PHILADELPHIA — Finally, an excruciating month of May is over for the beleaguered Philadelphia Phillies.
After a young-but-promising group finished April with an 11-12 record, then won its first game in the season’s second month to get back to .500, it has been all downhill since. The Phillies lost 10 of their last 12 games in May and 21 of the past 26 overall to fall to a major-league-worst 17-34.
They ended the month by getting swept in a three-game series at Miami, where they were outscored 21-5 by the Marlins. That sort of offensive ineptitude has become all too common for a Philadelphia team that has surpassed five runs just once since May 10 and is averaging 2.08 runs over its past dozen games.
Up and down the lineup, it’s ugly.
“I’m glad we’re going into June. Put May behind us,” manager Pete Mackanin told the Philadelphia Inquirer after the Phillies’ 10-2 loss Wednesday. “We need a good series, we need to do well at home. … Hopefully that will spark us getting back to where we should be.”
Desperate for a quality start — no Phillies starter has gotten a single out in the eighth inning all year long, and only one has gone more than six full innings since May 6 — the club will turn to Jerad Eickhoff to open a three-game series against the San Francisco Giants on Friday night at Citizens Bank Park.
Though Eickhoff (0-5, 4.74 ERA) is still looking for his first win of the year in his 11th start, the Phillies beat the Reds 4-3 his last time out on Saturday. Eickhoff went 5 1/3 innings, giving up eight hits and three runs.
Eickhoff will be facing the Giants for the first time in his career. He will be introducing himself to a San Francisco lineup that has been sputtering of late, scoring just four runs while getting swept by the Washington Nationals in a three-game series to finish out May.
Even though the Giants scored 13 runs in the two games prior to that, they are still averaging only 2.6 runs over their past nine games.
The Giants (22-33) are second worst in the NL in batting average (.228), dead last in home runs (42) and are third from the bottom in walks (149).
To help kick-start the offense, San Francisco will call up 24-year-old rookie outfielder Austin Slater on Friday. He was hitting .322 in 174 at-bats at Triple-A Sacramento. Slater could replace Gorkys Hernandez, who is batting just .175 in 103 at-bats for the Giants this year.
“There’s no doubt we’ve got to pick this thing up offensively,” first baseman Brandon Belt, hitting just .237, told the San Jose Mercury News. “For the past however long, the pitchers have gone out there and battled their butts off and done a great job for us. We just haven’t put up runs on the board.”
The Giants will open the series with left-hander Ty Blach (3-2, 3.83 ERA) on the mound. The second-year pro is making his eighth start of the year and 15th appearance overall.
Facing the Phillies for the first time in his career, he is coming off four straight outings in which he lasted at least seven innings. He is 3-0 with a 2.51 ERA in that span. Since moving into the rotation on April 25, he is 3-2 with a 3.71 ERA.
