The stat that defines 2023 Phillies to this point
It’s not just that they aren’t producing with runners in scoring position.
The Phillies have also been unable to stop their opponents from producing in clutch spots through the season’s first seven weeks.
If there is a stat that defines the Phillies’ 20-23 start and streaky nature it’s the slash lines of their hitters and pitchers with runners in scoring position.
Offensively, the Phils have hit .232/.318/.324 in those spots.
Their pitchers have allowed a .294/.360/.463 line with RISP.
And the league average is .254/.335/.412.
The drastic gap in execution hasn’t been more prominent than it was this week in San Francisco when the Phillies were swept by a Giants team that entered six games under .500.
The Phils went 2-for-25 with runners in scoring position in the series and left 27 men on base.
The Giants went 12-for-30 with RISP, hitting .400.
The only pitching staffs that have allowed a higher batting average with runners in scoring position than the Phillies are the Royals and Athletics, who own the two worst records in baseball.
The only offenses with a lower OPS with runners in scoring position than the Phillies are the Padres (whose own season has been all about historically poor clutch hitting to this point) and Tigers.
These things fluctuate. The 2022 Phillies hit .270 with runners in scoring position, tied for second-best in the majors with the Astros, behind only the Dodgers. Many of the same hitters returned and they didn’t simply forget how to make solid contact with men 90 or 180 feet away.
Beyond the things that are unquantifiable like pressure felt during big moments, the most blatant reason for the Phillies’ struggles offensively with runners in scoring position has been their consistent extending of the strike zone.
The Phillies have swung at 34.6% of pitches outside the strike zone, the highest rate in the National League. Part of that is just their offensive DNA. Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto and Alec Bohm are aggressive hitters. Realmuto and Bohm make a ton of contact, often putting the ball in play before working a count deep enough to walk. Realmuto and Bohm are probably never going to walk a ton.
The Phillies’ two biggest free-agent signings this past offseason, Turner and Taijuan Walker, need to do more. That’s no secret and they’d be the first to admit it. They’re far from alone, they just stick out because of the humongous recent investments the Phillies made in them and the disappointing starts to their tenures.
Turner is chasing pitches at a career-worst rate — 41% this season compared to 31% for his career — and is also making the softest contact of his career. He’s hit .206 on four-seam fastballs compared to .323 a year ago.
Walker has been a bottom-five starting pitcher in baseball this season in ERA. The velocity is there but the command has been poor and hitters don’t fear any of his offerings other than the splitter. When he can’t command it or get ahead in counts frequently enough, the nastiness of that pitch is nullified like it was Wednesday when he couldn’t escape the first inning against the Giants.
The 2023 Phillies are not a finished product. Some hitters will improve. Others will come back to earth, as has happened this month with Brandon Marsh and Edmundo Sosa. Turner is a .300 career hitter — reaching .300 this season would mean hitting .311 the rest of the way, which he’s more than capable of doing if he can lay off the borderline pitches just off the plate outside or high out of the zone and trust umpires not to call them for strikes. That is part of it — a lot of borderline pitches against Turner have not gone in his favor and it has helped perpetuate his cycle of falling behind, extending the zone and walking back to the dugout slowly, shaking his head.
Memorial Day is traditionally viewed as the first checkpoint within the regular season. It’s 11 days away. It’s a crucial period for the Phillies because they’ve played just one series against their own division but have a 10-game NL East road trip to Atlanta, New York and Washington from May 25 through June 4.
They’d better hope this is rock bottom from a clutch perspective on both sides of the ball.
