They lost 2-1. Again. They got swept by the Pirates. Again. They failed to score more than one run for the second straight game. Again. And for the fifth straight game overall, they lost. This time, they flew home from a 1-5 road trip that started in Toronto and ended with them getting outmaneuvered and outhit by a Pirates team that looked more like the contender.
Here’s the hard truth: since Bryce Harper exited the lineup with a sore left wrist, the Phillies haven’t just gone quiet. They’ve vanished. Their offense has been stuck in neutral, their at-bats have grown increasingly feeble, and the urgency to turn things around is now colliding with reality—because Harper didn’t sound Saturday like a man expecting to be ready when first eligible to come off the IL on June 16.
The numbers over the last week read like a cautionary tale. One win in six games. Just ten runs scored on the entire trip. One lonely home run in the last five games. They’ve now dropped nine of their last ten, and for a club that not long ago had the best record in baseball, the calendar flipped to June and suddenly they’re nearly as far behind the Mets as they were in late April after being swept in New York.
What’s more? Every loss in Pittsburgh came by a single run. Every go-ahead run the Pirates scored came in the seventh inning or later. On Friday, they walked it off. On Saturday, they squeezed out just enough. And on Sunday, Paul Skenes toyed with the Phillies’ bats through eight innings, while Andrew McCutchen—yes, that Andrew McCutchen—poked a go-ahead single in the eighth. Game. Series. Sweep.
The Phillies’ pitching, meanwhile, has been excellent. Good enough to win. Maybe even good enough to sweep. But the offense hasn’t been showing up to the same ballpark. They scored one run or fewer in four of the last five games. They’ve stopped hitting homers. They’ve stopped driving the ball at all. Against a Pirates pitching staff that came into the series ranked middle-of-the-pack in ERA and bottom-third in bullpen production, the Phillies mustered just five doubles and one home run in the entire three-game set. And this came after Harper was officially placed on the injured list.
The only thing keeping the entire offense from flatlining? Trea Turner. Since returning to the lineup at the start of the month, he’s hitting .300 with three homers and a .956 OPS. Everyone else, meanwhile, looks like they’re swinging underwater. Nick Castellanos is riding a 4-for-32 tailspin. Alec Bohm has driven in just two runs over his last eleven games. J.T. Realmuto has a .393 OPS in June. And Kyle Schwarber is still leading off while slugging .383 for the month.
Pitching Matchups
Monday: Matthew Boyd, LHP (5-3, 3.01 ERA, 1.194 WHIP, 3.46 FIP) vs. Zack Wheeler, RHP (6-2, 2.96 ERA, 0.921 WHIP, 2.92 FIP)
Tuesday: Colin Rea, RHP (4-2, 3.59 ERA, 1.353 WHIP, 4.32 FIP) vs. Mick Abel, RHP (1-0, 0.79 ERA, 0.706 WHIP, 1.13 FIP)
Wednesday: Ben Brown, RHP (3-4, 5.37 ERA, 1.429 WHIP, 3.13 FIP) vs. Jesús Luzardo, LHP (5-2, 4.46 ERA, 1.445 WHIP, 2.89 FIP)
Silence of the Bats
The Phillies now return to South Philadelphia, but the challenges don’t ease up. The Cubs are in town—first place in the NL Central—and they bring with them a tough pitching staff and a little bit of momentum. The Phillies, meanwhile, will turn to Zack Wheeler on Monday in search of something that’s eluded them for more than a week: a win they didn’t have to pitch perfectly to get.
This was supposed to be a stretch where the Phillies could flex their depth. But instead, the last ten games have been a reminder of just how thin the line is between elite and ordinary. And without Bryce Harper, that line just got even thinner.
So here they are. A good team playing bad baseball. A roster full of potential looking for a spark. A lineup searching for one big swing that might wake everybody up. Maybe it’s coming. But so far, it sure hasn’t shown up.
The Phillies now return to South Philadelphia, but the challenges don’t ease up. The Cubs are in town—first place in the NL Central—and they bring with them a tough pitching staff and a little bit of momentum. The Phillies, meanwhile, will turn to Zack Wheeler on Monday in search of something that’s eluded them for more than a week: a win they didn’t have to pitch perfectly to get.
This was supposed to be a stretch where the Phillies could flex their depth. But instead, the last ten games have been a reminder of just how thin the line is between elite and ordinary. And without Bryce Harper, that line just got even thinner.
So here they are. A good team playing bad baseball. A roster full of potential looking for a spark. A lineup searching for one big swing that might wake everybody up. Maybe it’s coming. But so far, it sure hasn’t shown up.
