Phillies August dominance: Is this a World Series run? | Hittin' Season

From WHYY, it is hitting season. Hey there, podcast pals. I'm John Stolnas from The Good Fight. You can follow me on X and Blue Sky at John Stolnas. Coming up, the Phillies are absolutely red hot. Major League Baseball's best team in the month of August. Coming off yet another three-game sweep, this time of the Angels out in LA. Now, we're going to break down what happened over the course of the weekend. Lots of heroes to go around. Kind of some frustrating games out west, but the Phillies managed to pull them out, and a nice pitching performance, really, across the board in this three-game series. So, lots to get to, and as we're talking right now, the Phillies are in Arizona taking on the Diamondbacks in a series that has really big playoff implications, especially for the wild card as we speak. Bryson Stott demolished a home run to right field in the second inning that went something like 765 feet. It was a tank shot, and so we'll be keeping an eye on that game as we roll along, but joining me here on this edition of the Roundtable, I have got Justin Kluwe from Baseball Perspectives. Justin also hosts a couple of our podcasts over at the Hittin' Season Patreon, Absolutely Hammered, and The Dirty Inning. He's also author of the book Summer of the Cheap Wieners, and he's going to help break us all down. Justin, how you feeling, buddy? I always look forward to West Coast baseball, staying up late, and then to that last stretch of the season, you're just like, oh man, I think we recorded a new Absolutely Hammered over at the Hittin' Season Patreon. I know we planned to do it, but who knows? At this point, it's all a very late-night blur, and yeah, I'm just grateful that the Mariners series wasn't indicative of how this entire road trip was going to go, because staying up this late for regular season baseball is already pretty taxing. When the Phillies don't even win, well, then you just feel foolish waking up the next morning. So I've been grateful in this Angels series, among other things, that they got very much back on track and made you feel good about staying up to watch. Yeah, Phillies West Coast games are a recipe for regret. I mean, it just is. Because you're staying up way later than you should, you know you're not getting the sleep that you need. At least you want to be rewarded for that sacrifice, and when you're not, when they lose, especially if they lose in heartbreaking fashion, which we haven't really seen on this road trip at all, obviously, you really do feel like you've made a terrible life decision. But the Phillies, first in Seattle, they got off to a little bit of a rough start on this West Coast road trip, but then the Angels came in, one of the worst teams in baseball, and it was the elixir the Phillies have needed. And so they enter Arizona with a 20-7 record here in the month of August, as they are playing on the final day of August. The Phillies have won 13 of their last 15. Remember, they rolled into Seattle with a nine-game winning streak, lost two, and now have won four in a row. They entered the series against Arizona, tied with the Chicago Cubs for the top wildcard spot. That has been a climb. They were way behind the Cubs at the start of this winning streak, and now the Cubs haven't been playing terrible baseball, but the Phillies have caught them in the wildcard race. The Cubs have a tie breaker, but we don't really care about that yet. Just it's amazing they have the same record as Chicago. Chicago is spanking Milwaukee as we record right now, so the Phillies will need to win probably to keep pace. But the Braves lost on Monday night to the San Francisco Giants, so a win against the Diamondbacks moves them to within four games of the National Leagues. Regardless, this is the first month the Phillies have had four sweeps of three or more games in 35 years, going back to 1991, and that was in a span of six series. The good fight stats guru Schmeichman noted that the last time the Phillies had four sweeps of three or more in a span of five series, like they just did, was 49 years ago in August of 1977. What is it about August? Something about August. This team gets hot in August, and the only other time they... Go ahead. I just wrote about August playing baseball in August. All of it culminating in the story of a broadcaster having an insect fly down his throat while he is trying to broadcast a game in the month of August. It's just a rough month to play, but not for the Phillies. And one of the points I bring up is that you gotta wonder about a team that thrives in August when everything's just kind of like wet and gross and dead, but here the Phillies are, defying all of that. And hey, I'll take it. They're like a mold spore. They just, they blossom in these conditions. It's just, I don't know that that's the... I don't know that's the comparison they really want, but I mean... It's a mold spore, if not life finding a way, Jon. Fine, that's right. That's right. Persevering. That's right. That's right. In the walls of your house. I think that's inspiring. Listen, mold is hard to kill, right? It's expensive to get rid of it. You gotta bring a whole team. They gotta wear suits. I mean, they're a tough opponent. They're a gritty opponent. That's what mold is. It is. A lot of people will tell you that. Yeah, it is. And so that's, I think, an apt comparison to your Philadelphia Phillies right now. As we look back on this Angels series, the mold came to the forefront out in Anaheim. Let's talk about... Yeah, I'm sorry, guys. We'll move backwards through the series, because obviously the most fascinating game was on Friday night. So of course, let's save that for last. We'll work backwards and we'll talk about the game on Sunday. You had Zach Wheeler with a nice bounce back performance from him. He still doesn't look exactly right. He was struggling at times with this Angels lineup, especially in the first inning. And really in the last inning, it looked like he was about ready to give away the store. But at the end of the day, you got six innings from Zach Wheeler, one of his best starts in quite a while. Four hits, one run allowed. He did walk three batters, struck out six. It was the first time he'd finished six innings in a start since July 21st. And maybe the most encouraging moment of this game, Justin, was his last out in that sixth inning. They were really trying to get him through that inning. I think they wanted to see what he was going to do in that situation, because we've seen it in some of his previous starts that he's kind of leaked oil when you can tell like he was running out of gas. And it looked like he was doing that again in the sixth inning in this game. But he managed it with runners on first and second, two guys that he walked with two outs. He managed to strike out of Jose Siri to get out of that inning. Game was still tied 1-1. And that to me was the that was the key moment, because in the next inning you have Mundo Sosa rewarding Zach Wheeler with another huge home run. We'll get to the other home run he hit in this series in just a couple of minutes, but hits the go-ahead home run in the very next half inning in the Phillies. Just added on from there in the later innings. But I'm still not ready to say like Zach Wheeler looks great, but it was certainly an improvement, albeit against an offense that's not terrific in the Angels. But a good outing from Zach Wheeler. Nonetheless, I think helping everybody to exhale just a little bit. Yeah, and you know, everybody would have gotten a lot from a totally