Phillies Give MULTIPLE Updates... | He Just Sent a SERIOUS Message...

The opening series of the MLB season is in the books for the Philadelphia Phillies and it was a 2-1 series win over the Washington Nationals and even though we left with a bit of a sour taste in our mouth after the Game 3 loss with Aaron Nola on the bump, there are still plenty of positive takeaways to take from this Phillies team and with the long grind of the Major League season, we are already beginning to see some injuries pop on the docket here with Trey Turner and JT Ramuta being unable to suit up for that series finale here. I want to talk the latest on their status, why there is nothing to panic about at this point, why do you think there was a pretty interesting roster decision made by Rob Thompson hinting at his mindset moving forward. So let's get into it all, but before I do that, do I want to remind you guys to make sure you are hitting that subscribe button. That at this point in time, 63.9% of you guys who watch these videos have not subscribed to us here at Phillies Digest. We want to grow the Phillies Digest family as large as possible here, so make sure you guys are getting on board. Me and Luka are cranking out content, he just did drop his full thoughts on the Aaron Nola situation, thought he did an excellent job summing that up, but there should be a bit of a deep breath for this guy. He kind of got punished by two bad pitches, it is what it is. We know the state of Aaron Nola, we know those clunker innings and performances do happen once in a while, but they are going to be fine in the long run. And the bigger takeaway should be that it was a 2-1 series lead. You got to stack up these series wins throughout the season. This is not football in which every game matters in that same way. You got to take a bit of a step back and I think the job was accomplished by the Phillies, even though they did leave a little bit of meat on the table here. Now, to get into the topic of today, I first want to start off with the latest update from John Clark of NBC Sports here who tweets out, Phillies manager Rob Thompson says JT RealMuto should be ready to go for the home opener tomorrow, but Trey Turner may be given another day to heal up on the back spasm because the Phillies also have an off day on Tuesday. I'm recording this at night, this will be on game day by the time this is dropping. Now, in a little bit different mindset for each of these. For JT specifically here, this is a guy who had a foul ball fouled off his foot, he did leave that game 2 here and did miss game 3. We knew going into the season that there was going to be this calculated approach to managing JT RealMuto to make sure they hope there can be more production at the plate by limiting the wear and tear on the field. That is why the decision was made to keep Raphael Marchand as a part of the active roster and send Garrett Stubbs, the Chiefs Vibes officer himself, down to the minor leagues there. Talking about Marchand a little, I did want to highlight on him that this article here writes, Marchand made his Major League debut at 21 years old during the COVID-impacted 2020 season. While he only got into 3 games throughout that campaign, it seemed like he was going to be a part of this roster going forward. However, injuries have derailed that possibility. He didn't appear in the bigs during the 22 and 23 seasons, affected by a hamstring strain and hammock bone fracture, but he reopened the possibility of being an impact player for the Phillies last year when he was called up and produced an OPS plus that was 47 points above league average during his 17 games and 56 plate appearances, hitting 3 homers, 7 extra base hits, and 6 RBIs. When Raphael Marchand is healthy, he can rake. Dennis is a guy that can be an impact player for this Phillies team and that is the selling point here. He didn't do too much of note in his limited opportunity to this point. He did have an RBI ground out to ultimately end this 5-1 loss in the 9th inning to conclude this game. Not anything to write super at home about, but he did make contact. I thought he looked solid behind the plate. Made a couple plays. There were a couple strikeouts that he made nice plays on kind of in the dirt and had to throw the first. I thought he looked comfortable back there and again, we will see with the larger sample size how this ultimately settles. But if Marchand can be an impact player whenever he gets that opportunity, that does kind of open the door for extending the window with JT Romudo and we're going to have some significant conversations about the extension talks at the end of the year. There's a long ride of the season to get through and it's not the best sign in the world that he's already on the injury report, but I like that the Phillies are being proactive with this and I'm sure with JT