Phillies Head into the All-Star Break Cold After Series Loss to Padres
The Philadelphia Phillies finish up their West Coast trip with another series loss to the San Diego Padres. The Padres took the first two games of the series, but the Phillies were able to salvage the final game. The series marks the first series loss for the Phillies in Petco Park since 2018, and it also marks the final series before the All-Star Break. The Phillies desperately needed the All-Star Game as they have started to lose their lead for first place in the NL East and are not playing their best baseball. For a team that looks to compete for a championship, there are a lot of details from this series that could be looked at more deeply and fixed heading into the back half of the MLB season.
The Pitching Staff Is a Tale of Two Polar Opposites
A point that has been talked about this entire year, with the starting rotation being extremely dominant and the bullpen falling late. The story was yet again the same throughout this series, with the performances of Cristopher Sanchez and Ranger Suarez. Starting with Suarez, he pitched the first game of the series, and he had an amazing performance. Suarez went six and two-thirds innings while only allowing one run; however, he was given a loss despite only allowing one run. The Phillies weren’t able to cut into the Padres' lead and only allowed the Padres to grow their lead due to two late-game errors. This is not the first time that the Philadelphia fans have seen a gem wasted by the bullpen, as multiple starts have been blown late in games. Thankfully, on Sunday, Sanchez went seven and one-third innings and only allowed one run to give the Phillies the win. The starting rotation has been borderline unstoppable throughout the first half of the season, but still, the Phillies find a way to lose games even with the performances from their staff.
Phillies’ Offense Goes Cold Yet Again When Needed Most
Going off the last point, the Phillies' starting rotation has kept them in a lot of games throughout the year, but it has been their offense that has also let them down as much as the bullpen. In both of the starts that Suarez and Sanchez appeared in this series, the Phillies' offense only scored a combined four runs. In total, the team only scored eight runs this entire series, which is simply not good enough. The Phillies' offense has some serious weaknesses with Bryson Stott and Max Kepler, who are each batting under .240, to go along with the hot and cold hitting of J.T. Realmuto and Nick Castellanos, which causes a lot of problems. Thankfully, Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner have been good this year, but besides those two, the team is simply not producing runs. It showed in the series against the San Francisco Giants just before this one, where little runs were scored if it wasn’t accounted for by Kyle Schwarber. The Phillies' offense is stuck in a bad place currently, and something needs to get done.
Moves Need to Be Made for the Team to Compete
Both of the previous points point to the overarching theme that the Phillies need to make moves if they want to compete. The Phillies' bullpen is among the worst in baseball, and there has been nothing done to look to improve that. Additionally, with the fourth-highest payroll in the MLB, the offense is not producing enough for the amount of money being tied to it. Outside of Kyle Schwarber, only one Phillies player is on pace to be at 20 or more home runs. With this being said, something needs to be done to help improve the team. Looking back at the offseason moves, it has been a complete disaster with Jordan Romano, Max Kepler, the decisions on Jeff Hoffman, and Carlos Estevez. Letting both Hoffman and Estevez walk was a mistake for an already weak bullpen. Dave Dombrowski will have to make tough moves or else the Phillies will continue their downward trend.