dominant Zach Wheeler shutout performance. But I think that that one that one worked for the time being. You know, that felt like a back getting back on track Zach Wheeler start, which is kind of funny because there's two starts in this series that featured pitchers who are going to be scrutinized. Andrew Painter because of how well he's been pitching and Zach Wheeler because of how much he's been struggling lately and both of those games started with what looked like. Oh, this is a disaster. Okay. Yeah, this is going to be a huge disaster. Wheeler started that game allowing a walk hitting a batter and then a hit. He had a bases loaded no out situation. It looked like things were going to get very messy very quickly and the you know, Zach Wheeler bounce back game that we were kind of hoping for against a team like the Angels just wasn't going to happen. And every time it's a lousier and lousier opponent that's able to do that to him. You think okay, just how far are we going to sink here? But fortunately he gets that double play in the first inning and then gets the strikeout. He needs to get out of it. And then from there on he's he's pretty, you know, calm cool and collected winds up allowing four hits just the one earned run three walks one in the first inning and then two in his last inning. So like those middle couple of innings the issues with command and control and everything, you know, still not totally eliminated from his game still breaking stuff was working a little better and command looked a little better. He's obviously been having a bad time but looking at that stat column where he kind of limited his walks between the first and last inning of his performance. That's that's exactly what you want to see. And then yeah, it comes down to that big strikeout of Jose Siri in the sixth. That was that was so so clutch, but both Wheeler and painter and Sanchez in game two really also got to benefit from honestly, you know, they made made a bunch of mistakes this weekend, but defensively there was some huge huge highlight real plays Bryson stop made two different plays at third base that were just excellent defensive stops and Derek Hill in game. Oh man, amazing Superman diving catch and center that really saved Wheeler's bacon in that particular moment too. So yeah, I generally encouraged by what I saw from from Wheeler obviously like you said not all the way back but encouraged by what you saw and pleased that he was able to lean on his defense a couple of times and that the offense was able to you know, cough up a couple of runs for him. I said ahead of the series that I think there were three big tests that the Phillies had again against again a bad team in the Angels, but I think there were three things going into this series that I was really interested in seeing how it was going to shake out. One of them of course was Zach Wheeler because he had had so many different so many starts as of late where he was not at all good and just didn't look like himself and I wasn't because he says he's not injured. The team doesn't think he's injured because the fastball velocity is still there. It's clearly something mechanical going on with him and they said they were looking into his biomechanics and reading a couple of articles about it. They thought maybe he was leaning too far forward and that was throwing some things off when he was at his set position and all different kinds of things that they can look at and see you know this could be throwing some things off. It was clear that to me there's something mechanical going on that's why his command was all over the place and so I feel good about Zach Wheeler figuring that out but you just you know when's that going to happen? How long is it going to take? Is it going to get fixed before the playoffs roll around? I don't know that we can say that it's fixed but I thought that was one of the big tests that was facing the Phillies was can Zach Wheeler get back on track? I think at the very least we can say that for this start yes I think I think the if the train had had come off the tracks a little bit derailed a little bit I think they've at least gotten the train back on the tracks now they're going to try and work on getting it moving getting it you know getting it moving in the right direction again and hopefully getting it back up to speed to the point it was before but it was an encouraging performance from him on Saturday I'm sorry on Sunday and Edmundo so well yeah go ahead trouble is a is a big deal but like to your point that first inning you know ball bounces another way we're talking yeah three or four runs coming in so like you know he did wind up in that situation and then like we said in the sixth got into a bit of trouble again but yeah last six seven starts from Zach Wheeler he doesn't necessarily get those strikeouts that ended both innings so you did see something and like I said the command was definitely improved from his last couple disasters so I think everybody can feel good about that one and just you know wait and hope to see more improvements the next time out and we do have to talk a little bit about Edmundo Sosa he in his last five games Edmundo Sosa is 8 for 19 with 3 doubles and 10 RBIs it has been a struggle for him this year Justin but every now and then it seems that there's a point in every season where Edmundo Sosa just gets unbelievably ridiculously hot and I'm not kidding you when I say he carries the team at stretches like I mean it's just where he I hope they resign him this offseason I don't know where they'd be without him he is just the best utility infielder in baseball because he can do some of the stuff he did in this series and especially on on Sunday I gotta say the Edmundo Sosa hot streak I've actually brought up a couple times specifically something we've been missing this year that he hasn't had much of a presence there hasn't been that like that news cycle where Edmundo Sosa just dominated and was the Phillies he had 158 in 12 games in July it was not his best month ever and he had a pretty lousy May too you could say that quite easily he has not been on fire in the way that we know he can catch fire and I don't think he usually waits this late into the season to have it I feel like usually that's a first half phenomenon is watching Edmundo Sosa go off somebody's like hurt or whatever and he's just getting more playing time and he goes nuts and then he gets overexposed and in August he's hitting 423 in 10 games so I think it's here I think the Edmundo Sosa oh yeah it's here and you're just living in the middle of it now and now you get to just reap the benefits because when he hit that home run you know I've said before you can't always be as sure when when Sosa reacts after a home run that he nailed it even if he thinks he did because he is one of the ones that is you know not always 100% right about that but boy he looks pretty sure of himself when he uh when he made that contact to give the Phillies the lead in game three against the Angels and boy that one went a long way and yeah when you're when you're playing when you're getting Edmundo Sosa like this all you got to do is let him do that and he'll take care of the rest so yeah that's oh that's an important part of how this offense works and seeing it this late in the season is you know gratifying I think yeah yeah well I mean it's it's great to get contributions from someone else I mean we it's that's what good teams do they get contributions from up and down the lineup up and down the roster everybody participating I mean we've seen Brian de la Cruz have big