The hope would be that things would be different for the Phillies in the regular season this year. There was hype last season. But man did they come out of the gate slow. So slow, that Joe Girardi lost his job. Once Rob Thomson took over, things started to change. They scuffled at the end of the regular season a bit, but managed to end the decade-long playoff drought. Once they got there, they really took off. They upset the Cardinals. Followed that up by upsetting the 100-win Braves. And then continued that by beating the Padres to get to the World Series.
You would think that would carry over into this season. They even had what on paper was a great offseason. They signed the biggest Free Agent on the market, Trea Turner. Added some powerful arms in the bullpen. Got Taijuan Walker in. Expectations were even higher than they were going into last season.
But they have started slow again. They have hovered around .500 all season. And every time it feels like they are taking off, they go on an extended losing streak to fall back under .500 and down into 4th place in the NL East.
More concerning, there are some troubling trends in these losses that make you wonder if they really are as good as we think. Memorial Day is coming up, and they are still struggling. It is of course still early. And the Phillies were under .500 going into June last season, then ended up in the World Series. But is that really the road they want to go down again? Settling for one of the final two wild card spots, then having to claw through the post-season on the road? The Phillies need to pull it together. The faster the better.
Here are the 7 most concerning Phillies trends this season so far:
Aaron Nola's Inconsistency
The Phillies have an Aaron Nola problem. It has been a problem for a while now. At times, he looks like an Ace. He gave up 2 earned runs or less in two of his last 4 games. But also 4 earned runs in two of his last 4 starts. He is hard to trust. You would think in a contract year he’d be giving you his best stuff. But at least so far, he is struggling. His ERA is at 4.31. The Phillies are at .500 in games he pitches. And in some of those they gave him a lead, he just blew it.
The Phillies World Series hopes hang on him being a true number 2 pitcher. Sometimes he is that. But will he be when they need him to be? How comfortable will you be if they make the World Series and he is on the mound for a decisive game 6 or 7? It’s been an issue for a while. And while he may eventually settle in and be great the rest of the season, it is going to be hard to trust him in big moments given his history.
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Using the Bullpen Way Too Much
Aaron Nola has done a much better job of late of getting through 6 innings, even when he gives up runs. The same goes for Zack Wheeler. But outside of them, the Phillie starters are struggling to go deep into games. Meaning the bullpen is getting a lot of use. They are relying on some of these top guys way too often. And for the most part, the bullpen is doing well. The ERA is a bit inflated because of some blowup games. But when the bullpen is given a lead, they usually keep it. They have just 6 losses, which is tied for the 4th least in the MLB.
But if they keep getting taxed, their best arms may be tired by the time the games start to matter. We saw it a bit in the World Series. And you don’t want that to happen again.
Ranger just got back from injury and will take a while to get his arm strength up. And we will get to what is going on with Taijuan Walker and whoever their 5th starter is. Beyond just giving the Phillies bad starts they have to dig out of, that could be creating issues down the road for the Phillies bullpen.
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Don't Have a 5th Starter
Going into the season, the Phillies rotation looked great. Now they may not have a 5th starter. Bailey Falter has been unplayable. They have lost 7 of the 8 games he pitched, and his ERA is in the 5s. That isn’t counting all the unearned runs he gave up his last time out vs the Giants. He was bad enough they had to send him down. The problem is they don’t have a 5th starter on hand to replace him. There are no clear options in the minors, and there are no trade options right now.
The hope was that Andrew Painter would be the 5th starter. But we have not heard a word about him since he went down with an injury after his one start in Spring Training. Maybe we see him eventually. But it’s not something they can rely on. Their best option might be to put Matt Staham back into the rotation. He did well there. But they are relying on him out of the pen too. So you would just be fixing one problem by creating another one somewhere else.
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Awful Fielding
This is one that will not fix itself. They will just have to overcome the fact that their fielding is going to be bad. Trea Turner makes it a bit better. Maybe Harper at first eventually might improve that too. The issue is the outfield. Castellanos and Schwarber are bad out there. Real bad. Marsh has great range but is prone to dumb mistakes. Ideally, Schwarber/Castellanos will be able to DH a lot more once Harper gets into the field. But they don’t exactly have a great option off the bench either. Maybe once Christian Pache is healthy that is the way to go. But no matter what they do they are going to have issues in the field.
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