The Phillies Are Royally Screwed

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. I will not try to convince anyone of anything good. If you came here looking for any sort of hope for the Phillies this summer, you’ve come to the wrong place. On today, June 26, with the Phillies three games above .500 and 2.5 games back of the last wild card spot, I declare the season over.

 

Bryce Harper fractured his left thumb on Saturday night because of a completely unavoidable situation. He took a 97 mph fastball off of his left hand, because if he hadn’t gone into natural self-defense mode, it would have gone off his face. There was nothing Harper could have done.

 

 

Now, the Phillies are royally screwed, because a washed up Cy Young pitcher couldn’t locate an inside fastball. I know Blake Snell didn’t do it on purpose, but that doesn’t make me any less frustrated by the situation. This was the same reaction Harper had last night, as he was animated toward Snell, only to immediately apologize because that’s the type of good dude he’s become.

 

Still, there is a very strong possibility that Snell has ruined the Phillies season. For that, I will hold an eternal disliking for him, as he has made my list of Philly sports villains. It’s because of him that I will likely get no joy out of watching the rest of this gaggling cast of characters try to resemble a baseball team. To anyone who preemptively bought Phillies tickets for any game the rest of the season, I send you my deepest condolences.

 

 

 

We Should Have Seen This Coming

 

We all should know how this goes by now. In Philadelphia sports, for as long as I can remember, whenever things are going well, they tend to come crashing down. Typically in a very dramatic, laugh-in-your-face sort of way. When Donald Trump said bad things happen in Philadelphia, he was right. Just not in the context he was talking about.

 

With the Sixers, you don’t have to look any further than last June when Ben Simmons almost single-handedly ruined Father’s day in the Delaware Valley. After being the best team in the eastern conference for the entirety of the regular season, they were outplayed in a series where they had home-court advantage against the Atlanta friggin’ Hawks. As you can tell, I’m still not over it.

 

With the Eagles, Carson Wentz was an MVP favorite, playing the best football a quarterback has ever played in this city. Then, after a slew of injuries, reports against his character (they might have been right?), and destroyed self-confidence, he became a shell of himself and was shipped out of town just three years later. after a Super Bowl ring.

 

With the Flyers, they were one of the best teams in the NHL in 2020 before the pandemic shut down sports for a few months. They came back, earned the top seed in the eastern conference, and lost a heartbreaking series to the New York Islanders where they got blown out in a game seven.

 

First and foremost, the Phillies got luckier than an Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day because of the implementation of the designated hitter in the national league this season. If not for that, Harper would have already have missed an extended period of time because of his UCL injury and we wouldn’t even be talking about this God forsaken team.

 

Back in reality, they were somehow able to rebound from a less-than-inspiring start to the season that saw them eight games below .500 at the beginning of the month. Then, they canned Joe Girardi, replaced him with Rob Thomson, and a few weeks later the Phils find themselves three games above .500 and just 2.5 games out of a playoff spot.

 

Bryce Harper, naturally, was at the forefront of the team’s success. He’s been one of the very best, if not the best hitter in baseball for over a year now. He was doing everything right at the plate, leading the league in extra-base hits, hitting game-tying grand slams, and just being objectively cool. This team had a swagger about them during this streak they’ve been on in June, and it started with Harper.

 

 

You could notice the lack of fire and swagger in the lineup when Harper was forced to miss a few games earlier this week with a blister. The offense was lifeless. They couldn’t find a gap if the ball was set up on a tee for them. The Phils 3-6 record in games Harper has missed this season isn’t a coincidence.

 

He’ll be missed sorely in the dugout, sure, but his lack of a presence in this lineup is going to kill them. The Phillies could manage losing their second-best pure hitter in Jean Segura, who suffered the exact same injury to another finger on a hit by pitch. They cannot, and will not, manage with Harper.

 

Who’s Picking Up The Slack?

 

With Harper out for a length of time that’s going to make my physically ill, the Phillies are going to be forced to rely on some other jokesters to help keep them afloat. As you can tell by the way I refer to the rest of this lineup, I’m not really exuding confidence over here.

 

My main reason for that is because, outside of the lackluster performance from some of these clowns, this team was built around Bryce Harper. This lineup was assembled with the assumption that #3 was going to dig his feet into the left-handed batter’s box, third in the order, for the rest of eternity.

 

That’s why the Phillies could afford to go out and get a guy like Kyle Schwarber. He’s one of the best power hitters in the league, and the best baseball player to ever pick up a bat in the month of June. Truth be told, though, he can’t be the best hitter in your lineup, which at this point he is. His batting average is over 100 points lower than Harper’s. Great power hitter, yes, great overall hitter? Not really.

 

Rhys Hoskins, like Schwarber, has had a great month of June. Yet, after watching him the previous four seasons, it’s tough for me to garner any sort of long-term confidence in Hoskins. He is the textbook baseball definition of hot-and-cold. When he’s hot at the plate, he can carry this team just as well as Harper can. When he’s cold, he drags the lineup down better than Cody Asche ever could.

 

Then there’s Nick Castellanos, who I’ve really lost all my patience with. When it comes to pure hitters that were supposed to carry the lineup in an event of catastrophe like the Phils are in now, Castellanos was supposed to be that guy. Instead, he’s been floundering at the plate. He’s swinging at pitches that aren’t even the same area code as his bat. He’s bounced into more double plays than J.T. Realmuto with the bases loaded, and that’s saying a lot.

 

Castellanos enters Sunday’s game with a .242 batting average and a .298 on-base percentage and has just seven ding-dongs, none of which have come since Memorial Day. The Phillies are paying him $20 million for each of the next five seasons. Now, the pressure for a struggling hitter only heightens. This is quite literally a recipe for disaster. In his press conference in March, Castellanos famously said he didn’t go to college, he hits baseballs for a living. If he keeps this up, he might need to hit the books.

 

 

As far as Realmuto goes, he’s the second-highest paid player on the team behind Harper. He’s one of the leaders of the clubhouse, seeing as he’s been here for a few years. His bat has gotten hot over the first three games against San Diego, and he’s still one of the best defensive catchers in baseball. He’s more of a guy that I look to for trying to replace Harper’s leadership in the clubhouse and swagger in the lineup. His bat is never going to carry this team, the Phils just need him to be consistent, which he hasn’t been this year.

 

Last-Ditch Effort

 

There is no way to replace Bryce Harper. This situation reminds me a lot of Moneyball, the movie about the 2002 Oakland Athletics. You can’t possibly replace Harper with one guy, he’s the most irreplaceable hitter in the game outside of Mike Trout. Instead, the Phillies need to focus on replacing his output with multiple guys.

 

Maybe they should be able to do that with the cast of multi-millionaires they assembled, but I’m not so confident. If Harper is really expected to miss most of, if not the rest, of the season, then Dave Dombrowski needs to get on the phone and do exactly what the Braves did last year to replace Ronald Acuna Jr.

 

Go out and get this year’s versions of Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario, and Adam Duvall. They’re out there, Dombrowski’s just got to find them. Unfortunately, this might be the Phillies best course of action, because quite frankly a platoon of Mickey Moniak, Matt Vierling, and Odubel Herrera ain’t gonna cut it.

 

Here’s to hoping for the best possible news regarding Harper’s injury. Best case scenario, Harper’s out a few weeks and doesn’t need surgery to repair the fracture. Worst case scenario…Eagles training camp starts July 26. See ya at 4:10.

 

 

 

By Matt Szczypiorski | June 26, 2022
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