moments we've certainly seen guys like Derek Hill have big moments and this series was Edmundo Sosa's turn to do that and nice work by the Phillies bullpen really throughout this series the bullpen maybe starting to come together a little bit I mean Kirkering is still a little shaky Alvarado is still a little shaky but I think what you like what you see in Alex McFarland who's come in in a couple of these games and looked utterly dominant and none of us could understand why he was in the minors for so long this year his stuff is the best outside of Duran it's the best in the bullpen and Jonathan Boland had some had some big moments in this series as well especially the game on Friday when Johan Duran was unavailable because of a stomach virus he had a couple of big moments so in this in the series in the game on Sunday to kind of close it out as the Phillies added a few runs the bullpen did a good job shutting it down as well yeah the Phillies bullpen allowed three walks and nine innings over this series the Angels bullpen allowed eight walks and ten innings and over the weekend had an ERA over eight so you got it you also just got to see an example of like all right like look this is this is what a truly awful bullpen looks like and don't get me wrong I've definitely felt that way about the Phillies bullpen so far this year but you're just like okay at least this isn't a bullpen that gets down there and stays down there like you said this was nice to see that they were able to throw up some zeros and kind of connect from the starter to Duran a couple of times like that's that's just you know like Wheeler it's good to see I'm not sure I'm going to trust it yet but good to see from a from a yeah what has definitely been a a vulnerability of this team for the past few weeks if not months as someone who has seen quite a bit of Nationals baseball this year living in the Washington DC area let me tell you I know what a bad bullpen looks like the Phillies bullpen has struggled at times there's a difference between Anaheim's bullpen Washington's bullpen and the Phillies bullpen but it's the difference and you know the playoffs you want a little bit better but you know I think Alex McFarland is going to be quite an addition to this bullpen down the stretch and that's just when they needed him the most let's turn to the game on Saturday night the Phillies won four to two in 10 innings this was the really sloppy affair the Phillies ran into a bunch of outs on on the bases there was one instance where you had Trey Turner thrown out at third and then Bryce Harper tried a straight steal of home in the same inning in the same inning and that was it you almost had it yeah it was close and it would have been an exceedingly cool moment if he'd managed to pull it off and then you had Brandon Marsh in the 10th inning even though the Phillies ended up scoring three runs in that inning he was thrown out at third on a ground ball hit to the shortstop so I don't know that the outs on the bases in the eighth inning were necessarily due to stupidity the one in the 10th Brandon Marsh's in the 10th certainly was and yet the Phillies end up winning this thing four to two thankfully they were pitching they were playing against the the Anaheim Angels Phillies had a one nothing lead heading into the eighth bowl and gave up a solo homer to Nieto I think it was a 12 pitch at bat it was a tremendous at bat get hats off to the to the hitter in that case I mean just a tremendous piece of hitting there but the big story on Saturday Justin was Chris Sanchez notched his 200th strikeout of the season he went seven innings gave up two hits no runs one walk eight strikeouts just 91 pitches 65 for strikes 16 swings and misses he now has 202 strikeouts on the season he's just the 12th pitcher in Phillies history to reach 200 strikeouts multiple times and in August now Christopher Sanchez's ERA is 1.72 with a 115 whip so I think there was a little bit of concern after kind of a bumpy and rocky July that you know something something might have been a little bit off with Christopher Sanchez he has I think quieted those fears uh with a tremendous month of August he's probably not pitcher of the month but he's maybe in the consideration just a great month for him another encouraging development for Sanchez yeah one one area of concern even with his performance was that it really started to seem like runners might have something on Christopher Sanchez the way the Angels were kind of feasting on him once they got on base so yeah that was definitely that was yeah that was definitely something that was uh frustrating him and distracting for him I think earlier in the games but like you said he worked around uh some damage uh you know allowing leadoff hitters on but like really when he struck out that 200th batter he'd actually struck out 198 199 and 200 all in the same inning after a letting eight leadoff batter on so it was great to see his pitch count like stay low for a lot of the beginning of that as well so he was working efficiently and he hadn't pitched in the seventh inning since before the all-star break so again just encouraging developments to see from starting pitchers who are really the the pillar you lean on the most for this team's success you know offense comes and goes bullpen comes and goes and even the rotation we've seen big pieces struggle recently but you really need those three pitchers uh looking like they can they can compete so you can contend that's really what this all comes down to so a really another great start a promising start to see from somebody like Christopher Sanchez for sure I think Jesus Lizardo may have had just a slightly better month uh than Christopher Sanchez here in the month of August but as you're looking at these two pitchers it's pretty clear the Phillies have guys these are two aces uh with the way with the way that they're pitching and you hope Zach Wheeler kind of gets back to that he was looking like that earlier in the season and the stuff is still there um so it's entirely possible he comes around who are you starting in game one of a playoff series right now would you oh you're what come on this is every week I know I know it's just now it just depends on which of these starters are we did I ask this before did I ask this last week we've done this a couple of times and that's all right well we don't have to do it again it keeps changing and the answer I think right now I think is still Lizardo if we're saying like if the question is really who is the most reliable Phillies starting pitcher right now then the answer I think right now is Lizardo we just spent like half an hour talking about how the last two starts from the other two guys were promising re-beginnings to hopefully the next hot streak they're about to go on but like you said it was an up and down July for Sanchez and Wheeler's had some truly bad starts in his last five or six or seven starts so I think yeah Lizardo gets that ball because he's the one that has really been holding the line this whole time I see I was gonna go Christopher Sanchez I think Christopher Sanchez is the game one starter I think he is the established ace I think he's having a you know he had kind of a rocky month there but I mean Lizardo had a rocky month earlier in the season it just is a different time he had it so you know there to be no definitive answer that's the point you want them all to be like valid game one starters it just depends on yeah how's it going right now and we're coming out of a rough patch at the moment for two out of three of those guys at least but like