Pitching proves Phillies' undoing again

Charlie Manuel blamed it on mechanics. Kyle Kendrick pointed his finger at location. No matter what it was, Kendrick got roughed up and the Phillies failed to rally.

The Phillies fell to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-4, Thursday afternoon and skipped town with a mediocre 5-5 record after what began as a potential ship-righting 10-game homestand.

Kendrick did his part, chipping in on an ongoing trend among the Phillies' starters. He gave up runs. Five of them. In one inning. The first inning.

"I gave us a chance to win, pitched deep in the game," Kendrick (2-8) somehow said afterward despite losing his fourth straight decision. "They needed me to do that. We were in the game. We had a chance to win the game. Yeah, you never want to give up runs, but I was happy with myself to go deep like that and give us a chance."

Kendrick's performance against Pittsburgh was not what the Phillies needed. He hacked up five runs to the first six hitters he faced, including back-to-back home runs by Casey McGehee and Pedro Alvarez. Later, he settled in to throw seven innings.

Phillies starters, including Kendrick and his mundane outing, have surrendered 85 earned runs in 161 1/3 innings in June. That equates to a 4.74 ERA. The bullpen, which has been as balky as green this season, can't do much in situations in which the Phillies are losing.

Even Hunter Pence, who homered in the eighth inning, understands that there's only so much the Phillies can do right now except try their best to back their starters.

"It's a long game. It's the first inning," Pence said. "Our job is to find a way to win no matter what. You try to claw back, get a few runs. It would've been nice in the first inning when (Shane) Victorino got on second to get at least one back, but I wasn't able to get a hit there. We battled, just not quite enough."

Kendrick cited coincidence when he strung together outs after pitching coach Rich Dubee struck up a conversation with him on the mound in the first inning. After that, Kendrick set down 19 of 23 hitters and 11 in a row in one stretch. Kendrick said he was able to put the ball in better spots thereafter.

"(Dubee) just said, 'You've got to get the ball down,'" said Kendrick, who is in the first season of a two-year, $7.5 million contract. "Ball was up that first inning. That what it was. I was missing up. Just get the ball down and stay aggressive."

Manuel saw it differently.

"Might be mechanics," the manager said. "Dubee wants him to throw downhill a little more to create a good angle. At the same time, it's because he gets behind in the count early. Then he has to get the ball over the plate and that hurts.

"I would say that those five runs got us behind in the game. It took some starch out of us early."

There was only so much the Phillies could do to avoid sending Kendrick into a tie for his career-worst losing streak, one he established earlier this season.