Ranger Suárez gets roughed up in his return as Phillies fall to Diamondbacks in 10 innings

If you missed Ranger Suárez‘s first major league start since the loss that booted the Phillies from the playoffs 207 days earlier, his final three pitches were a tidy encapsulation.

Suárez tried to get Arizona’s Corbin Carroll to fish for a low-and away fastball with two strikes. No dice. He uncorked a curveball to the same spot with the same result. Full count. After letting Geraldo Perdomo get a walking lead and swipe third base, Suárez left a sinker up for an RBI single.

It was the fourth inning.

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“Thank god,” manager Rob Thomson said, “we’ve got a day off [Monday].”

Because, say this for the Phillies, they climbed out of the six-run Suárez-induced hole Sunday. After he got only 11 outs, they burned through six relievers, including José Alvarado for 30 pitches, and took until they were down to their last out to tie the game in the ninth inning.

And in the end, even after getting Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber to the plate as the winning run in the 10th, all it got them was an 11-9 loss in the rain that scuttled a potential three-game sweep of the Diamondbacks at sold-out Citizens Bank Park.

“Just frustrated I can’t come through right there,” Harper said after lining out to center field in the 10th. “A good moment and good opportunity right there and just couldn’t get it done.”

Good on Harper for taking the heat. But the Phillies are built around their starting rotation, and upon rejoining the group, Suárez threw up a dud.

Suárez began the season on the injured list after dealing with lower back stiffness in March. He made four minor-league starts that doubled as a delayed spring training, most recently last Sunday in triple A.

And his first two innings couldn’t have gone much better.

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Suárez retired six batters in a row, striking out four. His sinker looked sharp; his command precise.

But he ran into trouble in the third inning after a one-out walk. He allowed three hits in a row, including Perdomo’s RBI double and a two-run single by Carroll.

What was the difference?

“It just looked like he lost his command out of the stretch,” Thomson said. “Maybe a little bit of rust. I don’t think he had many baserunners when he did his rehab starts. But he’s better than that. And he will be.”

Suárez conceded that he struggled once runners reached base and he began pitching from the stretch but said it wasn’t from a lack of repetitions.

“I think it was more that I was overthrowing the ball a little bit from the stretch,” Suárez said through a team interpreter. “I think that was the thing that could have affected my command. I was trying to do a little too much.”

After yielding three runs in the third inning, Suárez gave up four in the fourth, all with two outs. It was a repeat of many of the same problems, with the inning unraveling after a runner reached base.

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This time, Suárez gave up a two-out single to Tim Tawa before walking Garrett Hampson and allowing a two-run double to José Herrera. Alec Bohm was unable to knock down Perdomo’s chopper to third base, enabling Herrera to score. The play was initially scored an error but changed to a hit.

And after Carroll’s RBI single, Suárez trudged away from the mound with the Phillies staring at a 7-1 deficit.

Not what they had in mind for the lefty’s return.

The Phillies chipped away, with the biggest blow coming on Weston Wilson’s three-run homer in the sixth inning. J.T. Realmuto pushed the Phillies to within 7-6 with a two-out RBI single in the seventh. But he tried to go from first to third after a third strike skipped by the catcher. After he was called safe on a headfirst slide, a replay challenge revealed Realmuto was tagged on the helmet.

“You never want to make the third out at third base. And he knows it,” Thomson said. “He came in and was mad at himself for doing that.”

With the Phillies trailing 8-6 with two out in the ninth, Schwarber homered before Nick Castellanos and Realmuto singled. Bohm tied it with a single against Diamondbacks reliever Shelby Miller.

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It meant more work for Alvarado. And the Diamondbacks got to him for three runs, including an RBI single by Josh Naylor and a sacrifice fly.

Alvarado has appeared in 16 of the Phillies’ 34 games and has thrown at least 30 pitches in four of those games. It’s a hefty workload for the big lefty. Given his importance to the Phillies’ bullpen, it raises at least a yellow flag.

“Yeah, it does,” Thomson said. “I mean, with all the guys, really. If we have to give him a couple of days after that today, then we will. That’s what we did the last time we used him for two innings.”

Suárez didn’t help matters.

“What I take from today,” he said, “is that I feel fine.”

There wasn’t much else.