you said Lizardo hasn't been without his ups and downs this year too it's just right now if you needed if you said like we need a stopper I would be like all right Lizardo's not in like a tinkering phase he's not like in a okay I gotta figure out what I'm doing wrong phase he's like no I just gotta keep doing what I'm doing whereas the other two guys feel like they're still trying to you know get back in the groove yeah that's fair I get it and and you know like you said I but I promise I will put a moratorium on this question until we get closer to October we'll just let it play out you know I mean and I think that's the thing with this Phillies team we're going to talk about the Friday night game here coming up in just a second but I think that's the thing with this Phillies team is like I want to I'm historically with this group I've wanted to kind of see look at you know what are we watching right now and what can we project into October and the the thing that I just keep coming back to because last year when they got hot in August and stayed hot in September I felt so good about them going into the postseason with the way that they were playing and and then you know that we all know what happened in the Dodgers series I'm just not I just can't do that anymore I can't project anything anymore like I'm just trying to to live in the moment and enjoy the moment but I do think about things like you know geez if I'm Don Mattingly and I gotta pick a game one starter who am I who am I picking it's a good problem to have I've got two great starters who do I choose from maybe that's why I do it maybe it's my way of just reminding myself this team has some good problems right like this is this is the kind of decision you want your manager to have to wrestle with which one of my two amazing Cy Young caliber pitchers do I start in game one of a playoff series so um I know this I we we all are looking at everything that we see with and thinking about it in in terms of October but I just don't you can't draw any conclusions some grand conclusions about this team in it with anything really um here at the end of August you just you know keep up want them to keep winning that's it just the nature of the playoffs I think everybody's been like what do we def what is definitely going to happen have to tell you that like you just there's no answer to that going into the playoffs there's no answer that you can have like the all three of these guys get back on track and have the best you know the best three starters the best one through three in the history of September Major League Baseball and then like Wheeler comes out to pitch the first game of the playoffs and you know he burps while he's delivering the first pitch and it goes somewhere he didn't mean for it that lands in the seats and suddenly all that's over uh yeah you've seen you've seen this team go into the postseason a million different way all the different variations have been attempted to learn what was the advantage that's exactly right all the x factors that came raining down change to the narrative and you know at this point you're just like yeah get in and win games we gotta keep it simple here you know if you want to if they have a bye week we'll be talking about who who should be the number one starter for like a whole news cycle so you don't have to worry about that'll get sorted out because we've seen this team do it a couple different ways and the trick just seems to be you know win get in and win get in and win yeah maybe that's the t-shirt get in and win because it really you know the magic is the magic formula you got to get high you got to be hot going into the playoffs so the Phillies were hot going into the playoffs last year it didn't matter oh you know if you're you get the bye you know then you can rest and you'll be it didn't matter the Phillies have always have done better playing in the wild card round what you know there's a lot you know at the end of the day just play your best try to play your best baseball going into October and then see if you can if you can keep it going when once you get in there um let's talk about the game on Friday night this was one of the craziest games I think we've seen in quite some time this is one of the games of the year and one of the craziest ninth innings you're ever gonna see the Phillies in that ninth inning had a three-run home run from Bryson Stott ripped away from them when Wade Meckler went over the fence to rob him for the second out of the inning so we put the Angels just one out away from taking the opening game of the series and then Sosa hits the two-out ninth inning grand slam to put the the Phillies ahead five to three in that inning uh just all the swings of emotion in the span of that 10 to 12 minutes where that all went down was just was just unbelievable and then Jonathan Bolin comes in you see you know where's John Duran everybody's asking themselves where's Duran why isn't Duran coming in the game Bolin comes in for the save and allows two base runners but he ends up getting the save in place of John Duran who we would later find out was dealing with uh some kind of sickness and stomach virus or whatever uh but the the Edmundo Sosa home run again if this was uh like a 1993 whatever it takes dude type uh Phillies the yearbook um that would certainly go uh you know it'd be one of the it'd be like a it reminded me kind of like the the Mariano Duncan grand slam on Mother's Day that that's what it reminded me of that quite a bit um it was the Phillies first ninth ninth inning with a grand slam in the ninth inning with two outs since Shane Victorino hit one in 2009 and it was the first pinch hit ninth inning grand slam since Ozzie Virgil in 1983 by the way in an article I wrote for the good fight there's actually a YouTube highlight of that Ozzie Virgil grand slam the game in which that occurred I have that in my good fight article uh regarding Sosa coming into the game uh following that game on Friday he had recorded multiple RBIs in five of his previous seven games um he had an OPS of 1392 with two outs and runners in scoring position and that went up um as the series went on in high leverage situations his OPS is 923 and he has the fourth most wins probability added on the Phillies despite being just a part-time player so um the Sosa grand slam the Phillies fourth go-ahead home run with two outs in the ninth inning this year it's tied for second most by any team in a season since 1901 only the 2022 Giants had more they had five no other team in baseball this year has hit three and the other NLEs teams combined this is a note from Jason Stark have hit two combined go-ahead home runs with two outs in the ninth inning this year so just wacky stuff going on with the Phillies wacky stuff Justin just a wild game yeah I mean eyeball test I would have told you that Wade Meckler was just all over this series felt like he was yeah yeah non-stop he only went three for ten against the Phillies with uh with a couple of singles and a double only knocked in two runs he had that obviously the catch in game one that was devastating you could see Bryson Stott just like trying to understand space and time as he stared out to where he thought he'd hit a three run home run just seconds before Meckler also had a call reversed at first base and wound up getting called safe and coming around to score a run in a game so like he was he was very present yes constantly just talking about Wade Meckler throughout this whole and really I was gonna say maybe this is the catch of the year for all across baseball when he robbed Bryson