This is Flat-Out EMBARRASSING...

This is flat out embarrassing. The Philadelphia Phillies, after an absolutely disastrous start to the season in which they dug themselves a hole in the knee to fight like hell to climb back into the postseason picture, did the work, put themselves in a favorable position, and are now in the process of puking all over themselves on the biggest stage and flat out missing the postseason. I do want to dive into the latest frustration of what is arguably the most embarrassing stretch of Phillies baseball that I can think of in my lifetime. After having a clear path to making the postseason, the work was done, you had fought yourself out of the hole that was dug, they have thrown that all away in just about as embarrassing a fashion as possible. I do want to dive into a couple key numbers to set the stage for what this means and really dive into what is the clear identity problem with this Philadelphia Phillies franchise. To attempt to try and put it into perspective, I'm recording after the straight up blowout, the dog walking, I think it was 12-1 that it finished. It's embarrassing that they even got a run on the board, which happened on a routine ground ball to second base, and congratulations to Justin Crawford who gets to walk himself down to home plate, but really, this is all about the Phillies. The Rays are a good baseball team, but it should not have come down to this. We should not be watching and praying for the Arizona Diamondbacks not to win games because this is a situation which the Phillies were in the driver's seat of and have just swerved all over the road to make sure that it was not possible to drive right into the playoffs. Now, to set the stage a little, I do want to start off with this tweet coming from John Becker, who quote tweets Matt Gelb, stating the Phillies, who have scored two runs in their last 21 innings, are in absolute free fall right now. And John Becker quote tweets this to say, Phillies came in today with 88.9% playoff odds. If they missed the playoffs, they'd have the biggest collapse after 159 games since our daily odds started in 2014. The next closest is the 2025 Mets, who missed at 78.1%. The Phillies are probably okay, but you know, baseball. And I got to be honest, I'm here just with the mindset of this team has no business being the playoffs. This team is as lifeless as a team could possibly look. They look like they don't care. They look like they don't have motivation. They look like a team that is ready for this season to be over. And that is disgusting based on the work that has been done this season, the how talented this roster is, and just every sense of it is wrong. I mean, for starters, just laying out the raw numbers when speaking out about the production that since the Phillies pulled within one day of clinching, they've been outscored 25 to 2. And the thing that I do want to interject here is there is a mindset aspect of this. We have Don Mattingly stepping, volunteering information to the media, such as stating that if the Phillies do win, this being back on September 23rd, that if the Phillies win, Don Mattingly said that they'll probably stick around and see if Arizona or San Diego loses, then party. Sure hope it will be pizza in between games. For you, Don, maybe worry about winning a baseball game before you were worried about, you know, your party after the game, talking about all these things, and I'm not the don't party guy. I understand that this is a marathon. These guys deserve time to celebrate when you do put the work in, but you have to put the work in. And that is what's missing with this team. When speaking about the identity of this current Phillies iteration, that it was the good vibes, they're playing dance on our own. They got a swagger to it. They're going to bat spike. Bryce Harper is going to come through in a major spot. That was what this era was built on, but that's completely disappeared. There is no it factor with this Phillies team. They have no personality. They have no identity. They feel like a team that is slogging through the regular season grind despite the goals that are right there in front of them. And this is not an underdog story. We are talking about high contract, all-star players on this team. Bryce Harper, Trey Turner, Kyle Schwarber, Zach Wheeler, Christopher Sanchez. You can go down the list and each and every one of these guys is underperforming in their own right. I do not feel the personality of this team, and I think what rubs me the wrong way the most is this elitist vibe that they carry themselves with, that we're just going to make it back to the playoffs because we're that good, that people are going to show up. Everyone's going to be all in on this team. We're going to be one of the favorites because that's who we are. But who are you really? Because this isn't a team that has won anything. They had a splash of the pan where they made it to the World Series in some bizarre and unexpected situations in which no one had them in that spot, and they failed to get it back at any point. Sometimes teams get hot, and I think the honest lens that we should view this Phillies era through is that they got hot, they made it to a World Series, and they were never really that teamed. This is a good baseball team. It ain't a great one. This isn't a team that has the right to grandstand about how talented and what a chance they got on an every night basis when this is the level of effort that they're putting on the field. It is one thing to lose baseball games. Baseball is a sport of failure. You're never going to be successful at an extremely high rate. You are going to fail more than any other sport out there. You're going to hit three out of every ten times at the plate, and you are an amazing talented player in the sport of baseball. But it isn't just about the failure, it's about the way that it is going down. It is about this just unbothered, just complete vibe as the season slips away right in front of their very eyes in spots that they have every chance to control it. They had a clear path. You could not have asked for a better opportunity to cruise into the playoffs, control your spot, and now none of that is within their hands. Even just speaking about the pitching outlook, we talked all year about how pitching is the strength of the team. Well, you cannot stack the deck and lay yourself a favorable path through the playoffs because you fumbled the opportune. You can't go Zach Wheeler to Christopher Sanchez to Jesus Lozado. For starters, we don't even know if Jesus Lozado is available to pitch based on what his arms at, but you're going to have to use Zach Wheeler in Game 162 because you don't even know if you're going to the postseason. Now, to lay in a couple other numbers here that I do think are important, the playoff odds as a whole, and I pulled up this one already, but a couple other on the collapse, that Todd Zalecki tweets, the 1964 Phillies lose six and a half game lead with 12 games to play to lose the NL pennant in St. Louis. It's the only time in franchise history that the Phillies have blown a six plus game lead in September to miss the postseason. 