PHILADELPHIA _ The first pitch Wednesday was at 7:07 p.m. The first boo unleashed from the Citizens Bank Park stands was at 7:08. The game was practically over by 7:59, when Carlos Gonzalez launched a Jeremy Hellickson change-up into the seats, and Colorado raced toward a 7-2 rout of the Phillies.
The sun set soon after Gonzalez's homer. It will rise again Thursday, when the Phillies play a matinee against the National League-leading Rockies, and 117 more baseball games after that.
This much is certain.
These Phillies have generated confusion, frustration and outrage. They are better than this because there is no team in baseball that has ever played a full season at a .190 winning percentage _ which is what the Phillies have done this May. They have lost 17 games this month. They have lost 20 of their last 24.
Hellickson, their highest-paid player, could not stop it. He has relied more on contact this season than ever before. It did not translate against a Colorado offense that mashes. Eleven Rockies batted in the seven-run third inning.
The Phillies rotation this month has a 6.39 ERA, a mark eclipsed only by the Mets' damaged starters.
A 4-20 stretch is not unprecedented in recent Phillies history. In fact, they have done it in each of the last two seasons. It happened in 2016, soon after a 24-17 start. Then, in 2015, when the bullpen phone was off the hook at Camden Yards. The 2013 Phillies went 4-20 in a stretch that ended August of that year, with Charlie Manuel fired as manager.
So this is a test. It is a test for the youngest players on the roster; that was the goal for this season. The Phillies want to see who rises and falls over a 162-game season. Right now, Maikel Franco is drowning.
The third baseman, whom the Phillies hope can be a lineup cornerstone, sat for the second straight game. Pete Mackanin may not play Franco again Thursday. The Phillies manager said he was waiting for Franco, 24, to step into his office for a chat about why he was absent from the lineup.
Franco would prefer to not do that. He was on the field Wednesday at 3:45 p.m. with his infield teammates for extra practice.
"I'm not the guy to go into the manager's office and say, 'Why am I not in the lineup? I want to play.' He knows what he's doing and I know what I'm capable of doing," Franco said. "Every single day when I come in I'm 100 percent mentally ready to be in the lineup and I'm ready to play. If I'm not in the lineup I have to get relaxed and just try to do everything I can to make an adjustment and when I'm in the lineup I'll do my job."
Franco, who lugged a .221 batting average and .657 OPS, told hitting coach Matt Stairs that he was "embarrassed" by his performance.
Mackanin views his particular strategy of non-communication with Franco as a message.
"If you want to put it that way," Mackanin said. "It's kind of a gray area for me. It's not a specific plan I have mapped out to where I am doing it for any particular reason. I'm just, 'I'd like to see if he comes to see ... ' "
Could the Phillies demote Franco to triple-A Lehigh Valley if he cannot regain his footing? That would be a drastic move, not necessarily aligned with the organization's stated goal of learning as much as possible about its young players.
But exasperation can force even the most patient to deviate from their plans. By the ninth inning Wednesday, those who remained in blue seats at Citizens Bank Park passed the time by loudly whistling at one another.
