DETROIT -- The Philadelphia Phillies have been stuck in baseball purgatory. A complete rebuild is never easy, but they drove over that cliff long ago. The team has been a walking punch line for so long, it’s hard to accept that they might not be the worst team in baseball anymore. But improve they have, and the Phillies have a chance to be an intriguing contender ahead of schedule.
The Phillies’ rebuild is already producing results
The young organization will need more offense if they’re going to contend, though.
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The Phillies’ pitching has been the team’s saving grace so far this year. The team has played fairly decent baseball this year, and despite dropping an interleague series to the Detroit Tigers, they’re still five games over .500 and only 2.5 games behind the first-place Washington Nationals. However, if they’re going to contend, they’re going to need more offense.
With the exception of center fielder Odubel Herrera, the team has the collective offensive capacity of a newborn baby deer. The club is in the growing phase of a rebuild -- the Phillies have the second-youngest offensive lineup in the National League and their pitching staff ranks as the youngest -- and those halves lack consistency as a team.
The pitching appears to be ahead of schedule, but they’re still adjusting to opposing teams. The starters who struggle with secondary pitches on any given day have learned the hard way just how little wiggle room there is with mistakes, especially when facing power hitters.
“Good hitters are like sharks and they smell the blood (when a pitcher loses command),” Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said on Monday. “They know you’re gonna have to throw strikes sooner or later, and they sit on the fastball.”
The Phillies’ starters are just on the right side of the fence for being able to get away with mistakes made. For a team this young, that’s impressive.
That’s also where the advantages end. Pitching can be lights-out but without run support, even a one-run performance across nine can be enough for a loss. That’s where the Phillies find themselves. A dependable starting five with a lockdown bullpen and solid defense to back it up, but their offense is anemic, excluding Herrera.
Cameron Rupp, 27, is only in his first full season as the team’s starting catcher. He became the primary backstop in late June of last year, but before that he only played roughly 50 games total at the major league level. Rupp has been hitting for a decent average but the power isn’t there and his minor league track record indicates he’ll drop off significantly as the season wears on.
First baseman Ryan Howard has experience but he’s also a shell of his former All-Star self. Rookie Tommy Joseph has the small sample size of nine whole games at the majors, and inconsistent minor league numbers to indicate he can’t put up solid numbers with any long-term consistency.
One player that could give them decent production -- in addition to Herrera -- is Andres Blanco, a utility player with nine years of MLB experience. He’s now played in 33 of the team’s 47 games this year, and while he isn’t slugging the ball for home run power, he can get on-base and provide some gap power. The team certainly isn’t going to get it from players like Cesar Hernandez or Peter Bourjos, who have four and seven years, respectively, of time in the majors.
Because this is such a young team, Mackanin is more concerned with teaching players how to play the game the right way, and sometimes that’s proved costly. He’s less focused on wins and more concerned with ensuring his players are giving 100 percent all the time.
"One of the ingredients to our success to this point is the fact that these guys play with energy, they play hard." -Phillies manager Pete Mackanin
Monday night was a perfect example: Herrera, the team's best and only power hitter, didn't run out a grounder to first. Mackanin yanked him before the start of the next half inning, and the Phillies went on to lose the game by one run. Before the manager got to Herrera, though, Howard pulled the youngster aside and talked to him about it, which was equally encouraging for Mackanin because it showed him that the more experienced players were policing their own.
“He didn’t run,” Mackanin said. “One of the ingredients to our success to this point is the fact that these guys play with energy, they play hard, and we’re training them to play the game the right way. And not running is not the right way. And that’s why, it’s more important for me to set that tone than to take our best hitter out of the lineup.”
If it was a one-time thing, pulling Herrera would’ve been a different story. But Mackanin had seen a pattern in the past and decided it was time to nip it in the bud. It may not have been a popular decision for Herrera to be pulled, but for the Phillies, it was a necessary decision for the long-term benefit.
The true test is on this road trip the Phillies currently find themselves on. Against the Tigers, they lost two of three and now have to deal with the Chicago Cubs and then the Nationals again. If they come out of this road trip with even an even record, it will have accomplished something.
If the Phillies are still in contention in July, they might have a tough choice on their hands: whether to go for it now or let the rebuild continue as planned. For now, it just might be best to appreciate the pleasant surprise the Phillies have been this year. They’re not going to become a postseason favorite this year, but at least they’re no longer baseball’s punch line.
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