Remember when the Phillies were leading the National League East? It’s true, it happened, on more than one occasion: they’ve spent 32 days of the 2018 season in first, but the last time they were there was a month ago, on Aug. 12. Head back a little bit further on the calendar, to Aug. 7, and the Phillies were at their highpoint of 15 games over .500.
The Phillies’ downward spiral continued with 2 losses Tuesday
The Phillies were good once. No, it’s true!
Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
Since that early August high, though, Philadelphia has spiraled. They were 64-49 then, 1.5 games up on the Braves in the National League East, and now they find themselves 6.5 games back of those same Braves, with a record of 74-70: Philly has gone just 10-21 in the last month-plus, and that run has all but quashed their 2018 postseason hopes.
The last two of those losses came on Tuesday in a doubleheader with the Nationals, a mediocre club that is now neck-and-neck with a Phillies team they were six games back of on Aug. 7. It’s not that the Phillies are just suddenly unlucky, or anything as simple and baseball-being-baseball as that: Philly is playing like a fundamentally different team now. Whereas their run differential was +41 through Aug. 7, they’ve now been outscored by 16 runs on the season after allowing 170 runs over their last 31 games. That’s 5.5 runs allowed per game, at a time when they’re averaging 3.6 runs per game.
The 2018 season will still be a success for the Phillies whether they make the postseason or not, considering it was just last year they lost 96 games and finished last in the NL East. It’s also a good thing the season will be a success regardless, because the Phils are 6.5 games out of not just the division, but also a wild card spot. The wild card is the more difficult of the two targets to hit, too, as Philly is trailing the Brewers, Cardinals, Dodgers, and D-Backs in that race.
The season isn’t officially over for Philadelphia, of course. They still have about a 12 percent chance at the NL East title, and with seven games left against the Braves before the regular season ends, fortunes and probabilities could change in a hurry. For that to happen, though, the Phillies’ run prevention is also going to have to change in a hurry.
- The Mariners are another team that had postseason dreams and aspirations not that long ago, but hoo boy did they Mariners the heck out of things.
- No, Spencer Kieboom didn’t swing so hard that he knocked a tooth out while hitting his first career home run. And he didn’t even lose a real tooth! He lost a veneer eating a baguette at breakfast. This potentially legendary moment just got worse and worse. Why couldn’t you lie to us, Spencer?
- The Cubs-Nationals fighting over rain and makeup games isn’t going away anytime soon, not with Hurricane Florence looming. We tried to explain the situation, which might end up having postseason implications.
- Talking Chop looked at the Phillies’ and Braves’ schedules the rest of the way to see what could be learned.
- Viva El Birdos wonders if the Cardinals need to make a decision on Miles Milokas.
- Athletics Nation is out here boasting about the A’s position players.
- The Giants just tied a San Francisco-era worst with their 10th loss in a row.
- Camden Chat is already looking to the Orioles’ offseason to escape 2018’s treacherous, depressing gravity, and finds 2019 isn’t looking so great, either.
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