ATLANTA -- A little more than seven years ago, Bryce Harper put on a Phillies jersey and cap for the first time on a sun-splashed day at BayCare Ballpark in Clearwater, Fla.
He had great expectations then.
Harper still does, but his reality looks much different today. The Phillies lost on Friday night to the Braves at Truist Park, 5-3. They have lost 10 consecutive games, which is their longest losing streak since an 11-game skid from Sept. 4-14, 1999. They are 8-18, which is their worst start to a season since 2002. They are 10 1/2 games out of first place in the NL East, which is the furthest they’ve been out of first place through 26 games since 1997.
“Yeah, it’s not great,” Harper said. “Obviously, it’s not the spot where we want to be. I’ve said it multiple times. It’s like beating a dead horse, man. We can all say everything the same way every single day. Nobody wants to hear it. We’ve just got to win. Plain and simple.”
Winning has never been more elusive, especially for a team that opened the season with a $300-million-plus payroll and World Series aspirations. Some of Dave Dombrowski's top scouts were in town on Friday to assess the situation.
Look at how they lost on Friday.
They carried a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the sixth inning, following a two-run home run from Trea Turner in the third and a solo home run from Harper in the fifth. Phillies rookie Andrew Painter had a chance to stop the bleeding and become the first Phillies starter to pitch six innings since Cristopher Sánchez tossed six last Saturday at Citizens Bank Park.
Austin Riley hit a line drive to center field, but Phillies rookie Justin Crawford made a nice diving catch for the first out. But then Dominic Smith hit a soft ground ball up the middle. Turner and Bryson Stott converged on it. Stott scooped it, but then tried to make a throw to first with his momentum carrying him the other way.
Smith was safe.
“I thought that, you know, [Turner] kind of backed off,” manager Rob Thomson said. “If he had to play through it, we’d probably have a better shot to get the out at first base.”
Painter walked Mauricio Dubón on five pitches to put runners on first and second. He got Mike Yastrzemski to fly out to left for the second out, when Michael Harris II pinch-hit for Eli White.
The Phillies didn’t have a lefty ready to face Harris.
“To me, he was still throwing the ball good,” Thomson said about Painter. “I mean, he’s got to learn to get through that, and he will.”
Painter fell behind Harris, then threw a 2-0 fastball just below the zone. Harris was aggressive, dropped the barrel on the ball and sent a rocket to left-center field. The ball landed just over Brandon Marsh’s outstretched glove, onto the warning track and hit the wall to score two runs to give Atlanta a 4-3 lead.
Marsh almost got there.
He was shifted a couple steps to the left-field line, thinking that Harris was pinch-hitting and maybe not ready to hit Painter’s velocity. Painter was throwing harder in the sixth (97 mph average on his four-seamer) than in the first (96.3 mph).
“I had a good beat on it, but just a little too far,” Marsh said. “But that’s definitely a ball I think I need to have.”
Maybe Marsh catches that ball at a different time.
But the Phillies don’t make plays like that in April 2026. They don’t get big hits. They don’t make big pitches.
“I feel like we’ve been a lot of … not complaining, but a lot of like, hitting the ball hard at people, them hitting it soft and getting hits,” Marsh said. “We’ve just got to forget all that [stuff] and just play some ball tomorrow.”
Kyle Backhus got ready after Harris’ double -- a wild pitch from Painter scored pinch-runner Jorge Mateo from third to make it 5-3 -- and replaced Painter to face Drake Baldwin to record the final out of the inning.
“I just didn’t have very good stuff today,” Painter said.
Painter got his shot to step up in a big moment, but Backhus might have been the better choice with so much on the line.
“Well, I still thought he was throwing the ball well,” Thomson said.
So, the Phillies will turn to Zack Wheeler. He is making his 2026 debut on Saturday night. Nobody knows what to expect, but we know what the Phillies are hoping for. They’re hoping for some Wheeler magic to end what has been a suffocating losing streak during a terrible start to the season.
“It’s not good,” Harper said. “But obviously, there’s been a lot of teams that have come back from where we’re at. So, just gotta keep going, keep plugging.”