2026 would be the second if the Phillies can't find a way to win this weekend. They had a six and a half game lead over Arizona for the third NL wildcard spot on September 1st. And it isn't just like this last week in which things have fallen apart. To flashback to the start of September, I do want to pull up these stats here as they rank 30th in baseball and batting average, 30th in OPS, 30th in home run, 29th in runs in the last two weeks that no Philly has more than one home run and they're averaging 3.5 runs per game. That is not good enough regardless of the level of competition, especially if you're talking yourself into this is a team that can make some noise in the playoffs. Guess what? The level of competition gets more difficult. And guess what? This team does not look to have another gear in it. I understand the frustrating start to the season, the Rob Thompson firing and to set the stage and rewind a little bit back to that, I do want to pull up this tweet from Jeff Kurt who says, keep going back to nine and 19. When I think about this Philly's team, they basically had to play must win games every night. Wasn't sure when or if they would get back to 500. They did. Got to 19 games over 500 on September 1st. Played 29 games over 500 since the nine and 19 start. Starting as bad as they did takes a toll. Pitching mismanagement, not many days off for players. Notice it catching up with them earlier this month. Still amazing. They could blow a four game lead in the final playoff spot, one that they had on Tuesday. At this point, just have to find a way they aren't doing that. Now, I think this is a fair lens to view it from that I absolutely think there is truth to. You've had to, you know, go about the season with a little bit of a different lens in the way that you're attacking because of the poor start, but I think it is more than that. I think it's a personality and identity thing once again, that the firing of Rob Thompson, the reason that that firing had to happen was not just the results. It was the complacency that we felt inside the clubhouse. They didn't need another Rob Thompson, another even-keeled manager that's just going to keep the train on the tracks, allow this team to continue cruising. They need a guy that's going to get under these dudes' skin, man. Trey Turner should be challenged. JT Real Mudo should be challenged. Frankly, if the playoffs started tomorrow, that Garrett Stubbs should be the starting catcher because JT Real Mudo hasn't given you any bit of quality baseball in months to this point. Bryce Harper. It has to be together better. I know you're going to finish top 10 in MLB and OPS. I know you had a relatively very good season by the standard, but if you're going to make huff and puff and stick your chest out about the manager question if you're elite, then go be elite, man. For Kyle Schwarber, you got paid the big bucks. You had an electric start to the season. Where are you right now when the moments are at its largest? Turner simply has never been that guy. Each and every one of these guys deserve to be critiqued, deserve to be questioned, and none of them seem to understand that appropriately. I get why Rob Thompson firing needed to happen. Don Mattingly just was never clearly the guy. That this stuff, this kind of buying into, you know, we are this good, it shouldn't matter, we're just going to sit there and party and celebrate and be ready when the moment comes right there. That's not the dude for this team, and frankly, maybe there are bigger questions that need to be had about this team. If they miss the playoffs, which feels very much on the table right now, and I've been following along with this score for the Diamondbacks and Padres, I've seen both these teams take leads. I'll be honest, there's a part of me that's rooting for the Diamondbacks at this stage because this team simply does not deserve to be in the playoffs based on what we've seen over the past couple weeks, but even if they are to miss the playoffs outright or just get in and go out with a whimper, major changes need to happen, man. Like, I think we really need to address head-on that the identity of this team is not quite right. The foundation of this team is not quite stable enough, and I think we've overlooked it because we have this romanticized view of if we could recapture that magic that simply is not there anymore. We'll see what happens tomorrow. It's going to be a big day across the entire MLB, but it's embarrassing the Phillies are even in the spot. It is straight-up disgusting that you're having to play your best players, throw your best pitchers, and try to back your way into the postseason in a situation that should have been wrapped up several games ago at this stage of the year. The comment section is a judgment-free zone. Please let it rip. I have a ton still on my chest and cannot be more upset about how this has gone down these past couple weeks. We'll continue to rock from the Phillies for the time being here. Appreciate you guys for tuning in to this video here. It is getting frustrating, it is getting more difficult, and who knows how many postseason games we will have to look forward to, if any, but I'm going to be all over the action here on Phillies Digest, and maybe the offseason is going to be something we're going to be a little bit more spirited about than we expect to be the case. We'll see how things do go down, but appreciate you guys for tuning in as always. If you have not just yet, make sure you're smashing that subscribe button, drop a like on this video, give me your thoughts below, and I'll be back talking to you next time. Peace.