Castellanos struggling to get comfortable at plate

PHILADELPHIA » As the Phillies’ nine-game winning streak reached a conclusion, so did Nick Castellanos.

“Baseball can be a funny game,” the right fielder said. “And sometimes, it can suck.”

A day after enjoying the baseball blessing of a check-swing double, Castellanos went 0-for-3 in a 13-1 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. As his average dipped to .253, Castellanos struck out with two runners in scoring position in the fifth, while the Phillies were still within 4-1.

“I haven’t been comfortable all year, you know?” he said. “But it’s only a matter of time, I’ll tell you that. It’s kind of one of those things where sometimes you go through phases where you don’t really have a good feeling at the plate, at least for me.

“But I’m just one at-bat away. Honestly, all it takes is just one swing, man, and then it just clicks and starts rolling.”

In his first season of a five-year, $100 million contract, Castellanos has seven home runs and 31 RBIs. He has not hit a home run since May 30.

“I think he is jumping a little bit,” interim manager Rob Thomson said. “And when you’re scuffling, you try to do too much. I think that’s part of it. But he’s a really good hitter. You look at the back of his baseball card, and he is going to put up big numbers by the end of the year, for sure.”

Until then, Castellanos will search for the source of his plate troubles.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “Honestly, more than anything, I just don’t feel comfortable.”

He did, however, enjoy that double Saturday … a reminder that the momentum can shift.

“I think that’s just a reminder,” he said, “not to take the game so seriously.”

The Phillies, as a group, are resisting panic.

“There’s a lot more games to go,” said Kyle Schwarber. “Obviously we didn’t play our sharpest today and that’s what you can chalk it up to. We didn’t play our sharpest but we won the series. There’s things that you take away and learn from and then you move on.

“But there’s still a lot of positives in what we’ve been doing, and I think that’s going to be the biggest takeaway, the positive stuff. What we’ve been doing here the last 11 days is playing really solid baseball. And we’ll move on from there.”