On a windy, wet and dreary afternoon at Citizens Bank Park on Sunday, the Dodgers watched their first series rubber match of the season twice slip frustratingly out of their grasp.
It started in the third inning, when a steady drizzle, slippery ball and muddy mound caused Tyler Glasnow to come unglued.
It crescendoed in the seventh, when the Dodgers stormed all the way back from what had been a four-run deficit, only to watch a temporary one-run lead fail to last.
Instead, in an 8-7 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, a Dodgers team that began this cross-country trip with a perfect 8-0 record left town with its first series defeat of the season.
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It didn’t matter that Teoscar Hernández drove in five runs. Or that Mookie Betts and Will Smith hit RBI doubles in the seventh that pushed the club in front.
In the end, the Dodgers couldn’t overcome the powerhouse Phillies — or their home city’s typical early-April weather.
The Dodgers’ problems began almost as soon as the rain began.
Over his first two innings, Glasnow was cruising through his second start of the year, seemingly picking up where he left off after his scoreless five-inning season debut the week before.
He stranded a walk in the first. He worked around a single in the second. And when he took the mound for the third, he was working with a two-run cushion, thanks to the first of Hernández’s two home runs on the day.
But then, a steady drizzle began to descend from the low overcast skies.
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Within moments, the impact it had on Glasnow became abundantly clear.
While repeatedly kicking mud from his cleats, drying his hands on his pants, and grabbing for the rosin bag to find any semblance of feel for the ball, Glasnow walked each of the first three batters he faced in the third, growing visibly more frustrated by the misty conditions around him.
Pitching coach Mark Prior visited the mound at one point. Glasnow stepped off the rubber several times to try and gather himself.
None of it, however, could get him back into rhythm. A bloop single from Bryce Harper scored the Phillies’ first run. A wild pitch from Glasnow led to a ...