Stott but I don't know was that Jacob Young who climbed yes like Spider-Man the other day just absolute yes of a catch yeah that was probably still the catch of the year but still yeah Meckler catch was devastating you kind of see that coming together Stott man when he hits him like that I mean not tonight notwithstanding where he hit maybe the longest Phillies home run of the season but like I feel like he hits a lot of very high home runs that just go over the fence when he hits yeah barely and that was one of those and Meckler was able to you know do what he did with that and yeah devastating enough but I don't know I felt like this team still still wasn't totally out of it sounds corny to say but it just was one of those moments where like I remember watching Carlos Ruiz batting with a chance to walk it off I think against the Braves and he hit one and just absolutely crushed it but it went foul and you were like yeah but this feels like I think he's still gonna do it like instead of that being the chance and oh well we blew it it feels like this is still happening and then he did on like the next bit it just felt like that was like heroics were still on the table with this team and entering an Edmundo's or yeah Edmundo Sosa hot zone is definitely gonna you know make that even more possible so that grand slam by the way uh Tom Tom McCarthy noted before I think he hit it that the Phillies had 29 two out ninth inning runs which is south most in baseball this year which is a hell of a statistic and definitely one you want to be able to say you have it's definitely the kind of baseball the Phillies been playing lately and you don't want to have to rely on late inning heroics to right you know be a good baseball team but that they are capable of it is definitely reassuring again as we get closer and closer to the playoffs right the playoff bullpens are a little bit better than the one the angels have but uh certainly uh I think their their their approach helped them in that ninth inning too because they loaded the bases on a hit by pitch in two walks um in that inning some great at bats you did see some of that coming together actually to that point I want to call out Justin Crawford's yeah in game two he had a great long at bat uh in a key spot and wound up by what he hit like a ground ball single I think that just found its way through uh managed to get on base a really like not memorable moment didn't isn't gonna make it on the highlight reels but it's very important and honestly something he's been better and better at doing lately uh so just yeah another great development to see happen he walked in that ninth inning um with another with a great at bat and that was a really tough situation you know he's got a chance to to make an impact swinging the bat and then he let the game come to him he's really been doing that very well over an unsung hero kind of over the last few he not not he's not a hugely impactful offensive player but he's doing enough really good things at the bottom of the lineup to kind of keep things moving and let the guys who are the stars do the damage in front of him uh it's been it's been very good seeing him uh really I think kind of do what he did in the minors last year um which is to you know get get his hits get on base and he's really performing well with runners in scoring position as well here so far in his rookie season feels like he's kind of bought you a couple more Kyle Schwarbrick bats lately yeah spots where he's kept going and then yeah you just go right back up top the order and hello it's yeah it's like you said it's the heavy hitters that's a great point and I think that's exactly right and that's what you need him to do in the number nine spot it's an important spot in the lineup uh for for him there um so I said there were three things that I really wanted to see this Phillies team uh how they responded coming into this Angel series uh the second one was how the offense would perform against the left-hander Reed Detmers on Friday they've got to figure out how to score off of decent left-handed starting pitching because they're going to see that in the playoffs so if I am looking forward a little bit I am still a little perturbed at their inability to score any runs off of a halfway decent left-handed starter it's been it continues to be a struggle for them this year and I'm the reason I was really looking at the Reed Detmers game is because Reed Detmers is a good left-handed starter but it was the first time they were going to face a really good left-handed starter since this new approach at the plate has manifested itself and so I kind of wanted to see how that worked out how those different things would would would take take part would you learn I learned that there's only so much new plate discipline can do um but uh you know they did work some counts and it's just uh you know it is what it is but this seems just not going to be very good hitting left-handed pitching you just hope your pitching does a pretty good job keeping you close until you get to some other guys late and that's kind of the way they've done it um the other thing that I wanted to see was whether or not Andrew Painter's game um against the Cardinals I believe it was right when he went seven innings was that just a one-off or would it be something that he could take into his next game how would he follow that up and you're you mentioned it a few minutes ago at the start of that game on Friday night it did not look good uh he was all over the place he gave up three runs in the first inning two of them on wild pitches and then he really locked in a set pitch five shutout innings was a completely different pitcher when he hit the mound in the second inning and kept the game close and and made it so that the Phillies could win that game late and it was a really over his last five innings it was a dominant final five innings of shutout baseball in all he went six innings and only gave up two hits he did walk three guys again most of that damage was in the first inning but struck out six and again number five starter that's keep number five starter gives you six innings two hits three runs you're gonna take that every single time you're gonna take that from your number four starter and maybe even your number three starter most of the time if he can get this first inning stuff figured out he's gonna be in really good shape since returning to the majors on July 31st his first inning era is 15 he's given up 10 earned runs in six innings after the first inning his era is 1.32 so let's figure something out here Caleb Cotham let's get in the lab and let's see if we can figure out a way for Andrew Painter to have a a smoother glide path into the first inning here and I'm sure they're thinking of trying to think of different ways to do that what does this what what makes a pitcher struggle in this particular way I don't know maybe you know like you're coming in there unless they have like a book on you or they figured something out they I don't know is he a candidate for an opener that doesn't seem no because he's got it no matter what inning he pitches it's going to be his first inning like I've never understood I've never understood that strategy I've heard people say that like he struggles in the first inning it's not just because it's an inning that starts with the number one it's his first inning this person has trouble getting started doesn't matter if it's in the first inning or you bring him in in the second or the third that's always been so stupid to me when people say that yeah is it like oh he didn't have