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Phillies can't solve lowly Edinson Volquez and lose again

They faced a Marlins pitcher who entered the game with an 0-7 record. They barely dented him.

MIAMI - The Phillies met a pitcher on Monday night who was winless this season with seven losses and a 4.82 ERA. And once again, the Phillies made a struggling pitcher look like an ace.

The floundering Phillies were mastered for six innings by Edinson Volquez in a 4-1 loss to the Marlins. Volquez allowed one hit through five innings and finished with just one run on three hits. He retired 13 consecutive batters between the first and fifth innings as the Phillies, owners of baseball's worst record, continued their horrid month.

"It [stinks]. There's no other way to put it," Cameron Rupp said after the team's No. 4 through 8 hitters combined to go 0 for 17. "Good thing about baseball is that you get to come to the ballpark and play every day. Turn the page. We come to the ballpark with a positive attitude to win. It hasn't worked out our way. It's frustrating. The only people that are going to help us are ourselves. No one is going to go out there and play for us. No one is going to go out there and swing a bat and pitch and play defense. That's on us. We have to do a better job."

The loss dropped the Phillies to 17-32 and 6-20 in May. They have lost 23 of their last 29 games. The offense cobbled together just four hits. The Phillies will need to win the next two games to avoid losing their 10th straight series. Pete Mackanin was mocked before the season for setting a goal of playing .500 baseball. That modest mark now seems out of reach.

They were stymied last week by pitchers with ERAs of 6.19, 5.09, and 4.34. Volquez, just as the others before him, learned that the Phillies offense can provide the perfect elixir. Tuesday brings Justin Nicolino and his 5.40 ERA. Perhaps the Phillies can figure him out.

"Every loss stings. I don't care who's pitching," Mackanin said. "We beat some of the better pitchers earlier in the season. We're in a rut. We just have to battle ourselves out of it. We have to show up tomorrow and just get after it. We have to get more than three or four hits in a game."

Jeremy Hellickson allowed four earned runs in six innings. He walked two and struck out two. Dee Gordon tagged him for an RBI double in the third and Giancarlo Stanton followed with an RBI single. But the crucial blow came in the sixth. The Phillies had finally scored against Volquez, but Hellickson gave it back in the bottom of the inning when Derek Dietrich blasted a high change-up for a towering two-run homer to right field.

The Phillies paid Hellickson $17.2 million this winter to come back as a stabilizer for a young rotation. He was reliable last season, but the team gambled and declined to move him at the trade deadline. Nights like Monday make that decision one to regret. He finished May with a 6.16 ERA in six starts.

Joely Rodriguez and Mark Leiter Jr. kept the Phillies close with scoreless innings of relief, but the offense could provide little else.

The Phillies seemed to finally crack Volquez in the sixth when Hellickson led off with a walk. Cesar Hernandez followed with a double off the center-field wall, missing a home run by just a few feet. Howie Kendrick, in his first game back from the disabled list, grounded out before Aaron Altherr scored Hellickson with a single to right. Altherr is batting .363 with 21 RBIs in 33 at-bats with runners in scoring position this season.

The rally was short-lived. Altherr was thrown out trying to steal second base and the call - which was close - could not be challenged because the Phillies did not have a challenge left. Mackanin spent his one challenge just three pitches earlier when he asked the umpires to review whether Joseph's foul ball to right was actually fair. The replay confirmed that the fly ball was foul when Stanton unsuccessfully tried to make a sliding catch in the corner.

"I might have challenged it. I would've had to wait to hear from our video guy," Mackanin said about Altherr's slide. "But I left him on his own because with our offense, we have to take chances. I'm going to start taking chances. I can't sit around and wait for three, four hits in a row. We haven't been doing that. It was darn close. He thought he might've been in there."

There was little time to fret over Altherr's slide. A few minutes later, they watched Dietrich's homer fall a few rows into the right-field seats. The Phillies would manage only two more base runners. Another loss - in a month full of them - was sealed.

mbreen@phillynews.com

@matt_breen