Phillies' bats remain lifeless as they lose to the Nationals

WASHINGTON - The lineup posted Friday afternoon in the hallway of the visiting clubhouse at Nationals Park looked nearly identical to the lineup posted 24 hours earlier.

The only difference was the starting pitcher.

Jeff Francoeur was slotted again in the fourth spot and fellow righthanded-hitting corner outfielder Darin Ruf was in the eighth spot again. Chase Utley maintained his position in the three-hole, while recently demoted Ryan Howard returned to the seventh spot for the second straight day.

"I like the balance of it," Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg said Thursday night. "It didn't totally produce tonight, but there's some balance there."

And, Friday afternoon: "I saw some potential," Sandberg said. "Darin Ruf came up with the bases loaded and hit one on the nose to centerfield for a sac fly, but either gap, two or three runs come in. So with those kinds of bats in the lineup, I see the potential."

Whatever Sandberg saw on paper didn't materialize for the second straight night, however, as Max Scherzer had his way with the Phillies' limp lineup in a 7-2 Nationals victory.

The Phillies haven't won a game in a week.

They extended their losing streak to six games. Only the defending world champion San Francisco Giants, losers of seven straight, had a worse week than the Phillies at the conclusion of Friday night's game in Washington.

"Definitely aware of it," said starting pitcher Sean O'Sullivan, who was matched up against Scherzer for the second time in 6 days. "Each day, we're doing everything we can to put a stop to it. We just have to keep grinding."

Scherzer, the free agent who joined an already rich pitching staff this winter, a la Cliff Lee rejoining the Phillies before 2011, was quite good. He went eight innings, striking out nine of the 29 batters he faced; he didn't walk a single hitter.

"He's hard to get ahold of," Sandberg said. "He's got a good fastball, and it feels like if you're on that he goes to changeups and breaking pitches . . . I think went up there and saw six breaking pitches in a row . . . He had pretty good stuff. He mixes it well, and he's so herky-jerky out there that it looks like he's hard to zone in on."

The $210 million man held the Phils to one run on seven hits: a triple and six singles. New leadoff hitter Odubel Herrera tripled off Scherzer with one out in the third and scored when Freddy Galvis followed with a groundout to second.

The Phillies had managed to scratch across a run off Scherzer, but they were still down by two thanks to Bryce Harper's first-inning, three-run blast off O'Sullivan. A hanging curveball landed some 410 feet away, over the fence in dead center.

After the Phillies scored, Danny Espinosa got the run back an inning later for Washington, hitting a home run of his own off O'Sullivan.

"Take away two pitches in that game, and I kept the ball on the ground, was working ahead of guys," O'Sullivan said. "Two pitches, you know. I'm not so upset about the Espinosa one. It's the Bryce Harper one. I've got to make a better pitch there."

Ryan Zimmerman keyed a three-run seventh inning with a two-run double off Jake Diekman to put the game even further out of the reach of the Phillies' futile bats. The Phillies have failed to score more than two runs in three straight games, in four of their last five, and in six of their 11 games so far in 2015.

There are no shortage of players responsible, although Howard seems to take the brunt of the criticism.

For the second straight night, the new seven-hole hitter collected a hit in his last at-bat - knocking a run-scoring single to center in the ninth inning - to avoid an 0-for-the-night. Howard is hitting .176 in nine games.

Ben Revere was on the bench for the second straight night, with Herrera and Ruf starting in center and left, respectively. Revere is batting .135 (5-for-37) with one walk in 10 games.

Ruf emerged from a skid Thursday night with a double and a sacrifice fly, but he's still hitting .125 (3-for-24) through nine games. Like Ruf, Carlos Ruiz went 1-for-4, but he's only 1-for-15 in his last four games and hitting .214 in eight games this season.

And then there's Chase Utley, the home-run hero from the only watchable game on the current road trip, the struggling hitter who was awakened by the Mets' Matt Harvey on Tuesday, when he slugged two homers and reached base all four times.

Utley is 0-for-13 in four games since that night in New York. He's hitting a team-low .132 (5-for-38).

"Nothing but line drives and hard-hit balls at defense," Sandberg said of what he's seen from Utley lately. "He had three out of four last night, and I think two more tonight. He continues to swing the bat. He's just hitting tough luck the last couple of games."

But it's worth noting that, like Howard, Utley's bat isn't what it used to be. In his last 100 regular-season games, dating back to last season, Utley is hitting .233 (85-for-365) with 23 extra-base hits (eight home runs) and a sub-.700 OPS.

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