We’ve reached Memorial Day weekend and it should be a very happy one for the Phillies. Despite waves of injuries, horrible defense, inconsistent offense, and some head-shaking blown leads in the bullpen, the Phils are right in the thick of a National League East race that has seen all five teams struggle to gain footing.
As of Friday, the Phils sit tied for second place in the division with the Atlanta Braves, 2½ games behind the first-place New York Mets. The Phils are a game under .500 at 25-26 with a tough weekend assignment looming in St. Petersburg, Florida. They will play the sizzling Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday and Sunday.
The Rays swept the Phillies on the final weekend of the 2020 season, ending the Phils’ postseason hopes, and they are off to a great start in 2021, leading the American League East at 32-20. The Rays have won 13 of their last 14. The Phils will have two of their best, Zack Wheeler and Zach Eflin, on the mound in the series.
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It’s not clear whether the Phillies will have J.T. Realmuto for the series. The All-Star catcher has been on the injured list with a bone bruise at the base of his left hand. Bryce Harper and Didi Gregorius are also on the IL.
Injuries have hit this team hard, but they’ve hit every team in the division hard. Before Harper, Realmuto and Gregorius went down, the Phillies were without Archie Bradley, their signature offseason bullpen addition, for a month.
“We’ve battled,” said first baseman Rhys Hoskins, who has stepped up and hit .310 with five doubles, three homers and 17 RBIs in May. “We’ve had some weird wins. We’ve had some really, really weird losses. We’ve had some really high points, like the (four-game) sweep of the Brewers.
"We’ve had some guys injured. We haven’t really had the lineup all together in probably a month it feels like. I don’t know where we’re at standings-wise compared to the Mets, but I know we’re close.
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"So being close to first place in the division a quarter of the way through without what feels like a full squad, I think we should be pretty happy about that. But we also know that we’ve probably given some games away. So, we’ll try to look to minimize that going forward and capitalize on the opportunities that are put in front of us.”
The month of June could be quite telling for the Phillies. Fourteen of the team’s 24 games are in-division and there’s also a trip out West, where the powerhouse Dodgers have heated up and Gabe Kapler would love to stick three Ls in the Phillies’ cargo hold.
June could very well determine the team’s strategy heading into the trade deadline, whether it adds talent or looks to shed payroll. The Phillies are already at about $203 million in payroll and the luxury tax threshold is $210 million. Would the Phillies exceed the threshold to break the longest postseason drought (nine years) in the National League?
“I have not had any conversations with ownership about that, but I will say, they want to win,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said. “Nobody has ever told me you can’t exceed the tax nor have I been told to stay under it. I haven’t had that conversation.”
For the record, ownership has long said it would consider exceeding the tax for a significant upgrade that would vault the team deep into October, but not necessarily for a marginal pickup.
The key to June might be health. Harper and Realmuto are two of the most impactful players in the division and Gregorius is a dangerous left-handed bat and the team’s starting shortstop. You can’t take two players out of the middle of the diamond and Harper’s bat out of the lineup for long and expect to survive. All three need a quick return to health — and they need to produce. And speaking of production, the Phillies need more from Alec Bohm on both sides of the ball. He doesn't have to carry the team, but he needs to be a solid complementary piece on offense and make every routine play at third base.
The Phillies are in second place in the division with the 29th-ranked defense in the majors, according to Fangraphs, which has them at minus-32 defensive runs saved. No other team in the NL East has a negative number.
Offensively, the Phils are in the middle of the pack in batting average at .234 — it’s been a dreadful offensive year all over the game — and runs per game at 4. Strikeouts have plagued the offense. The Phils have the most in the NL at 513. Dombrowski has commented that he’d like to see the club improve its two-strike approach.
The bullpen ranks 23rd with a 4.62 ERA, far from stellar but not historically bad, as it was last year.
Starting pitching, even with the problems the team has had at the No. 4 and 5 spots, has been the strength it was predicted to be. The Phils are tied for sixth in the majors with 22 quality starts. The starting staff ranks 12th in the majors with a 3.87 ERA, 11th with a 1.20 WHIP and is tied for third with 301 strikeouts.
The entire pitching staff would benefit from better defense and more margin for error — i.e., more runs scored. Twenty-eight of the team’s 51 games have been decided by two or fewer runs.
The Phils are far from a smooth-running machine at the Memorial Day checkpoint, but neither is anyone else in their NL East neighborhood.
“We haven’t played consistently well, but I feel if we stay close, get everyone together and make some improvements, we can put a spurt together, and I think we can compete,” Dombrowski said.
“Now, if somebody in our division wins 100 games — I don’t think we’re that kind of team. But I think we can compete because we have a lot of good players when you look at the Big 3 (Aaron Nola, Wheeler and Eflin), Harper, Realmuto and some of the supporting cast. I wish we could get them all on the field together. But I believe we can compete. A lot of things have to come together and we have to play well, but I believe we can compete.”
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