Entering the season, the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies were expected to be two of the best teams in Major League Baseball. The FanGraphs projections had the Mets winning the second-most games and the Phillies winning the sixth-most games. It certainly hasn’t looked that way a month into the season.
New York’s embarrassing play in the early going has been well-documented, highlighted (or, lowlighted) by a 12-game losing streak that was quickly followed by getting swept in a three-game series (that included a Sunday doubleheader) by the Colorado Rockies, a team that went 43-119 last season.
Philadelphia’s horrible start to the season has flown a bit under the national radar, but the Phillies are tied with the Mets for the worst record in MLB at 9-19. The Phillies’ run differential is easily the worst in MLB at -54.
On Sunday, the Phillies lost 6-2 to the Braves, who already have an enormous 10.5-game lead over Philadelphia and the Mets in the NL East. It’s the Phillies’ 11th loss over their last 12 games.
After Sunday’s loss, NBC Sports Philadelphia analyst Ricky Bottalico was very honest about Philadelphia’s poor play on Phillies Postgame Live.
“The hitting is atrocious. The starting pitching is worse. And the bullpen is just all over the place,” Bottalico said to postgame host Michael Barkann. “You want me to come on here and be positive and tell you everything’s gonna be fine?”
“Michael, it’s okay,” Bottalico, a former All-Star closer for the Phillies, added jokingly. “Things are going to be alright.”
“Thank you,” Barkann said. “I knew you’d come up with something positive, Ricky Bo.”
“I’m not buying it,” Bottalico continued. “I’m sorry; I can’t buy into that. I mean, there’s gotta be a fear of what’s gonna happen tomorrow, what’s gonna happen the next day. You don’t know who’s going to be here or who’s not.”
“Well, they will not lose tomorrow. I will guarantee it. Off day tomorrow,” Barkann joked.
The Phillies, managed by Rob Thomson, have been awful across the board. The offense ranks near the bottom in every meaningful statistic, and the pitching staff has a third-worst 5.13 ERA (a defense that ranks last in defensive runs saved hasn’t helped there).
Now, the reasons for hope are that the Phillies have three stars on offense in Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, and Kyle Schwarber, a starting rotation that includes stars Cristopher Sanchez and Zack Wheeler (who just returned over the weekend from injury to make his season debut), and a bullpen that has star closer Jhoan Duran (though he’s on the injured list with an oblique injury). The Phillies have won at least 90 games in three consecutive seasons, and the year before that, they reached the World Series as an 87-win team.
So, the Phillies have experienced a whole lot of recent success over the last few years, and they’re 28 games into a 162-game season. But banking 19 losses over 28 games is pretty meaningful, and while the star power is there, the drop-off has been substantial with the rest of the roster. In order for the Phillies to turn this around, the stars will need to perform like stars all season, and the complementary players will have to provide a bigger impact.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.