Phillies Hit Another Low With 11-2 Loss To Rockies
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Elias Díaz hit a grand slam, Germán Márquez pitched six shutout innings and the Colorado Rockies continued to hurt Philadelphia's playoff chances with an 11-2 win over the Phillies on Friday night.
Trevor Story and C.J. Cron also homered for the Rockies, who won for the second straight night at Citizens Bank Park and improved to 20-50 on the road.
Didi Gregorius homered and Bryce Harper had a pair of hits and an RBI for the Phillies, who have lost four straight and six of eight. Philadelphia fell 4 ½ games behind first-place Atlanta in the NL East.
Márquez (12-10) was sharp for the Rockies, scattering six hits with six strikeouts and a walk.
It looked as if the Phillies were in good shape to make up ground on Atlanta when they began a stretch on Thursday of 14 of 17 games at home against teams that were a combined 113 games under .500. But Colorado followed Thursday's 4-3, ninth-inning comeback victory with a romp.
Frustration boiled over for the Phillies when Brad Miller slammed his bat into a dugout rack six times after being called out on strikes in the eighth inning.
Díaz put an exclamation point on the blowout with a one-out slam to left in the ninth off J.D. Hammer, one of seven Phillies pitchers used in a bullpen game. By then, there were just a smattering of boos from the small contingent of the 22,138 fans remaining.
Story and Cron went deep in consecutive at-bats in the seventh off Ramon Rosso to make it 6-0 and bring a chorus of boos from the unhappy home fans.
Sam Coonrod was the opener for Philadelphia and pitched a scoreless first inning, but the Rockies got to Bailey Falter (2-1) in the second.
Sam Hilliard got Colorado on the board with an RBI single after a pair of one-out walks by Falter. Yonathan Daza followed with a run-scoring double that ended Falter's night. Márquez greeted Cam Bedrosian with an RBI single to make it 3-0 and seemed to take the life out of the Phillies.
Gregorius kept the Phillies from getting shut out by leading off the ninth with a home run against Ben Bowden.
UP NEXT
Phillies RHP Zack Wheeler (12-9, 2.91) takes the mound for the third contest of the four-game series on Saturday night. Colorado hasn't announced its starter yet.