to face the top three in the batting order that first time so he has a bonus his bonus yes I don't know like like you said this does it feels more just like hey man maybe just figure out how to pitch in that one inning that you can't pitch in and then all the rest are totally fine like just figure that one out then you can you can do that I bet you can do that I bet Caleb Cotham and this highly touted pitching lab that runs the Phillies department can figure that out right I feel confident about that because yeah so these numbers are these are too good quite frankly like I said and like you just said that was a first inning disaster that seemed like it was setting up a you know potentially rough series like that's the first inning of the first game of this three game set you're like already all right well this is trending downward he retired 15 straight batters that is the most hitters he has ever retired in a row he did not allow base runners between like the first and sixth innings I think uh just because that damage in the first or damage in the first yeah and then the trouble he got in a little bit later but uh yeah to put it another way like you said 15 era 20 earned runs allowed in the first inning but after that just looked like a great young pitcher like the bounce back continued where you'd see him run into trouble but then he gives you a couple shutout innings in a row and like you said it all balances out for a fifth starter I mean he has that disaster three run inning in like the sixth and then comes out it's almost kind of a bummer that you're like ah he couldn't end on the no he couldn't get that sixth inning he couldn't he has that in the first inning and they're like yeah I mean he's out there to pitch these innings so leave him out there gives him time to recover he bounces back suddenly you're looking at the most consecutive batters he's retired in a row as a major leaguer and you know we're good like you said offense wasn't much help they were putting together some really quick innings full of very quick outs against three Detmers in game one but I just want to point out that that that weird when they hit that switch and started playing small ball for some reason in the fourth inning it was working like they were actually pulling off the bunting everything and the only reason that all got shut down was Luisa Rice's comebacker that like bounced off Detmers and Zach Nadeau caught it out of the air and that was such like a weird freak play that you're like yeah I mean he makes a little different contact it has a slightly different angle than we're talking about an offensive rally keyed by the Phillies playing small ball so I just wanted to point out that even that was effective even though ultimately it you know that did nothing resulted from it yeah I think that's I think that's good I think that's fair and uh you know I I look for the up I'm looking forward to opportunities for this team to try and get some confidence against left-handed starters I'm sure um after this series against the Diamondbacks the Phillies look at the Braves my guess is they'll face Chris Sale in that series uh Chris Sale's been pretty pretty damn good uh for the Braves um he's he's pretty unhittable against everybody so I don't know that I'd hold it against the Phillies necessarily if they struggle against a guy like that but I'd like to see them get some more innings some more at-bats against some of these really good left-handers uh and see if they can't figure this out before October rolls around um any other thoughts from this Angel series Justin I didn't get to um lot going on uh did you like Johan Duran getting a oh yeah that's right yeah I and I think that's important for them as they get ready for the playoffs I I want to see him be able to do that as especially in October like if they got to bring him in in a tight spot in the eighth inning and then bring him out for the ninth get him used to that now I think that's really smart they got to start doing that I also like that he allowed the first battery faced in both every space just kind of like you know like a western like all right I have I'll wait an extra couple of seconds on the draw and you know put myself at a disadvantage here and still get out of it also kind of felt like JT Romito was uh getting interference calls in one way or another uh all over this series yeah weirdly common occurrence over the weekend to see him called out uh on something like that but uh like I said just all in all a really promising series it's you know on the one hand you want to see them beat up on a team like the that's really just there to get beat up on uh at the moment but you also want to see the stuff that hasn't been working for this team start working and I think pretty much across the board you saw starters succeeding who haven't been succeeding you saw stability where there had been some stumbling you saw a great defense you know yeah the yeah the defense base running mistakes got a little old um that was like very silly and but uh I know you're sitting here talking about wanting to get them more reps against lefties I think the base running and the hitting against lefties are just such fundamental flaws for this team they're not things that are going to be worked out by October there's a chance they like you know we credited this meeting at the end of July with them having this better approach at the plate that's been working so well but you also know that it's a matter of time before that wears off to an extent and a couple of them are getting a little more hairy and itchy at the plate and yeah so these things happen in cycles and I just think yeah the lefties are just that's gonna be a riddle this team is fighting to solve until it's no longer this team anymore so yeah I but ultimately a great series against the angels no reason to think things are gonna start falling apart anytime soon right and you know what they swept a bad team which is you know we really did need to sweep this team uh this is the angels are really bad um and a series could have gone either way I mean it really there were a couple games here where it very much could have gone either way um but the Phillies found a way which is what good teams do against uh against bad teams as well um I'll tell you what they are you're gonna be reading a lot about Phillies Braves as they uh get into their second patch of playing each other a ton of the season and it's gonna be a wind up being a really interesting parallel here because we all know they played them what seven times uh back in April like in late April uh yeah a ton of the Braves and then both teams went their separate ways and they have both like the Braves stayed really hot for a while they dropped off they had a miserable June I'm pretty sure they didn't bounce back too well in July either like they were they were really uh face planting for a bit there and the Phillies also you know they won a ton in a row got close to the NLE's lead and then dropped off again now both teams the Braves are starting to get hot the Phillies are staying hot and guess who's on the schedule so yeah seven games against Atlanta could be really interesting and like you yeah yeah yeah yeah you don't want to look past this diamondback series because it is a big series for both teams in terms of the wild card but uh I'm sure the Phillies are um this this four game series against Atlanta and in Philadelphia is gonna have some serious serious juice uh this coming weekend that's gonna be a whole lot of fun um one other thing I did want to talk about uh and this was this came out