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Phillies lose second straight to Washington Nationals, 5-2

You can see the heavy weight of expectation in their swings at the plate, and you can feel it in the looks on their faces, and as Roy Halladay stood in the center of the clubhouse after the latest Phillies loss, you could hear it peeking through the measured tone of his voice.

Washington defeated the Phillies for the fourth time in five games this season. (Michael Bryant/Staff Photographer)
Washington defeated the Phillies for the fourth time in five games this season. (Michael Bryant/Staff Photographer)Read more

You can see the heavy weight of expectation in their swings at the plate, and you can feel it in the looks on their faces, and as Roy Halladay stood in the center of the clubhouse after the latest Phillies loss, you could hear it peeking through the measured tone of his voice. Professional athletes try to convince themselves that they are immune from the psychological stresses that afflict the general population, but over the past month-and-a-half, the pressure has built: the jarring headlines, the ever-increasing boos, the frustrated body language of a manager searching for a solution.

"You do everything you can to fix it," Halladay said after the Phillies suffered their fourth straight loss Tuesday night and fell to 21-23, this time in 5-2 fashion at the hands of the Nationals. "I think it gets back to going out and trying to play a little bit more loose and focus on your job. I think we've got, including myself, a lot of guys who are going out and trying to carry the weight of the team, and you can't play that way."

The season has reached a juncture at which Citizens Bank Park does not quite feel like home anymore, where everything that happens seems to happen for the worse. Tuesday night, it happened in the third inning, and it happened to the two players who over the last 2 years have established themselves as the unquestioned Heart and Soul of this Phillies team. Soul had just allowed four runs in the third inning when Heart caught a fastball that either caught the corner of the plate or came darn close to it.

According to the eyewitnesses, Ruiz told home-plate umpire Gary Cederstrom the pitch was a strike, then turned around to look him in the eye. Cederstrom reacted by tossing Ruiz from the game. Manager Charlie Manuel jogged out from the dugout. Halladay, who had just delivered an 0-1 pitch to Danny Espinosa, looked on in disbelief.

"He didn't turn around, he didn't get in his face, he didn't use obscene language," Halladay said. "He simply said the pitch was a strike. He said it a couple times. I don't know. I've never seen one like that before. And it's unfortunate, because he's our best player, and he gets run out of the game, really, for saying a pitch is a strike. I've never seen one like that."

The ejection turned what was already a weak Phillies lineup into something straight out of Clearwater, with backup catcher Brian Schneider followed by journeyman Hector Luna, rookie Freddy Galvis and journeyman Mike Fontenot in the lineup. The result was what you might expect, a 1-for-7 showing with runners in scoring position and nine runners left on base.

The at-bat that summed up the season came in the third, after Shane Victorino hit a one-out double to put runners on second and third with the Phillies trailing by three runs. Last year, that would have meant Ryan Howard batting cleanup with Hunter Pence on deck, perhaps followed by Raul Ibanez. Tuesday night, it was Schneider and Luna following Pence, and the best you can say about the rightfielder's approach is that it reflected a me-or-nobody desperation. Four of the five pitches he saw were sliders, the last two of them prompting out-of-the-zone swings, including a feeble strike three wave at a pitch Pence seemed to know was in the opposing batter's box.

"I think that's him thinking that he definitely has to knock the run in," Manuel said. "When you are overanxious, you are definitely subject to chase balls out of the strike zone. That's what being overanxious and trying too hard is."

There is no evidence to doubt the level of effort or care that is present on this Phillies team, which has lost four of five to the Nationals this season and is six games behind them in the division. If anything, the level of both is too high. After it was over, there was mostly silence in the clubhouse, save for Halladay, who allowed five runs in six innings to fall to 4-4 with a 3.58 ERA. Ruiz was gone, and Cederstrom declined to comment on the ejection.

"Charlie says it all the time, you do it because you want to, not because you have to," the veteran righthander said. "It's hard when things aren't going the way you want them to go, but that's how you play the game. Ultimately, it is a game, and that's important to remember. It's tough to do in places like this, where fans expect a lot, media expects a lot, players expect a lot, but I think it's important to keep that in mind and go out and try to play that way."

Contact David Murphy at dmurphy@phillynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @HighCheese. For more Phillies coverage and opinion, read his blog at www.philly.com/HighCheese.