Phillies Offensive Struggles Affecting The Dominant Starting Pitching Performances

It’s another series win for the Philadelphia Phillies, but because of the offense, it almost was the opposite.

Heading into the Phillies’ final home series before the All-Star break, the Fightins were riding a dominant starting pitching stretch in the month of June. Led by Zack Wheeler and supported by Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, the Phillies have possibly the best 1-2-3 punch in baseball. On top of that, they have former All-Star Aaron Nola returning from injury soon, as well as Mick Abel and Jesus Luzardo to fill out the rest of the rotation.

In the month of June alone, Wheeler, Suarez, and Sanchez combined for 111 strikeouts, and all pitched a sub-2.00 ERA, with Wheeler posting a 0.58. That was good enough to earn him National League Pitcher of the Month honors and has primed him as a Cy Young contender.

However, their starting pitching can only be so great, as recently, they’ve had dominant performances wasted due to the lack of run support from the Phillies’ hitters. This past weekend against the Cincinnati Reds was the biggest example of this.

The Phillies scored 14 runs in the series, which on paper sounds good; however, the majority of the runs did not come with runners in scoring position. The Phillies were just 3-for-28 with runners in scoring position during the series against the Reds, with all three runs coming in the first game of the series. In the next two games, the Phillies got dominant one-run performances from both their starting pitchers, but didn’t provide any type of offense until the end of their starts.

In Saturday’s win, Suarez tossed five innings, striking out six and allowing just one run, but was unable to earn a win as the game was tied when he exited. The Phillies rallied, getting two two-run home runs late to rally and win 5-1.

We move to Sunday’s game with Wheeler on the mound, and similar to the previous game, the Phillies could not score until late. Wheeler dominated all day, allowing just one hit, a solo home run to Austin Hays, and struck out 12. The Phillies struggled to not only give Wheeler a run, finally got one thanks to an RBI double in the fifth from Kyle Schwarber, but struggled to give Wheeler a lead at all during his start.

The big chance was in the sixth with the game tied. The Phillies had runners on first and third with no outs and had Max Kepler, J.T. Realmuto, Bryson Stott, and Brandon Marsh due up. Kepler and Realmuto struck out for two outs, Stott walked to load the bases, but Marsh battled but inevitably went down on strikes to end the inning.

The frustrating part is the fact that a ball was not even put in play. Three strikeouts after getting runners on the corners is flat out embarrassing and is a big reason why this team struggles to pile on runs. The team eventually rallied late, with Stott hitting a two-run bomb in the eighth and Wheeler tossing a complete game to pick up the win, but this team needs to hit better if they want to continue winning.

The situational awareness has been dreadful all year, and while the approach at the plate seems to be to cut down on strikeouts and extend at-bats, the power is 100% not there this year.

This season, the Phillies are hitting .194 with the bases loaded this season, which ranks 28th in the majors. They’re getting runners on but failing to knock them in, and the offensive numbers seem down. Outside of Schwarber, no player has more than 11 home runs. They rank 15th in home runs as a team and are slugging .405, which is 12th in the majors.

Again, these numbers aren’t the worst, and they can be much worse, but this is a year where you’re once again a top-five team in baseball. You have the best rotation in the league; you need to capitalize on it and put together an offense that can support it.

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