Last night the Phillies dropped a heart breaker to the Nationals, 8-7 powered by a Ryan Zimmerman walk-off in the 9th. Pair that with a 2-1 Braves win over the Pirates and Philly finds themselves 3 games behind Atlanta in the NL East.
August 22nd is officially the day in 2018 that the Phillies broke my spirits.
— Jamie Lynch (@jelynchjr) August 23, 2018
The Phils have come up on the business end, 9 of their last 13 games. And it’s not about to get easier. They finish out with Washington today at 1 pm before heading to Toronto for a three game series. Yikes. Also Atlanta is preparing for a series against the cellar dwellers, Miami. Philly could easily find themselves 5 or 6 games back before Monday.
If you would have asked any Phillies fan before the season, would you be excited for meaningful baseball in September? Every fan would have said yes. This team is so young and meaningful games in the last month of the season says that they are ahead of schedule. Gabe, love him or hate him, has proven that this group is most definitely ahead of schedule but they are just about done this year.
It’s painful to say but they just aren’t ready to win this year. The Phils have hung in there all season, fought, and I’m sure they will continue to the remainder of the year but it doesn’t look like they can keep treading water. They don’t do what winning baseball teams have to do.
They don’t:
– Protect leads. Legitimately, no lead is safe for this team. They have the second most errors committed in NL. Woof.
– Have a bullpen that can’t consistently go 7,8,9. They can’t even consistently get through the 9th.
– Score enough. 545 runs scored to 544 runs given up. The entire NL Central, every team, has scored more runs this year than the Phillies.
They almost have to sweep the Blue Jays, which they won’t. And with them now going from NL East contenders to not even currently in a wild card spot. Things have gone from bad to worse. I don’t think this team ends up in the playoffs this year anymore. Go get me Harper. Get Santana off this team he stinks.
Carlos Santana’s last game with more than extra-base hit was on May 13.
— Matt Breen (@matt_breen) August 23, 2018
Move Hoskins to first and stop batting him second. Add another bullpen arm and a bottom of the rotation starter. Boom. There I just won the NL East for Philly next year and possibly put them in the World Series. You’re welcome.
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