um well first in a kind of a little bit of a news bulletin from the Phillies earlier in the week that they're making a bunch of changes to their player development setup in short what's happening here is that the former farm system director Luke Merton was being promoted to assistant GM the club was now looking outside the organization for a new farm director now you read it like that you think oh the farm director has done such a good job they're giving him a promotion and um you know now we need to find a new one that's obviously not what we've seen and what's been going on um when you see where the Phillies farm system ranks how they've had difficulty um producing star quality players uh the the players they've drafted have kind of hit some ceilings Aiden Miller of course losing an entire year of development with a mysterious back injury is just I don't know if I'd call it catastrophic but it's been absolutely awful for the farm system and and you don't really see a whole lot else there where you look major league star major league star you know just don't see that right now so generally speaking I don't even really think about it honestly like it's not a factor in my brain that a superstar is going to come it's just not something I think about Francisco Renteria maybe in a couple of years um that's the only guy that has that kind of potential but Matt Gelb had a good write-up for The Athletic about this uh and I wanted to just kind of mention some key points from the article and get your thoughts on this um Dave Dombrowski said that removing oversight of the entire farm system from Luke Merton's responsibilities while promoting him to assistant general manager was not an admission that things haven't progressed as the franchise would like but the Phillies have a without a robust farm system felt that something needed to change I mean this nothing is wrong nothing's wrong doing this because we want to but everything is totally fine it's not an admission that no not an admission we're not admitting anything's wrong more of an acknowledgement that something could be wrong theoretically but is it versus not who's to say thank you for coming to the press conference I don't that's that's silly that's silly yeah like we're making changes we feel like this is going to be a productive thing I like I mean if we're insinuating one man uh overseeing the entire farm system and moving to more you know maybe specific approach yeah sure but I mean I ask anybody about the Phillies farm system and any changes they're in they're probably a not going to recognize a lot of the names you're talking about which is fine and b they're going to say all right well you know something different could be better and we're all looking looking for better so I'm all ears when the Phillies are like we're doing this and this is why but they typically don't get to the and this is why part they just stick with the uh everything's totally fine and we love everyone yeah we're just shifting some guys around we're we are this is a massive change and they're trying to sell us sell it as like you know yeah you know we just you know moving some guys around every team does this every couple of years what is there you know people view big change it's a great thing people would be excited you can say like okay we're making some changes so to our farm system management we recognize this isn't working yeah come on uh so uh Matt Gelb also noted that Merton had been asked to do three jobs Dabrowski said he was the director of player development the director of hitting and something akin to an assistant director of amateur scouting now I'm no baseball uh you know uh executive that sounds like a lot to ask one guy to do especially if you want to improve your farm system that's crazy right nothing against this guy's skills because I know absolutely nothing about Luke Merton other than the job positions he's held but like that's like you're reaching unproductive levels of job having at that point there's simply no way one person is able to give 100% focus to any of those jobs that those are three those seem like three important jobs I mean kind of looking at this like okay I'm starting to see why maybe we're yeah our farm system ranking is plummeting because there's one well one of the things uh Matt noted in the article is for the last two years with Merton atop the farm system inconsistent leadership created uneven communication according to multiple team sources who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss organizational matters I mean how is this still happening how do we still why are we still doing it this was this was all supposed to go out with the cap with trash what are we talking about uneven communication whoopsie oh not getting the same get on the same level man this let's start there yeah get everybody on the same email thread let's start with that and then and then start moving forward on how to improve the farm system as a whole we can't still be talking about like how like you said how is how are we still talking about how oh yeah there's just some unevenness here this stuff needs to be worked out man like this this is I mean years ago it feels like it should I mean yes this is the whole thing Dave Dombrowski was supposed to fix when he came in here and I know they had a very uh and I can't remember his name now but they had a very important guy in the in the front office who went to the nationals and became kind of like their their head guy thank you yeah and apparently they just said well we'll just hire from we'll just promote everybody from within which is kind of what the Phillies do and nobody was getting any any outside ideas nobody was getting anything coming in from and they have this um the Phillies have this uh this uh pitching factory uh down in Clearwater which has taken them Andrew Painter is quoted in the story saying like it took us a couple years to figure out how to use it but now we're really actually it's one of the reasons he's been able to kind of figure some things out but they don't have anything like that on the hitting side and it sounds like that's what they need to to try and and and work on um yeah it says after Andrew Painter struggled uh to his 706 ERA in his first 14 outings this season a group of player development officials and major league pitching coaches built a plan to get him back on track what they focused on blah blah blah Painter said the suggestions Phillies provided which stemmed from their pitching lab were helpful but this might not have been possible just a couple years ago as the Phillies got the pitching lab off the ground um but they don't it doesn't sound like they don't have anything like this uh for for the offense um he also mentions that the farm director job one of the most time-consuming roles in the sport requires significant attention within the organization some wondered if the current farm hands were afforded that under Merton's leadership Dombrowski who said he would not respond to critiques raised by anonymous sources did not dispute that Merton's attention was stretched and that robust debates about playing time and positional plans are common in every farm system but team sources said players would encounter inconsistent messaging between different instructors and levels yes guys I have board everybody write your email address down legibly on the clipboard and we're just going to start there and just get everybody on the same level you're wondering why this farm system is ranked in the bottom third of major league baseball how they still can't talk to each other they they still