Phillies waste strong Cristopher Sánchez start, upset by late calls in loss to Giants: ‘Umpire took over the game’

SAN FRANCISCO — If the automatic ball-strike system the Phillies tested out in spring training this year had been in use Monday at Oracle Park, Orion Kerkering would have struck out Giants third baseman Matt Chapman in the eighth inning three times.

After falling behind in the count, 0-2, Chapman watched three pitches from Kerkering pass through the strike zone. But home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi called each of them balls, extending Chapman’s at-bat until he punched a single to right field.

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Chapman would later come around to score a crucial insurance run for the Giants, as they pulled ahead for the 3-1 win.

“Umpire took over the game,” Bryce Harper said.

The Phillies wasted another strong outing from starter Cristopher Sánchez, who tossed seven innings of one-run ball. The offense faltered in clutch situations, extending its slump to 0-for-24 with runners in scoring position. The only run the Phillies scored came on a wild pitch in the fifth inning.

“Our starting pitching has been lights out,” Harper said. “We could have three or four All-Stars from our starting staff, so we should be winning more of their games. … So we just got to be better as a lineup and score the runs we need to, and win the games when our guys are going out there and pounding the zone.”

Kerkering wasn’t the only Phillie on the wrong end of some calls. Harper was rung up on a sinker well above the strike zone to end the fifth inning and strand a runner. In the eighth, he fell behind 0-2 on two pitches outside the zone, and ended up grounding out to pitcher Tyler Rogers.

“Anytime I complain about anything, it’s pretty obvious, right?” Harper said. “So he knows he missed it.”

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In addition to a lack of run support, Sánchez wasn’t helped out much by his defense. The Giants loaded the bases with no outs in the second inning, though he nearly escaped unscathed with a strikeout and a ground ball to shortstop.

But Trea Turner dropped the ball on the transfer, and while Bryson Stott picked it up in time for the force out, they couldn’t complete a double play and a run scored.

An inning later, Rafael Devers popped up a ball to shallow right field that dropped between Stott and a sliding Nick Castellanos. Chapman then sent a fly ball to center field that Brandon Marsh misread. It bounced past him as he dove, and ended up out of play for a ground-rule double that put Devers on third.

“The wind,” said manager Rob Thomson. “You never see Stotty get turned around like that. He’s so good on pop-ups. And it’s just wind’s taking it. On the ball that was hit to Marsh, I think it was probably a knuckleball that was hit out there, because he broke the right way, and all of a sudden, he said he looked back, and the ball was now over his other shoulder, and he couldn’t adjust.”

Sánchez responded with a strikeout to strand both runners. He continued to allow traffic on the basepaths, with a Giant reaching base in five of the first six innings, but each time he recovered with quick outs. Sánchez returned for the seventh and retired the side in order, capped by a swinging strikeout to Devers on his signature changeup.

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“I thought he was really good, and he battled through a couple of rough jams, and I didn’t really think there were that many balls hit hard off him,” Thomson said. “He got a lot of swings and misses. He got a lot of soft contact ground balls.”

Sánchez, who was not named an All-Star this season despite his 2.59 ERA, said he uses the snub as motivation.

“One of the other things [is], we might not be going through our best stretch of hitting right now, so that motivates me a lot to have my team’s back,” Sánchez said through a team interpreter.

San Francisco took the lead for good against Kerkering in the eighth. In addition to allowing the Chapman single, Kerkering hit two batters with sweepers that missed badly to load the bases. Thomson said Kerkering was having difficulty gripping the ball, which affected his command of the pitch. The Giants then scored two runs on consecutive fielder’s choice ground balls to break a 1-1 tie.

Max Kepler led off the ninth by drawing a walk, but then J.T. Realmuto lined out and Stott hit into a double play to end the game.

“We got a lot of guys that should come through in those situations,” Harper said. “We haven’t, so just got to do a better job.”