specifically here that if you push comes to shove and asked him, he would have been on the field today if that was the case here. Now the other guy is Trey Turner and obviously a slightly different situation. As the tweet initially states here, from of course John Clark here, that Trey Turner may be given another day to heal up with back stasms because the Phillies also have an off day. To talk a little bit about Trey specifically, Todd Zielecki tweets, Trey Turner felt something in his back taking ground balls during batting practice, felt the back tighten up late on opening day. Previously, it started to bother him late in camp. He said he's feeling better, but we'll see if he plays tomorrow. Rob Thompson said he probably won't push. And that is the correct stance to take at this point in the season. Baseball is a marathon and we are just getting off the starting point right here. So I'm glad that they're not pushing Trey. Haven't seen that, you know, the version of him that we're hoping to just yet. I do think this is a pretty important year for Trey Turner and how we look at him moving forward. I really have my eye kind of honed in on that. Obviously we are three games in the season and I'm not here to come to any sort of conclusions to this point, but I do appreciate that the Phillies are being proactive and back specifically are not something that you want to mess with. Those are things that can linger and that's exactly what you don't want for your 300 million dollar man there with Trey. So glad the Phillies are allowing him to get some time to rest, hope that heals up and this is not something that we have lingering throughout the season because that would be extremely harmful to this Phillies team. And while those are the biggest points here, and by the way, Edmundo Sosa, we know exactly who he is as a player at this point, a guy who in my mind is just totally confident, totally fine to fill in. I'm not somebody that's going to sell you the vision of he is this difference maker for this Phillies team, but I'm completely comfortable whenever he's filling in on the field and the Phillies do really seem to like Sosa. We heard the reports of him shagging fly balls and trying to learn the outfield as a way to extend his potential opportunity on the field. Overall, we'll see what happens from here. We'll see how soon Turner comes back, but I'm completely satisfied with him being a guy stepping in. What was a more shocking roster move to me was what went down in the outfield. Now obviously Max Kepler, one of the bigger splashes of the offseason that he did play in the first two games of the series, nothing too notable to write home about. I do think that there is some legitimate power there that I've mentioned this before. He got ahold of a couple foul balls that impressed me, and I know it's foul balls, but they don't matter whatsoever. But there was some towering flies, but just to see that he has that in him, I think is really important. I do think Citizens Bank Park is going to be a huge benefit to Kepler specifically to see that those power numbers and those home run numbers grow. We'll be interested to see from here, but what we did see on the third game of action for the Phillies team was a little different. With Brandon Marsh remaining in the lineup despite it being a lefty. And as the article states, this being from Philly Nation here, says Philly's manager Rob Thompson changed his mind on giving Brandon Marsh a day off. With left-hander Michael Parker on the mound for the Nationals, Thompson's planned to have a lefty hitting Marsh sitting on Sunday for Philadelphia's opening series finale at Nationals Park. Instead, he decided to reward the outfielder after a strong performance at the plate on Saturday. He'll bat 7th and play left field in place of Max Kepler, while the glove-first Johan Rojas makes his first start of the year in center field. Quote, What was going to be Marsh sitting, Kepler playing in Sunday's game yesterday, Thompson said. Then Marsh swung the bat so well, it just flipped it. Marsh went 3-for-5 with a home run, 3 RBIs, and 2 runs scored as the Phillies cruised by Washington 11-6 on Saturday. It was an impressive bounce back after a brutal opening day for the 27-year-old. Marsh went 0-for-4 with 4 strikeouts on Thursday, looking overmatched against the left-handed and two lefty relievers in Jose A. Ferrer and Colin Pache. He was tasked with trying to bunt in key spots in each of his last two at-bats and twice was caught looking after failing to lay one down early in the count. Saturday was much different for Marsh. He clubbed a 3-run home run with Washington's bullpen in the right field in the 7th inning. He picked up two other hits, one against a lefty in Pache, and hit the ball at least 96 miles per hour in all five of at-bats. Marsh appeared more comfortable with the