Phillies’ Issues With Runners in Scoring Position Remain Apparent

There is no shortage of ways to lose a baseball game. You can give up runs early, your starter can fall apart, your bullpen can blow a lead. But the most frustrating way to lose, the one that hurts the most, is when the team has a chance to win and simply does not take it. That has been the Phillies’ story through the first week of the season, and the San Francisco series put it on full display.

In Game 1 of the series in San Francisco, the Phillies won 6-4, but left 10 runners on base, most of which were early in the game when the Giants gave the Phils so many chances. Then came Game 2. The Phillies collected only four hits against Robbie Ray and were shut out 6-0. The Phillies were handed many opportunities by the Giants, but they squandered all of them, repeatedly, against a Giants staff that came into the series with a 7.00 ERA from its number-two starter. Game 3 was a copy/paste of game 2, giving the struggling Giants the series win, continuing the series losing streak at Oracle Park.

The Phillies have gone their last 20 innings without scoring a run. They had just one extra-base hit in Games 2 and 3. It was the first time they had been shut out in consecutive games since June 25-26 last season and only the third time since 2018.

Getting shut out by a thin San Francisco team is one thing; the totality of the situation makes it worse. In the opening series of the 2026 season against the Rangers, the Phillies stranded seven runners in each of the first three games. In one game alone, they were 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position, going 6-for-22 (.272) in RISP situations across that series. After struggling through the opening series against Texas, the Giants were supposed to offer some relief; there was none to be found.

The top of the Phillies’ lineup has been especially cold. Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber, and Bryce Harper batted a combined .135 in the opening series, going 5-for-37 to start the year. When those three are the ones on base, the middle of the lineup has more opportunities with RISP, and that just hasn’t been the case for the Phils early on. When those three are the ones failing with the bases loaded, the offense never has a chance to even get started, exemplified by the last two games against the Giants.

After the game on Wednesday, Harper was asked why he was confident that this team could be a top-10 offense in baseball. “We have to be,” he said. “We’ve got to be that team because if we’re not, we’re not where we want to be in the end.”

Unfortunately, this is not a new conversation; this is the same conversation surrounding the Phillies for the last two seasons. In 2025, the numbers backed up the concern. The Phillies hit .240 with runners in scoring position, a figure that helps explain how a team with legitimate NL East title aspirations kept finding themselves in so many one-run games they should have put away. The pitching staff bailed out the offense many times last season, but this season, they are starting a bit slower, so the lack of hitting with RISP is amplified.

The frustrating part is that this is not a talent problem; this roster has legitimate hitters from top to bottom. What it has not shown consistently is the ability to convert. The gap between what this offense looks like in the first three innings and what it produces when the game is actually on the line is real, and it has been real for long enough that “small sample size” isn’t a valid argument any longer.

There must be a look at the approach at the plate for the Phils, because it is not in sync with where it needs to be. The pitch selection is a massive issue that Kevin Long and the coaching staff must address, and fast. In 100 at-bats with runners in scoring position this season, the Phillies are hitting .200, second-worst in the league. They are also vastly struggling against lefties, slashing .165/.277/.258 against left-handed pitching so far this season, which isn’t helping matters at all.

Manager Rob Thomson acknowledged after the opening series that the lineup was “maybe a little anxious” and would settle in. That’s a fair early-season framing, but the Phillies went into San Francisco and had the same results: full counts with men on second and third, weak contact on the pull side, which Thomson brought up after the game on Wednesday.

“10 pull side ground ball outs, you’ve gotta use the field.”

He also reiterated that the Phils haven’t really hit that much the entire season, but he also said emphatically, “I trust these guys.”

The Giants series should serve as an early reality check. This was not a tough road trip against a contender. San Francisco came in 3-8, running out a rotation barely held together right now, and the Phillies still could not put them away. When the offense goes cold and the pitching struggles at the same time, as it did in the last two games of this series, there is no margin for error. That is a dangerous combination for a team with October expectations, and until this lineup proves it can hit when it counts, the question will keep coming up.

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