Painter twirls 7 scoreless frames before bullpen allows winning run

PHOENIX -- Andrew Painter silenced the Diamondbacks on two hits over seven innings in a 93-pitch gem in Wednesday’s finale at Chase Field. He turned a scoreless game over to Jonathan Bowlan to start the eighth, and the Phillies were trailing after one pitch.

Bowlan opened the frame with a sweeper to James McCann, and the D-backs' catcher turned it around for a Statcast-projected 409-foot homer to left field and a 1-0 Phillies’ loss, snapping Philadelphia’s six-game winning streak.

Although Bryce Harper extended his career-high on-base streak to 35 games with a hit and two walks on Wednesday, the rest of the Phillies’ lineup was limited to three hits by a parade of seven D-backs pitchers in a bullpen game.

“That's part of the game,” Painter said. “You're going to win games that you probably shouldn't win. You're going to lose other games where [you could win]. That's just part of the game.

“The team's been hot. We've been rolling. We had fired off six straight [wins], so a little wrinkle along the way I don't think is going to hurt us.”

The loss was a bit of a gut-punch given Painter’s performance, but it was only the Phillies’ third defeat in their past 18 games. And though it prevented them from closing out their fifth sweep in their past six series, there’s no doubt this was a successful nine-game road trip.

“If you said before that we're gonna go 6-3 before you leave, you're gonna go, ‘OK, we'll take that,’” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “Obviously, we were in a spot today that could have really put an exclamation mark on the trip, but we weren't able to. We just didn't do enough to win, we didn't deserve to win.”

With Atlanta’s 9-0 win against the Nationals, Philadelphia fell to four games back in the National League East with a four-game series against the Braves set to begin on Friday at Citizens Bank Park. They’ll still hold at least a share of the NL Wild Card lead, depending on how the Cubs fare against Jacob Misiorowski and the Brewers on Wednesday night.

With 22 games left to play, the Phillies have to feel good about their chances, especially considering how well the rotation has performed. The trio of Zack Wheeler, Cristopher Sánchez and Jesús Luzardo have combined to make 79 starts this season, and the Phillies are 57-22 in those games while they have recorded a 2.92 ERA.

On Wednesday, Painter showed he’s more than capable of pulling his weight as well.

“I watched Zeus [Luzardo] do his thing last night, and we build off of each start and it sets the tone,” Painter said. “I think you go from Game 1 of a series, whoever's starting that night is going to set the tone. I think we've been doing a really good job at that.”

Since returning from Triple-A on July 31, Painter entered the day with a 15.00 ERA in the first inning and a 1.32 ERA in all other innings. So you’re forgiven if Lars Nootbaar’s single to lead off the bottom of the first had you thinking, “Here we go again.”

Painter quickly eased the tension, however, with three straight outs. He didn’t allow another hit until there was one out in the seventh, and he struck out six without a walk. The only blip of pressure he felt was when Gabriel Moreno reached on a two-base error with one out in the fourth after his liner deflected off the glove of third baseman Bryson Stott.

“Even when runners were on, I felt confident with the pitches I was throwing,” Painter said. “The pitches J.T. [Realmuto] was calling, there was conviction within every single one of them, and I never thought that I wasn't going to be able to get out of one of those situations.”