PHILADELPHIA — A modicum of panic, developing from a mountain of concern, greeted the Phillies upon their return from a 10-game road trip Tuesday.
The team remains solidly in control of the National League East, though the Dodgers have overhauled them atop the NL standings by a half-game. Twenty games over .500 looks fine, though less so after being 28 over in the first half.
The 7-16 mark since the All-Star Game, including a 5-0 deathmarch loss to the Miami Marlins Tuesday night, is cause for concern. But what’s particularly prickling is the echoes to the way previous seasons have ended, with a streaky lineup finding many of its big guns all misfiring simultaneously, the fate that caused seasons to run aground in the World Series in 2022 and the NLCS last autumn.
“We’ve got a few guys that are not going real good right now,” manager Rob Thomson was saying Tuesday. “So we’ve got to fight through it.”
After running near the top of Major League Baseball in most offensive categories in a marauding first half, the Phillies’ lineup has been squarely below-average in the second. They were 22nd in runs scored, 18th in hits and 20th in batting average. They’re 20th in on-base percentage and 22nd in slugging. As much as 23 runs allowed in the last two losses in Arizona seem like a significant issue, they were just the release of tension on a bullpen that has been forced to survive for weeks with too little offense and finally broke.
The Phillies are in a patch where not much seems to be working offensively. A brief snapshot:
Since returning from a knee issue on July 20, J.T. Realmuto is hitting .193 with one home run and three RBIs in 15 games. Hitting .246 on the season, he’s dropped to the seven-hole in the lineup.
Bryson Stott is hitting .222 (with a .234 on-base percentage) and three RBIs since the break.
Trea Turner, after an MVP-quality first half, has sunk to .176 with a .219 on-base percentage since he started the All-Star Game at shortstop.
Brandon Marsh has a .149 batting average with 10 hits and 27 strikeouts since the break, all the consternation about him hitting left-handed pitching resulting in him now struggling against right and left alike.
Johan Rojas is hitting .281 but with one extra-base hit, one RBI and a robust .313 slugging percentage, his defensive brilliance mixed with offensive shortcomings harder to stomach when those around him are struggling so mightily.
Even Bryce Harper is only hitting .207, albeit with five homers, and 23 strikeouts in 22 games.
It’s the kind of joint streakiness that has haunted the end of Phillies seasons before. And it’s a far cry from last year’s August offensive explosion, led by Turner’s resurgence after an awful start to life in red pinstripes, that led to a franchise-record 59 home runs.
The irony in this year’s late-summer scuffles is that the Phillies don’t need the herculean recovery that was required last year or in 2022. Their fast start has allowed them to play from ahead instead of having to feverishly make up ground just to make the postseason. Last year’s torrid August was in large part regression to the mean after below-par first halves. The hope this year was that steady production throughout would smooth the peaks and valleys. With a better pitching staff comprised of a record number of All-Stars that would consistently win low-scoring games, the Phillies could escape the feast-or-famine mentality and have, for instance, a Turner who was solid throughout instead of the sum of woeful in May and unstoppable in August.
The recent downturn is a return to that streakiness. So Thomson is having eerily reminiscent conversations as a year ago about Turner, whose average stood at .349 but was down to .301 as of Monday afternoon.
“It’s a lot of off-speed, a lot of chase pitches,” Thomson said. “He’s got to see the baseball a little bit better and eliminate the chase and force them into the zone, take his walks, that type of thing.”
The sky isn’t falling on Citizens Bank Park. Most of this recent slide has come against playoff teams – Cleveland and the Dodgers are division leaders; Minnesota, the Yankees and Arizona are in Wild Card spots and Seattle could end there by season’s end. The pitching staff is still better than last year, in terms of starting strength (if Ranger Suarez gets healthy) and relief depth (if Orion Kerkering and Jose Alvarado sort out some recent issues.) The club took steps to reinforce the lineup at the trade deadline with the acquisition of Austin Hays, who got hurt before Thomson could settle on a time-share plan in the outfield. With Harper, Turner, Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber all missing time this season, the hope would be to get the full complement going with a few weeks left to build momentum for the postseason, and that remains a possibility.
But the restlessness in the stands Tuesday night speaks not just to the magnitude of concern but the type. Phillies fans might be feeling like they’ve seen this before, and that should be scary.
Contact Matthew De George at mdegeorge@delcotimes.com.
Source: Berkshire mont