Much has been made about the black hole that is the Phillies center field spot. And rightfully so. Odubel Herrera couldn’t win the job in spring training. Adam Haseley disappeared. And Roman Quinn has been an automatic out this season. The most recent man to get a crack at the job is former #1 overall pick Mickey Moniak. Its WAYYYYY too early to judge Moniak but hes yet to get a hit, and is being coddled by Joe Girardi who is sitting him against lefties.
But lets be clear; while the Phillies center field spot has been a dumpster fire, the Phillies offense, as a whole, needs to be better. Fans want to point at the center field spot for the reason why the Phillies offense has struggled out the gate but the Phillies offense should be good enough to suffer through the growing pains of a make shift spot in the order.
Despite a lineup that costs over $90 million dollars (With Harper, Realmuto, Hoskins, Gregorius, Segura, and McCutchen making $89.8 million) they have hit the 26th most home runs in baseball so far this season. They have struck out the 9th most in baseball. They have scored the 23rd most runs in baseball. This isnt all because of the dynamic duo of Quinn, Haseley, and Moniak.
The Phillies have a bigger issue. How to get the bats going. No fan should have to sweat out a complete game performance from their ace (Aaron Nola) because the offense can only muster up two runs against a bad Cardinals rotation. No Phillies fan should watch their offense make David Peterson look like a Cy Young candidate….yet it happened.
While I am not concerned that this awful trend will continue, I am concerned that losing valuable games in April will cost you a chance at October. The Phillies have been aided by their pitching (mainly Nola, Wheeler, and Efflin) and a revamped bullpen. But this offense needs to wake up, and fast. They are getting virtually nothing from both left field (Andrew McCutchen) and center. Alec Bohm has continued to string together great at-bats…but hes still hitting .222. Rhys Hoskins has cooled off. Maybe it has something to do with him getting taken out of games for the power bats of Brad Miller and Andrew Knapp. And how long can we seriously expect Jean Segura to continue to hit over .350? Not saying he cant hit over .300, but I highly doubt hes still hitting .350 (and shout out to Segura!)
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