How Luis Arraez’s Injury Impacts the Phillies Moving Forward
Philadelphia Phillies' Luis Arraez (4) is helped off the field after being injured during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Luis Arraez is hurt, and the Phillies still haven’t clinched a postseason spot. Sounds about as Philadelphia as it gets.
The Phillies have three games left in the regular season, and there’s a chance that it’s their final three game of their season, period. While the odds of the Phillies not making the playoffs are low, they’re not zero, and the way the team is playing right now, they honestly don’t deserve to make the playoffs.
They have lost 12 of their last 20 games, and over their last nine games they’ve scored a combined 30 runs, with 13 of the runs scored coming in two games. In the past two games, the Phillies scored just one run in both games, going 0-for-12 and 1-for-16 with runners in scoring position.
The offense has been downright disgraceful, showing signs of early in the season when nothing could go right, and they couldn’t produce runs any sort of way. It’s an insane drop-off from the previous month, when the Phillies were hitting anything and everything and producing runs in all sorts of ways, thanks to some of their new additions and new approach.
Now, you add to the terrible offensive stretch: the Phillies may have lost one of their deadline acquisitions and one of the best hitters in their lineup for potentially the remainder of the season, Luis Arraez. Arraez went down in the finale of the Phillies series against the Milwaukee Brewers, spraining his ankle trying to avoid a tag at first base. The second baseman was unable to put any pressure down on his ankle. Judging by his reaction, it doesn’t seem like it was a minor injury.
“I’m hopeful that he can play. Yeah, but we’ll see,” interim manager Don Mattingly said Thursday night. “It’s gonna be testing [Friday] morning. I just kind of real quickly walked through, left ankle sprain, X-rays negative, and that’s as far as I got.”
Not the worst news and not the best news.
Arraez will likely not play in Friday’s opener against the Tampa Bay Rays, but how much time he misses is still up in the air.
So where does that leave the Phillies with three games remaining and potentially a postseason berth? If Arraez is to miss the final series against the Rays and the Wild Card series, Bryce Harper will likely go back to first base, Bryson Stott will return to second, and Alec Bohm will go back to third. This would force one of Bryan De La Cruz, Edmundo Sosa, or Derek Hill to play full time in the outfield.
It essentially puts them right back to where they were pre-trade deadline, forcing Bohm back into the four-hole and having to be the protection for Harper. All season long, the Phillies have struggled to protect their top hitters with a reliable right-handed bat. Bohm and J.T. Realmuto have failed when given the chance, and offseason acquisition Adolis Garcia was awful during his healthy time with the team and went down with a season-ending injury.
The other option is to keep Bohm and Harper at first and in right field, respectively, and move Stott back to second and put Sosa over at third base. That option isn’t great as it keeps Harper, who hasn’t been good in the outfield defensively, out in right, and it forces them to rearrange their infield again just three days before the regular season ends.
Obviously, they could do it, and they may not have a choice considering how bad the injury is, but messing with your infield after you just spent the last two months having guys in new spots isn’t ideal.
Losing Arraez less than a week away from potentially playing postseason ball is a problem, but right now, it seems as if it doesn’t even matter who is penciled into the lineup card; this team can’t find ways to produce runs at a consistent rate.
It’s not even just a bad series for this group; it’s been like this the entire month, and arguably it’s been like this for almost the whole season, especially against playoff-caliber teams. The Phillies are 8-24 this season against the Brewers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, and Chicago Cubs, the four National League teams this season that have clinched so far. They’ve been outscored in those 32 matchups 186-116.
If the Phillies make the playoffs, their first-round playoff series will likely be in Atlanta or Chicago, and if they somehow make the NLDS, they’ll play either Milwaukee or LA. Despite showing clear signs that the skill gap between the top clubs and the Phillies is widening, the team still feels that the losses to good teams are just good performances from good teams.
“I say we’re in a playoff-style game today, so runs aren’t going to be flying off the board,” Mattingly said. “We’re playing a pretty good club, so it’s not like we were playing somebody that’s a good club. They catch the ball. They put pressure on you in different ways. They got good arms, so their bullpen’s good. You got to be able to find a way to score, obviously, to win games. I don’t know if we’re feeling pressure. We should be feeling some pressure. I feel some pressure, but I mean, it’s that time of year, and you’re trying to win games.”
It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, and it doesn’t matter what kind of game style you’re playing; winning games against good opponents is something you have to figure out if you’re going to consider yourself a World Series contender.
Producing runs in ways other than the long ball and clutch hits has sort of always been the Phillies’ M.O., but in recent years, it’s felt as though the aging veteran players just can’t seem to produce like they used to. It feels as though this group is just checked out and doesn’t care about this team this season.
Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and Harper are hitting a combined .219 in September. Realmuto is 0 for his last 29. Brandon Marsh is hitting .159 in September.
No matter what they say or whatever mindset they say they have, it doesn’t feel real. They can say that they’re right there all they want; it doesn’t feel or look that way.
“We’re in the driver’s seat, so we just got to play our brand of baseball, and we got to win,” Bryce Harper said. “We can’t really worry about any other teams or what they’re doing. So just got to keep going, and obviously Tampa’s a great team as well. So got to go out and play our baseball. We just got to win.”
Your brand of baseball hasn’t worked. It really has never worked. It’s caused you to come up short in the postseason in every season you’ve made it, losing series and games where your star offensive players come up small game after game.
The fans have given up hope that the Phillies will come through when October comes along, and it’s because it’s been the same song and dance year after year. It’ll be unlikely that this team doesn’t make it, but if they do, they’re not going anywhere. A World Series is not happening in Philadelphia in 2026, not unless one incredible turnaround occurs.
Matt Brown
Matt has been a Philadelphia sports fan all his life and spent four years at Penn State University majoring in Broadcast Journalism and minoring in Sports Studies. He previously covered Penn State’s field hockey, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball teams while writing for a Penn State blog called Onward State. He has now covered the Phillies, Eagles, and Sixers for Philly Sports Reports since October 2024 and wants to pursue a career in Sports Journalism.
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