The Philadelphia Phillies might want to work on their fundamentals a bit after this one.
Sunday’s game between the Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates was a frustrating watch for the Philly faithful. The Phillies continued to make mistake after mistake over the course of the game, which allowed the Pirates to walk it off 6-4 in the 10th inning. Trea Turner and Edmundo Sosa collided on an infield pop up for an error. Manager Rob Thomson pulled pitcher Cristopher Sanchez after five innings with 73 pitches and no hits. And worst of all, Bryce Harper and Alec Bohm made egregious baserunning errors in the 10th inning of a tied game.
With Bohm and Harper at second and third respectively, Turner skied a ball out to deep right field. Harper was set to take off for home, but Henry Davis made a great read on the ball to get it into the catcher. Instead of trying for home, however, Harper stopped partway down the base path, causing Bohm to get caught in a rundown on his way to third.
Eventually, Harper did try for home, but was easily thrown out to end the brutal double play.
yikes Phillies pic.twitter.com/1XECENvjX2
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) July 30, 2023
It feels like the Phillies have been one of the MLB leaders in TOOTBLANs this year, and this blunder is no doubt at the top of the list. Here’s how MLB fans reacted to the Phillies’ absolutely awful baserunning on this double play.
the phillies are an experiment in how bad can a good group of players be https://t.co/mfJWczpv09
— Jeremy Riyanto 🇮🇩 (@Jriyanto_18) July 30, 2023
Cue "Yakety Sax" https://t.co/nxOyUDVRdA
— Kathleen Danes (@KathleenMDanes) July 30, 2023
We are a bad baseball team. https://t.co/qgbhAGGHMA
— Tim Russell (@trussell7715) July 30, 2023
Great play from the bucs kids, absolute lunacy from the Phillies https://t.co/2wupnmOWVV
— Bill (@BLIP35) July 30, 2023
The prevailing narrative preventing outsiders from taking the Phillies seriously at the beginning of 2022 was defense. Fundamentals.
They made the WS last season. Some of us don’t know how. Days like today show that in the aforementioned aspects, there’s still a lot to fix. https://t.co/yqBQhj77c6
— Chilekasi Adele (@CAdeleTV) July 30, 2023
Phillies what is you doing babe. https://t.co/EoZfRkJ2SA
— Beamer’s Jorts (@BeamerJorts) July 30, 2023
that’s a TOOTBLAN if I’ve ever seen em https://t.co/Usbn9JqSPi
— cheese (@CheeseTweeted22) July 30, 2023
— Danielle Blake 🇺🇦 (@abradacabla) July 30, 2023
No clue why Harper stopped. The throw was fsr offline. #RingTheBell https://t.co/Ck41mUDLAJ
— Mark A Holder (@MarkHolder27) July 30, 2023
