The Philadelphia Phillies Enter The Relief Room After Getting First Win Over With

If a team loses four in a row with a good enough record already built up in the middle of the summer, there is plenty of good equity built up and belief the roster is good enough but in a slump.

In other words a four-game skid for a winning team can go under the radar in some places and just chalked up to the rigors of a 162-game season even as social media may overreact.

Lose four in a row to start the season the magnification and scrutiny intensifies, especially when it is a team like the Phillies, who just happen to be the defending NL champions and a team with a $236 million payroll and one of seven teams with an opening day payroll exceeding $200 million.

Yet that was the situation the Phillies were facing heading into Tuesday.

Starting with blowing an early five-run lead, in a span of four games over five days, the Phillies looked hardly like the team who magically reached their first World Series since 2009 as they hit one homer, were outscored 37-12 while pitching to a ghastly 9.28 ERA with their first 14 1/3 innings producing an 11.30 ERA.

The Phillies were facing an 0-5 start for the first time since 1934. And nobody wants to be associated with that version of the team as lost their first seven games on the way to a 56-93 record with a lineup that included Ethan Allen and a pitching staff that saw Phil Collins lose 18 times.

So nearly three hours after Kyle Schwarber hit a 415-foot homer on the second pitch, relief was the prevailing feeling inside the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium.

“It was a good offensive night,” Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson said. “I thought we swung the bats well. It’s good to get our first win, but it’s just one win.”

Thomson’s words on Tuesday occurred about 24 hours after he pointed out the differences in the timing of a four-game losing streak.

“You don’t want to start 0-4, that’s for sure, but if we lost four in a row in July, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal,” Thomson said Monday night. “So it looks a little worse when you start the season (0-4), but we don’t want to keep doing this.”

And the Phillies did not keep doing this, which in this instance was losing. They survived a shaky ninth inning from Craig Kimbrel, got enough timely hits, including a homer by Brandon Marsh – a night after his two misplays were the low points of the fourth straight loss.

“It’s a great feeling,” Marsh said. “Now we go.”

And by going, Marsh means getting to .500, going over .500 and going well over the break-even point like what they expected.

Sometimes it takes longer to get clicking and this day and age a shaky start can be overcome. The most notable reason is more opportunities to reach playoff games with the expansion of the field from 10 teams to 12.

Case in point last season in the National League.

In the first season of 12 teams reaching the playoffs, all three division leaders through the first month either missed the playoffs or were a wild-card team. The Phillies were 11-11 and the Braves were 10-12 and about a month away from the four-month hot streak that culminated in them sweeping the Mets in the last weekend.

And while nobody ever wants to lose four in a row at any point, more opportunities to be a playoff team create greater margins of error and that’s something the Phillies know something about. As an 87-win team, they lost at four straight six times last season, including twice in September.

Eight months after those September struggles, they are defending National League champions. And Tuesday was the relief room on the third base side of Yankee Stadium with the Phillies relieved to get the first of what is expected to be many wins out of the way and talking about it in the same location where the Astros thoroughly enjoyed sweeping the Yankees in the ALCS.