Is It Time to Worry About the Phillies After Being Swept by the Pirates?

The Philadelphia Phillies' season up to this point has been full of highs and lows was something that was talked about in the middle of April. Since that moment, the same statement has rung true once again. A team that has expectations of winning a championship has looked like a team that can do it at times, however, they have looked like a team that is far from competing at other times. Currently, the Phillies have lost five straight games and have only won one game out of their last 10. The team has struggled at the plate and on the mound, with each player playing a part in the equation. Due to their recent struggles, the team has now fallen out of first place in the NL East and is four games behind the Mets for first place. The question now, yet again, is: Is it time to panic?

The simple answer is yes, the Phillies are not a good baseball team right now, and it could get ugly fast. Some of the Phillies' top stars have not performed up to the standards that fans expect, more specifically, Aaron Nola and J.T. Realmuto. Realmuto is among some of the best in baseball at calling games but also picking off runners, making him a valuable asset for the Phillies. At the plate, Realmuto, for the majority of his time in Philadelphia, has been great, but last season and this season haven’t been the same story. This year, Realmuto is batting at the worst percentage of his career at .223 and has struck out 53 times, which is already half the amount from the season before in only 53 games. Realmuto is in the last year of his deal and is looking for a new contract from the Phillies, which is up in the air. Speaking of contracts, since being rewarded with a new contract with the Phillies, Aaron Nola has not looked good. This season, Nola has a 1-7 record to go along with a 6.16 ERA, the worst in his career by a wide margin. To make things worse for him, Nola has been dealing with an injury that has put him on the IL and has seen setbacks with his recovery, so there is no timeline for his recovery. 

The topic of injury also brings up more discussion, more specifically with Bryce Harper and the aging core of the Phillies. The Phillies' payroll is the fourth highest in the MLB, but the amount of money hasn’t accounted for a lot of playoff success. The current core continues to get more expensive and older, which is concerning since fans can already see some aging, specifically with Bryce Harper. Harper struggled to get off to a good start this season but was able to bounce back and bring his statistics up as the season has gone on. The issue becomes that Harper recently got hurt and landed on the IL with a wrist injury. The health problems have become more of a concern with Harper in the past couple of years and have affected him over the past two seasons. With Harper out of the lineup, the Phillies' offense has gone frozen cold and has struggled to produce anything. During the team's current losing streak, the team scored 8 runs in their last five games, with four of those runs coming in one game. The lineup without Harper has not been produced, and the young players that the Phillies look to rely on have also not been produced on the field. 

The Phillies’ “young core” of Bryson Stott, Brandon Marsh, Johan Rojas, and Alec Bohm has all struggled this season and have not looked good at the plate. Bohm started the season ice-cold and has been the only one out of the four to raise his batting average to .270. As for the other three, they have just been productive defensively, as all three are hitting under .250 this season, while Stott continues to drop day by day, with only one hit in his last 17 plate appearances. As for Marsh and Rojas, they split time in the outfield along with Max Kepler, but all three have provided little offensive impact all season. The combination of Kepler, Marsh, Rojas, and Stott combines for at least three to four spots in the lineup consistently and brings down the team’s offensive production tremendously. Something will need to change for the Phillies to get back on track, but there is still a lot of baseball left to be played, so try to be patient.