Phillies’ One-Inning Offense Epitomizes Early-Season Struggles

Just when you think the Phillies have found some offensive momentum, they haven’t.

Sunday’s 4-3 loss to the Diamondbacks epitomized their offensive struggles so far this year — scoring in only one inning. To back Andrew Painter, who was scratched from his start but still managed to throw five innings out of the bullpen, the Phillies rallied in the sixth inning behind four consecutive extra-base hits.

They took a 3-2 lead in the sixth and, following Brandon Marsh‘s flare single into center field, threatened to extend that lead with runners on the corners and no outs. But Bryce Harper was caught in a pickle on a groundball from Bryson Stott, and Adolis Garcia and Alec Bohm were retired in the next three pitches.

“Just bad baseball,” Harper said postgame. “Had an opportunity right there, and didn’t do the thing we needed to do to come through in that situation.”

Rob Thomson said Harper’s decision to go home was the right decision as it prevented a double play, but that wasn’t the only out he made on the basepaths in Sunday’s loss, as he tried to stretch a single into a double in the fourth. Nonetheless, the sixth-inning out on the basepaths led to a cascade of outs, which kept their lead to one run despite having runners on first and third with no outs.

“When you don’t come through in those situations, it’s tough as a team, and we have to come through in those situations,” Harper said. “Just have to be better.”

The three runs the Phillies scored in the sixth were the only runs they scored all game. Similar to Saturday’s win, where they scored four runs in the third, or Friday night’s loss, where they scored four in the first, and couldn’t push a run across for the remainder of either game.

This problem dates back further than this past weekend, however. The Phillies have scored in three of their last 46 innings and 68 of their last 76, a feat they haven’t achieved since 2016. A weekend like this can be shrugged off as “that’s baseball,” but these numbers date back to their trip to Colorado last weekend.

And it’s an interesting problem to have, considering the cornerstone of the franchise, Harper, is finally heating up, with a posted .344 batting average, 1.197 OPS, and three home runs in the last nine games. Additionally, Harper has also only struck out four times and has walked six in this stretch.

But he isn’t where the problem lies — it’s the bats behind him.

Bohm is hitless in his last seventeen at-bats with seven strikeouts. He was dropped to eighth in the lineup this weekend, at least for now, because the Diamondbacks posed a match-up favorable to lefties.

Stott used the right-handed pitcher-heavy team to his advantage to knock three hits over nine at-bats, but he’s been brutal in these past series. In the six games leading up to Sunday, Stott is hitting a whopping .136, with no extra-base hits.

The final piece of the middle-of-the-order-struggle puzzle is Garcia, who has come down from a strong series against the Nationals to a .229 batting average and .678 OPS.

These numbers, along with the rest of the team, have placed the Phillies 26th in the league on batting average with runners in scoring position (.209). The number isn’t sustainable, in a good way, for the Phillies, and they’re bound to get some hits through.

If there’s one positive, Sunday’s loss had an uptick in traffic on the basepaths, which, with the help of the law of averages, will raise the batting average with RISP over time, resulting in more runs, and with the next four series against the Cubs and Braves ahead, this is a good trend.

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