Phillies Have No Excuse After Watching Dodgers Crush The Mets
The Phillies’ offense struggled to put up runs on the Mets pitching. They scored just 12 combined runs in 4 games. 7 came in 1 game, with just 5 runs over the other 3 games. You might come away from that thinking the Mets pitching is pretty good. But before you draw that conclusion, go see what the Dodgers have done.
The Dodgers have played 4 games vs the Mets, just like the Phillies did. The difference is that the Dodgers have put up 30 runs in 4 games, compared to the Phillies, who put up 12. Take any 2 games from the NLCS, and the Dodgers scored at least 11 runs. Nearly more in any two-game span than the Phillies had their entire series.
The Mets lineup has also scored just 5 runs in these 4 games. Meanwhile, they put up 24 against the Phillies. We talked about how hot the Mets were, but when they ran into an actually good team, they crumbled. It is looking like the Mets were never that good, the Phillies just choked.
Phillies Have No Excuse
Coming into the Phillies series, the Mets bullpen was taxed, they were coming off a crazy travel schedule, and their rotation was all out of sorts after playing a doubleheader earlier in the week followed by 3 Wild Card games. The Phillies had every advantage. Against the Dodgers, meanwhile, they had multiple days off, could set up their rotation as they pleased, and had spent the last 5 days at home. Yet it is the Dodgers who made them look like pretenders and the Phillies who fell on their faces.
The Phillies didn’t just run into a hot team. Don’t give them that excuse. Clearly, the Dodgers were able to handle the Mets. The Dodgers also weren’t impacted by the Bye Week. Neither were the Yankees or the Guardians. Those 3 teams all advanced, and it looks like they didn’t miss a beat with that off week.
The Phillies simply failed. They choked, and not for the 1st time. In 2022, The Astros were the better team. The Phillies had a great run and ran into a buzzsaw. But the DBacks were not the better team than them, and neither were the Mets. Those were 2 average teams, that were able to expose the Phillies’ flaws, before being exposed themselves in the next round.
If you have watched any of the NLCS you might have even heard the broadcasters talking about it. They literally said that they arn’t getting the Dodgers to chase the pitches they got the Phillies to swing at. It turns out that if you just take balls, eventually, they will have to throw you strikes. The Dodgers have gotten pitches to hit because they don’t swing at garbage. The Phillies, with a few exceptions, never did that.
Phillies Need A Change
We have seen them lose in the same way 2 years in a row now. There are too many guys with the same flaw in this lineup. It is not about swinging for the fences per se, but they need guys who won’t go fishing for breaking balls at their shins.
Shohei Ohtani swings for the fences, his whiff rate and K rate are both below average. But he also doesn’t swing at terrible pitches. Mookie Betts has a lot of power, but despite swinging hard, he doesn’t strike out much and is actually in an elite class when it comes to making contact. You can be a power hitter, and not swing like some of the Phillies hitters do.
You aren’t going to just find players like those 2. Shohei is the best player in the league, and Mookie Betts is probably top 5. But you can find someone who while they have pop, won’t approach at-bats like the Phillies currently do. They desperately need a different kind of hitter. Somethin Jayson Stark talked about when he joined The Best Show ever earlier this week.
“They need somebody in that lineup who will make contact in a big spot and understand that’s enough. Too many big swings in that lineup where only contact was needed. You watch the Mets play and you see how they take what the defense gives them in big moments in the postseason. Who’s the Phillie who does that? I’m sure that they will be shopping for that kind of guy.”
If there were any excuses to be bad for the Phillies, the Dodgers ruined all of them. This Mets team isn’t special, they just took advantage of the Phillies’ glaring weakness. The same way the Diamondbacks did. If that doesn’t change, why should anyone expect different results?
That is not on the Manager, or even the hitting coach, it is on these players. They either need their players to change, or they need to shake things up with some new faces.
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