By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
Though the Philadelphia Phillies won't lose 100 games this season, the 2017 season hasn't been short on losses, many of the painful variety. In a season where the team has lost 95 games, there were plenty of losses to choose from for the most painful, but SportsTalkPhilly.com has narrowed it down to the three worst losses of the year.
The good news is that all three of these losses came in the first half of the 2017 season. The bad news? That didn't make the losses less painful at the time.
3. Nationals 6, Phillies 4 – April 16
Losses on holidays tend to be memorable. Walk-off losses on holidays tend to be even more memorable.
The Phillies, who played the Washington Nationals 13 times in the first two months of the season, entered the eighth inning down 3-1 after a strong outing from former farmhand Gio Gonzalez. Daniel Nava and Tommy Joseph tied the game with RBI singles in the eighth, before Freddy Galvis plated Aaron Altherr in the top half of the ninth to give the Phillies a lead.
It appeared like Easter Sunday 2017 would end with the Phillies defeating their division rivals and winning a three-game series. Instead, the Phillies first-half bullpen happened.
Joaquin Benoit, who was the team's second closer in the first 15 games, allowed Chris Heisey and Adam Eaton to reach base in the home half of the ninth. Still, with a 4-3 lead, Benoit had recorded two outs and had Bryce Harper down to his final strike.
Of course, you know how this story ends. Rather than finishing Harper off, he threw a 3-2 pitch directly down the center of the plate, and Benoit was halfway to the dugout before the ball landed over the center field wall. It felt eerily similar to a three-run walkoff home run that Ryan Zimmerman hit off Brad Lidge in 2010.
This, unfortunately for the Phillies, wasn't the final walkoff home run that Harper would hit off of them in the 2017 season.
2. Marlins 10, Phillies 2 – May 31
After losing 21 of 27 games, Phillies general manager Matt Klentak did an in-depth pregame interview with Jim Salisbury of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia before the team's afternoon game against the Miami Marlins on May 31.. In the interview, he suggested that the Phillies would not send a struggling Maikel Franco to Triple-A, something manager Pete Mackanin had hinted at the previous day. He also made clear that he remained confident in a recently extended Mackanin.
The interview appeared to be the Phillies turning the page on what had been a disastrous month. Then they played their game that afternoon.
Even with Giancarlo Stanton out, the Marlins teed off on a struggling Aaron Nola and the Phillies that afternoon.
After a Christian Yelich RBI single, Marcell Ozuna hit a 353-foot home run to right field to give the Marlins a 3-0 first inning lead. After the sixth inning, when Justin Bour hit his second home run in as many innings – this one off of Jeanmar Gomez – the Marlins had a 10-1 lead. They would go on to win the game 10-2.
Suffice to say, the game didn't help the Phillies to turn the page on the worst month of Phillies baseball in recent memory. It instead became the defining game of an awful month.
1. Dodgers 6, Phillies 5 – April 29
When Hector Neris trotted from the bullpen to the mound at Dodger Stadium, he had a 5-2 lead to work with and needed just three outs to give the Phillies a 12-10 record on the young season. When he left the mound at Chavez Ravine, the Phillies had suffered a season-altering loss.
Neris, who was already the third closer the Phillies were using on the season, gave up consecutive titanic home runs from Yasiel Puig, Cody Bellinger and Justin Turner.
The Dodgers going back-to-back-to-back tied the game, before Adrian Gonazalez plated the winning run later that inning on seeing-eye single off the glove of Maikel Franco.
The loss by itself quickly became known in Phillies circles as the most painful loss that the team had suffered since their 2011 Game 5 NLDS 1-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. Even on its own, it probably would have come in at No. 1 on this countdown.
When you couple the fact that the Phillies would lose to the Dodgers the day after to close out April, before going 6-22 in May, this loss, at the very least, defined the first half of the 2017 season.