can't provide consistent information to their players I just I I like to think Dave Dombrowski's scrolling through his gmail and finds like an email right before whatever draft they took Aidan Miller and it just says like bad back do not draft in all capital letters dang it only yeah I should have checked the spam folder ah gets everything goes to junk now everything important goes to their promotions tab you know you got to look in the promotions tab sometimes you forget to do that um one other thing go ahead yeah no I mean it's just I guess just repeating the same point but like anybody within the Phillies organization yeah if they were to hear us giving any kind of critiques or thoughts would be like well you don't know what's going on on the inside or like who's looking at what and you say fair enough all true fair enough but boy it just seems like one guy having all those jobs is just a recipe for disaster like for exactly the situation that resulted from doing that I I just I don't understand the um the the the reluctance in having more than one person like waiting to to develop like people for each individual job that a different person should have I don't know it just seems fun again a fundamental flaw and it's not like they're cheap with this stuff they hire lots of players they have one of the largest analytics departments in major league baseball I just they have five assistant GMs what are they assisting on help this guy let him do his job one is research and information he's replacing the guy who went to the nationals that you were just right that position had not been refilled since he left uh there's I want to say strategic strategic communications or something Ned Rice is one of them and Jorge is another one of them but they just are called assistant general managers they don't have specifications but there's five of them now so you got to hope that's enough or at least you know we're filling in these roles with other individual people uh and I know that like some responsibilities are with all these people uh like you said it's just you know I guess it's about balance it's about shifting you know the weight each guy is carrying it just comes down to man I just I guess I just didn't realize that not everybody had the job they were supposed to right right like we were still we were still that far behind I I thought that yeah I I thought you had guys who were doing you know not more than five jobs at a time and and clearly the Phillies understand something's wrong that they're not producing players at the rate that they should be they don't have the kind of prospects that a team like them that's putting as much money into the minor league system should have and so here we are and they're making changes and they're trying to tell us you know well not a big deal you know we're gonna shake we're gonna do some different things it's a major deal this is a big big deal this is a major admission that the farm system now it is it is yeah they're making the changes that you would want to see them make in a situation like this but yeah I mean here we are learning about this at the time of the changes being made so we sit here and say what's wrong with this farm system and then you find out stuff like this is happening lots and this is what people are all this is what fans are complaining about even when they don't realize it it's like a lot of this the issues that have plagued the Phillies on a deeper level it comes from situations like this but again the good news is they're addressing it and some serious changes have been made this is ultimately good for this team as much as Dave Dabrowski talked about getting the minor league players and but getting younger players involved coming into this season you know whether that had always been the plan or that he wanted that to be the plan who knows but coming into the season they really emphasized how much of a role that those three top prospects were going to play it coming into this season obviously Miller didn't really pan out you're starting to see more value from guys like Crawford and and and Painter for sure but you got to be able to produce more than like two out of three top prospects to contend at the level that the Phillies want this franchise to be at by the time Dabrowski is like ready to depart that was part of this was yeah it would elevation of the Phillies across the board and so if this is them being like all right we feel like we've corrected enough at the major league level that we're going to address these inconsistencies and how our player development system works all right fine like that's fine again I thought we were a little further along than this but all right good if that's all what this is headed towards to just have this team be stronger and have a better pipeline then great I'm all for it because that's yeah I need this team to be in you know in the decades ahead because this core is on its way out yeah just let us vent a little bit about how frustrating it has been to watch the the way the farm system has materialized and reading all about this has been it's certainly it's just listen it's it's it's mockable I'm sorry Dave Dabrowski it's mockable and we're gonna mock it a little bit but we mock it as the Phillies on the on the major league level are playing some fantastic baseball right now it's two to one in the bottom of the fifth as the Phillies are out in Arizona Phillies leading two to one against the Diamondbacks Noel is pitching pretty well knock on wood of course I say that and he'll probably give up a home run any second now so we should probably sign off before that happens because I don't want to have to talk about it while we're still on the air so Justin final thoughts as the Phillies are in Arizona taking on the Diamondbacks ahead of a big weekend series between the Phil's and the Braves no I just kind of thought we were going to be talking about a collision between Bryce Harper and Justin Crawford there at the field so I'm glad we don't have to talk about that I mean it definitely happened but they both look like they're okay so that's that's fine but these are the risks of watching late night sicko baseball John and this is the last chance we're going to get to do that this year as the Phillies are done playing on the west coast after this so uh you know it's an enjoyable experience until I'm in the middle of it and then I'm like oh yeah this is generally uh this this can be rough but hey yeah that's why late night west coast sicko baseball is not for the faint of heart it is not at all hope we can all enjoy these last few games against the Diamondbacks that's right I don't think I realize that these are the last west coast games so yeah enjoy them for you night owls out there uh for those of you who work a weird shift or whatever and you're up at night uh enjoy enjoy some Phil's baseball here as they finish up this west coast road trip all right everybody that's going to do it for this edition of hit and season I want to encourage everybody to subscribe to the whyy youtube channel that's where you can find the video portion of this podcast where every round table edition of the podcast is found there uh so if you do just listen to the audio version we're on apple podcast spotify wherever it is you get your podcast please tell your friends and your family members about the show and leave the show a five-star rating on apple podcast and a review we'd love to hear what you have to say you can also email us at hit and season at billypenn.com thanks everyone for tuning in we'll talk to you next time right here on hit and season