bat in his hands and will have a chance to keep it rolling on Sunday. He'll likely now sit against left-hander Kyle Freeland and Kepler getting the start during the team's next series vs the Rockies. The Phillies 2-0 want to give Marsh chances against lefties to start this season. They know he can be a productive platoon, but he'll need to prove he can be a true everyday regular. This will require better numbers against left-handed pitching. Since coming to Philadelphia in 2022, Marsh has hit 283, 362, and 473 with 28 home runs in 867 appearances against righties. He has slashed 208, 283, and 327 with 4 home runs in 228 plate appearances against lefties in that span, while striking out 39% of the time. And he striked out to the biggest thing with Marsh for me. That it is one thing if you're not going to hit for a great average against that other side of the plate. But it's this helpless feeling of just watching the bat on his shoulders or him getting zero contact that is really, I guess, frustrating to me from that perspective. But I do think this is an important stat for Rob Thompson. For him to show that trust in Brandon Marsh does matter. And I also will include Bryson Stott in this conversation, who was sort of in the same boat as Marsh, that looked completely overmatched in the first game, really struggled, and then turned things around. Both of them going yard in that second game. And while there's not too much excitement from Game 3 here, I think that's a huge step from Rob Thompson directly here. The fact that this is completely up for grabs, he's allowing these guys to earn it, I find kind of refreshing here. I am really curious how these pieces of the puzzle still fully come together. I am a Johan Rojas believer, and I will note, hits in his first two MLB at-bats of the season was batting 1,000 for a point there. So for those of you keeping track at home, Johan Rojas, for a point in time, had the leading batting average across the entire MLB. So make sure we keep that one on those bulletin boards there. But while we'll see how this completely shakes out, I do think that's notable from Rob Thompson. That he's showing some belief in Marsh. And I think a lot of us have undersold what Marsh can be to an extent. When you stack up outfielders around major leagues, he's a little bit better on the grand scheme of things than I honestly even expected or noted myself until really thinking about it from that perspective there. And kind of the book on Marsh is very different than the player that we got, or at least my perception of him when that trade first happened. My perception of Brandon Marsh when that trade was made is this is a glove-first guy who can't hit. Not really the case here. He can kind of hit, and the glove isn't excellent by any means. There is a gap between Johan Rojas and Brandon Marsh as far as what they can perform in the field. But there's an even larger gap for what Brandon Marsh is at the plate and what Johan Rojas is there. The splits don't lie, and he has to be better against lefties, but there are encouraging steps being taken. This is an important year for Brandon Marsh as well. Each one of these Phillies teams are kind of under a magnifying glass this year. We know how the offseason went. They kept the core intact. They were pretty calculated and careful with not rocking the boat too much for the structure of this team. But now these guys got to earn why this is the case. Why there is distrust in them. I think Brandon Marsh might be a guy that we are talking about quite highly in that regard. We will see if things shake out to that point. So obviously, not a great sign to have Trey Turner and JT Ramuto on the injury report already, but ultimately nothing super to be worried about at this point and glad the Phillies are being proactive and cautious at this point in the season. Also very glad that Rob Thompson is giving Marsh the opportunity to earn it and that he's allowing an opportunity to take it himself with his level of play from Marsh specifically there. Overall, a successful first series. I understand a little bit of a frustrating point to leave off as Aaron Nola letting up five runs to the Nationals and having that clunker inning that we've seen from Nola time and time again. But the bottom line is, they are a 2-1 record, winning record on the year, and hopefully that never fades. So we will see what happens from here as they do return against the Rockies for the home opener here. We're going to continue to be all over it right here on Phillies Digest. So one more time, I do want to remind you guys to make sure you are hitting that subscribe button. 63.9% of you guys watching these videos have not subscribed just yet. We're going to be all over things right here on Phillies Digest from start to finish this season. 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