The 1st Place Phillies Suck Right Now
Is losing 2 of 3 to the San Diego Padres good? How about having former SS, Freddy Galvis hit a grand slam off you and raise his OPS against his former team this season to 1.115? Or how about the Phillies offense hitting a collective .184 with a .543 OPS during the 6 game west coast trip? What about the fact the Pitching staff and pen had a collective 3.25 ERA and the team only managed 2 wins?
I’ll answer all of these questions for you…no that isn’t good.
Within past month, #Phillies have lost two out of three in Miami, three out of four in Cincinnati and two out of three in San Diego. Missed opportunities to make hay against non-contenders.
— Scott Lauber (@ScottLauber) August 12, 2018
Listen, I know baseball teams struggle and have bad weeks from time to time during a 162 game season. But I feel like the Phillies struggles go on for far too long and it begins and ends with this offense. During those 3 series’ with Miami, Cincy and San Diego, the offense has hit a collective .231. If you take away the one Reds game where they hit the 7 bombs, the average drops to .204. In fact, since the offense shot their load with that explosion of power on July 26th, the offense has an OPS of just .627. All in all, this team fucking blows right now and I can think of two reasons why. Rhys Hoskins – the offense runs through Rhys and Rhys alone. Without him, they are a bunch of limp dicks. Since July 26th, Rhys is hitting only .204 and the team is 7-8. While he has still gotten on base 34% of the time, he has scored only 8 times in 65 PA. Which means that the guys hitting behind him suck even worse, most importantly, Carlos Santana. Carlos Santana – I hate putting monetary value next to the name of a 9 year veteran who has earned his salary, but Carlos has not lived up to the dollar amount. Our clean up hitter is hitting .215 this season. .215! Since July 7th his OPS is .615 and his OBP has dropped 14 total points. I’m sorry but that is just inexcusable. It’s Justin Bour time, Gabe The acquisition of Justin Bour was the smartest move this organization could have made. With the consistent struggles of Santana, buying low on the Gregg Dobbs/Matt Stairs hybrid really plays. In his 5 year career, Bour has a .850 OPS with 24 HR and 79 RBI in 113 games against the Braves and Nationals. The Phillies play them 16 times over their last 44 games. Its gonna be Bour time a lot more often than not so move over Carlos because you ain’t so Smooth right now. Follow @PhillyTByrd