. The Phillies advanced only one runner to second base (Scott Kingery in the third inning) and didn't move any to third.
Whereas they simply weren't hitting with runners in scoring position over the previous five games, they didn't hit at all in this one.
Hoskins finished 0-for-3 with a walk and has seven hits in his last 45 at-bats (.156). Harper, meanwhile, went 2-for-4 but is nevertheless 11-for-57 (.193) with 20 whiffs in his last 12 games.
It mattered little, then, that left-hander Jason Vargas gave up four runs and scattered four hits in five innings in his second start since being acquired in a July 29 trade with the Mets.
Vargas grappled with his control at times, and in the third inning, it proved costly.
With the teams locked in a scoreless tie, Vargas hit Carson Kelly with a pitch and issued a one-out walk to Ketel Marte. David Peralta followed with an RBI single before Eduardo Escobar lifted a sacrifice fly to put the Diamondbacks up 2-0.
Arizona padded the lead in the fourth inning. Wilmer Flores, Nick Ahmed and Kelly notched back-to-back-to-back singles to make it 3-0 before a brain cramp by Kingery led to another run.
Gallen dropped a sacrifice bunt that was fielded between home plate and third base by Kingery. Although Ahmed was more than halfway up the line, Kingery only gave him a passing glance before throwing to first base. Ahmed took off for the plate and easily beat the return throw from Hoskins to open a 4-0 Diamondbacks lead.
