Phillies slip 1 game closer to collapse, fall 7-2 in Game 3

The Phillies’ amazing season is now at risk of ending in humiliating fashion to the New York Mets. Call it collapse in motion, call it whatever you want to call it the performance of the Phillies, both pitching and hitting, has been unacceptable.

From first to worst; The story of the Phillies offense

We saw it in 2022, we saw it last year, we’ve seen it in parts of this year, and we’re seeing it right now with the offense. It’s unbelievably hot and cold and the team lives and dies with it. Heading into game 4, an elimination game for the Phillies, they are hitting .204. Small sample size I know, but that’s White Sox levels of bad when this is supposed to be a World Series contending team.

You can’t even blame this stuff on the bye, or the playoff format either because we were playing like this to end the regular season! Going all the way back to September 21st the team is 4-7 hitting only a little bit better at .220.

Even worse, the problems feel almost identical to last year’s NLCS. An extremely top-heavy lineup that is home-run dependent. Here are your postseason stats for today’s 5-9 hitters, including pinch hitters

Alec Bohm: 0 for 10
J.T. Realmuto: 0 for 9
Austin Hays: 0 for 4
Bryson Stott: 2 for 8, 2 RBI
Johan Rojas: 1 for 5
Brandon Marsh: 0 for 9

That is a combined average of .067 past Nick Castellanos. The team is failing to find any quality hitting deep in the lineup and it is, and will continue to be the cause of death

The Phillies bullpen are magicians… in the wrong way

The bullpen is drawing comparisons to the great Houdini with how good this disappearing act has been. If I wanted to I legitimately could’ve copied the same headline I used for the offense and changed the wording. I know Nola could’ve been better today, but there isn’t a single person I trust in that bullpen right now.

With the season on the line tomorrow, Rob Thomson will simply have to pick his poison with a bullpen with a 9.90 ERA so far in these playoffs. The bye, designed to help pitchers rest up and be ready, has somehow made the relievers worse. Similar to the offense this is nothing new.

Since September 21st:

Jeff Hoffman: 18.90 ERA, 3.1 IP

Matt Strahm: 7.20 ERA, 5 IP

Jose Ruiz: 4.76 ERA, 5.2 IP

Orion Kerkering: 9.00 ERA, 4 IP

Carlos Estévez is really the only arm that hasn’t declined significantly since the 21st, and teams, not just the Mets, have been taking advantage of it.

It’s not like we saw this problem last year with Craig Kimbrel in any form of leverage situation. Even then that was just him, this has infected the whole pen.

Bring it back to Philly

Obviously things aren’t looking great right now. But if this team can just squeeze out a victory, no matter how ugly it probably would be, I think sending it back home for a do-or-die Game 5 would be a lot to handle for an inexperienced Mets team. The problems with this team are our own fault, and hopefully, we can at any point regain our once-elite form.

But for now, a team that looked to be on a path of destiny to avenge past failures is only looking like the biggest one yet.

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