From there it turned into a bullpen story, and not the kind Philadelphia wanted to tell. The Phillies have been piecing together relief innings for weeks now, and the phone book of injured arms behind Wheeler made a late lead feel shakier than it should have.
Philadelphia is without Tanner Banks, Brad Keller and Lou Trivino, all key relief pieces gutted from the pen over the past month — Keller's elbow issue in particular looks like a season-ender. Depth like that doesn't just disappear without consequence, and it showed up in the worst possible spot Monday: a 3-run ninth from Miami erased a 7-5 Phillies lead and ended the game on a walk-off, Marlins 8, Phillies 7.
It's a gut-punch loss that snaps whatever momentum Philadelphia built off Saturday's 11-4 blowout of the Yankees, and it drops the Phillies to 1-4 in their last 5. Miami, meanwhile, snapped its own 4-game skid in the ugliest, most satisfying way possible for the home crowd — a reminder that even a sub-.500 club can wreck a good team's night when the opposing bullpen is running on fumes.
Wheeler will shake this one off — he's earned that benefit of the doubt with the year he's having. But for a Phillies team jockeying for playoff positioning, blown late leads against sub-.500 opponents are exactly the kind of game that stings in October retrospect. Miami, for its part, gets a much-needed jolt heading into a stretch where its front office still has to decide whether this roster is worth buying or selling for.