Phillies fans furious at Jose Alvarado for Game 4 meltdown

Philadelphia Phillies fans were not pleased with relief pitcher Jose Alvarado, whose meltdown helped the Houston Astros take a 5-0 lead in Game 4.

The Philadelphia Phillies were looking to build off of their huge 7-0 Game 3 win over the Houston Astros on Wednesday night. The runs did not come as easily for the Phillies, but the Astros threatened early, but did not have any runs to their credit through the first four innings. Then, the fifth inning happened.

Houston managed to load the bases while recording no outs, leaving the Phillies in a bind. Manager Rob Thomson opted to remove starter Aaron Nola from the game and brought in relief pitcher Jose Alvarado, hoping that he could stop the threat from Houston.

The tone was set when Alvarado plunked Yordan Alvarez on his first pitch thrown, knocking in a run. Then, four runs followed shortly afterwards on 22 pitches thrown, putting the Phillies in a 5-0 hole.

Phillies fans were, well, not pleased with the performance from Alvarado.

Phillies fans upset over Jose Alvarado Game 4 meltdown

https://twitter.com/codyshannon1287/status/1587984332592922627

https://twitter.com/therealchoc_/status/1587985278706278402

Nola opened up the inning surrendering three consecutive singles, loading up the bases. At the time, the Phillies bullpen had not surrendered a run through the first three games of the World Series. Specifically, they went 12.2 innings scoreless, per The Athletic’s Jayson Stark. Going to the bullpen seemed like a good decision for Thomson to make, but it just didn’t work out in hindsight.

Following the hit by pitch, Alvarado surrendered a two-run double to third baseman Alex Bregman, a sacrifice fly by outfielder Kyle Tucker, and and RBI single to first baseman Yuli Gurriel.

It was a less than ideal time for Philadelphia to give up five runs to Houston, considering the fact that Christian Javier carried a no-hitter at that point in the game, and past the sixth inning.