Tonight’s game was set to feature two of the premier left-handed starting pitchers in the game in Ranger Suárez for the Phillies and Tarik Skubal for the Tigers. Unfortunately for Philadelphia, Skubal won the matchup and Suárez had one bad inning in a 4-1 loss.

Taste of their own medicine

Kyle Schwarber walked to leadoff the game and that was the only three ball count Skubal had in his seven innings of work. The Phillies didn’t muster many scoring chances off of the Tigers lefty, and when they did it was with two outs. Edmundo Sosa reached on an error with two outs in the second and Whit Merrifield followed with a single, but Cristian Pache struck out to end the Phillies first scoring chance.

The next one didn’t come until the third inning but was again with two outs. Trea Turner was hit on the hand/wrist with a pitch and Bryce Harper followed with a double for his sixth straight game with an extra base hit. But Alec Bohm then grounded out to second to end the inning.

And that was the best shots the Phillies had to get anything off of Skubal. He finished the night with 7 shutout innings while allowing just three hits and a walk with seven strikeouts. Shelby Miller pitched a perfect eighth inning in relief with a strikeout of Schwarber.

Harper added a run in the ninth with a home run off of Tigers closer Jason Foley. It was Harper’s 20th blast of the season and his fifth in the last six games.

Unearned earned runs

Ranger Suárez on the whole did not pitch poorly. However, he had one very poor inning that resulted in 4 runs for Detroit which was more than enough to lose the game against Skubal.

Suárez allowed two straight singles to begin the fifth to Justyn-Henry Malloy and Jake Rogers. Both pitches were up in the zone with the latter to Rogers being a changeup that was left middle-middle. Ryan Kriedler then hit a ball to Turner at shortstop that was booted but somehow ruled a hit. It’s hard to tell if Turner would have been able to turn a double play if the ball was fielded cleanly, but he did have ample opportunity to get at least one out. Now, the bases were loaded with no outs.

Former Phillies Matt Vierling grounded out to first to plate the Tigers’ first run. Andy Ibáñez then singled up the middle over the drawn in infield of the Phillies to score two more and push the lead to 3-0. Suárez got Mark Canha to ground out for the second out, but Riley Greene followed with a triple down the line and over the glove of Harper at first to score Ibáñez from second to make it 4-0. Suárez then got Gio Urshela to ground out to end the inning, but the damage was done.