The Philadelphia Phillies completed their California road trip with a 4-2 record; however, after another disappointing offensive performance, the team is still searching for answers.
In the Phillies’ 9-1 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday, the team’s lone run of the afternoon came on a ninth-inning solo home run from second baseman Bryson Stott. One of just five hits on the day.
Offensive struggles have been the story of the Phillies season so far; the team ranks near the bottom in almost every offensive category. They rank 29th in batting average (.224), last in on-base percentage (.292), and 28th in OPS (.673). Still, Phillies manager Don Mattingly believes the offense can turn it around.
Getting on the Right Track
Pitching has carried the Phillies, especially over the last month, where the team went 18-10 in May.
Cristopher Sánchez did not allow a run in any start, and Zack Wheeler and Jesús Luzardo carried ERA’s under 2.00 for the majority of the month. Phillies manager Don Mattingly knows that the team needs more synergy between the pitching and the bats.
NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Cole Weintraub wrote about Mattingly’s comments on the offense following the Dodgers game.
“But I think the runs have been a little bit of a theme. We pitched really well. We haven’t really gotten on track offensively.”
Mattingly also believes they aren’t capitalizing on runners in scoring position and getting into teams’ bullpens earlier.
“The story for me was they got two-out hits with guys in scoring position,” Mattingly said. “We weren’t able to do it. We pushed his pitch count. We could have gotten four innings of bullpen. We get a couple of hits in there; we just weren’t able to capitalize and get ourselves back in the game.”
However, despite little evidence in on field results to back up his confidence, Mattingly believes the offense will turn itself around.
“We feel like that’s going to break out at some point,” Mattingly said. “But just saying it and hoping for it, I think we’ve got to keep looking into what’s going on with each guy and keep getting better.”
While the future of the offense looks bleak, there are glimmers of hope that can be gleaned.
Bad Luck
When most players and teams excuse poor performance as just bad luck, it’s easy to elicit eye rolls; however, while not the full story, the Phillies do have a solid case to justify their bad luck.
MLB.com’s Paul Casella wrote about shortstop Trea Turner’s comments on the Phillies’ hitters running into bad luck, despite hitting the ball hard.
“You can look at all sorts of numbers and stats,” Turner said, “and I think that’s what’s frustrating is, I feel like some guys are taking good swings, hitting the ball hard and just not finding holes.”
The stats Turner is referring to are the Phillies’ ranking near the top of MLB in hard-hit percentage, despite being in the basement in most offensive categories.
“Well, despite ranking near the bottom of the Majors in all of those result-based categories, the Phillies actually rank out pretty well when it comes to some of their hitting metrics,” Casella wrote. “They entered Sunday tied for third in MLB in hard-hit percentage and tied for sixth in average exit velocity.”
The Dodgers have the same hard-hit percentage as the Phillies, yet they lead MLB in batting average (.263) and OPS (.792).
On the surface, the offensive struggles appear to be a feature more than a bug, but for the Phillies’ sake, they hope their hard-hit percentage is proof that the offense on the field right now isn’t a proper representation of who they really are.
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