3 Phillies Silver Linings After A Shaky Start

So far, The Phillies season has not gone the way anyone wanted it to. The ugly loss to the Giants on Monday followed a ugly 2-4 road trip. The bullpen has been shaky. Zack Wheeler has surprisingly been shaky. The back half of your lineup gives you nothing on a nightly basis. Once again, the Phillies have struggled to drive in runners in scoring position.

I am not here to make you feel better about Alec Bohm doing nothing at the plate. I am not here to make you feel better about both of your Centerfielders not looking like Major League players. Nor am I here to say the pitchers struggling in the bullpen like Jose Ruiz, Tanner Banks, Joe Ross, etc, will suddenly pitch well.

There are bad things with the Phillies that may not fix themselves. But there are also some things we can hang our hat on. As bad as the past week and change have been, there are also positive signs. So let's take a break from the fair criticism of some of those problem areas, and focus on a few positives.

After his debut season here where Castellanos was flat-out bad, he has not exactly been a fan favorite. Even if he bounced back with two solid seasons, and played well in the last two playoff runs. First impressions are hard to change.

Even while he played well the last two years, his game had a glaring hole. He chased way too many bad pitches. Seeing him reach for balls way out of the zone became a regular occurrence.

He is never going to be a patient hitter. Castellanos will never lead the Phillies in walks. But that said, he has made big strides. His chase rate this year is 31.5%. It is not great, but compared to where he was even last year (37.8), which was also a small step up from 2022 (39.6) and 2023 (41%), it is a marked improvement.

He still goes fishing occasionally. But he is seeing more pitches. He lays off the outside pitch enough that he gets more pitches to hit, and it is why that even with the lineup struggling, he has actually gotten off to a hot start (.310/.365/.552/.917 with 3 HRs and 11 RBIs).

In fact, the team as a whole has chased less. The Phillies Chase Rate of 26.6% is 8th in the league. It was the 5th worst in the league last season (30.3%).

Trea Turner has not been a good SS in his time here. He has great range, and we have seen him make Gold Glove caliber plays, but the routine stuff was sloppy. Butchered ground balls, errant throws. His Outs About Average (OAA) with the Phillies was -9. In 2023 it was -6. In 2023 he led all Shortstops with 27 errors. In 2024 he was 10th with 17.

But in the small sample size this season, he has been perfect. 0 errors in 50 chances. 9 turned Double Plays, and a OAA of +2 (tied for 6th).

The mental mistakes have not been there, yet. Turner is playing a solid SS. He might not win a Gold Glove, but his glove is no longer a problem.

2024 was a shaky year for Alvarado. Around mid-season, he lost his form, and never quite got it back. The old Alvarado who struggled to find the zone was back. As good as his stuff is, if you can't locate your pitches you are not going to have success.

But early results in 2025 are great. His walk rate is down from 10.9 to 6.7. It puts him on track to walk 10 fewer batters than last season if he pitches the same amount of innings. His WHIP is down from 1.25 to 1.09. The Fastball Velo is up from 97.8 to 99.9.

The amount the Phillies rely on him right now is concerning. But the results for him have been great. He has allowed just 1 run so far. That was in a 3-0 game, and he finished the inning to get the save. Outside of that one shaky outing Alvarado has 6.1 innings of scoreless ball and allowed only 4 baserunners. He is 3 for 3 in save situations.

Wherever they use him, Alvarado is a guy fans should trust right now. his stuff is back to 2022 levels.