Trevor Rogers steady but Marlins fall to Phillies as losing streak hits nine games

Trevor Rogers had another building block performance as he tries to end a disappointing season on a high note. The Miami Marlins’ disappointing season as a whole, however, continues.

Miami lost 4-3 to the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday at Citizens Bank Park. The Marlins have now lost nine consecutive games, extending their longest losing streak of the season that began Aug. 28, and are 55-80 on the season.

Rogers held the Phillies (75-61), who own the sixth-best team OPS in MLB (.738), to three runs over six innings while striking out eight, matching his season high for innings pitched and strikeouts. The three runs he allowed came on a pair of home runs, with Edmundo Sosa sending a middle-middle changeup to left-center field in the third inning and Jean Segura sending a down-and-inside slider just beyond the left-field wall for a solo shot in the fourth.

“It was really just trying to go out there and attack the strike zone,” Rogers said, “just knowing what kind of lineup they have and what kind of damage they could do. Really just made one mistake to Sosa [on the home run] and then how Segura got to that ball [on his home run], I have no idea.”

The Phillies also scored on a Sosa double in the seventh against Huascar Brazoban.

The start followed up Rogers’ six-inning, one-run performance against the Tampa Bay Rays on Aug. 31 to give him consecutive quality starts since returning from the injured list.

In his first 19 starts, Rogers made it through the sixth inning just once.

“I’m in a great spot,” Rogers said. “I really just enjoy competing. I think probably earlier in the year, I would think about too many things and stuff I couldn’t control. It made me look at the game and enjoy the competition aspect of it and just keep the mind set simple.”

Offensively, Miami logged 10 hits — nine of which were singles — on Wednesday and scored runs on a Joey Wendle fielder’s choice in the first inning, Charles Leblanc single in the fifth and Jacob Stallings solo home run in the ninth. Leblanc, Garrett Cooper and JJ Bleday all had multiple hits.

▪ The Marlins are now 5-10 against the Phillies, dropping the season series against Philadelphia for the first time since the 2018 season. Eight of 15 games have been decided by two runs or fewer, with the Marlins losing six of those eight games.

▪ The Marlins have now played 53 one-run games this season, tied for the sixth-most in a season in franchise history. They have lost 32 of those games, tied with the 2011 season for the second-most one-run losses and trailing only the 1993 season (37).