August 14, 2024
Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports
Kyle Schwarber's go-ahead grand slam on Wednesday night offered Phillies fans both joy and relief.
For a team struggling as mightily as the Phillies have been over the last month and change -- particularly during a brutal road trip -- there could not be a gift better than a two-game home series against the MLB-worst Miami Marlins.
The soft cushion in the Phillies' schedule before their competition becomes daunting again should have served as the perfect chance to get right. But after this pair of games, it is difficult to feel anything other than massive skepticism about the state of this club.
Here is what jumped out from this quick series:
Walker, who had not made a start since June 21, was activated off the Injured List before Tuesday's game. The Phillies hoped that the time off as a blister on his throwing hand healed would allow him to reset after an extremely poor start to the season and enable him to use his splitter.
The early returns were... suboptimal. Walker allowed two earned runs in a disastrous first inning, struggled with command for most of his outing and only got through four innings on 76 pitches, allowing seven baserunners.
Walker is expected to remain part of the Phillies' starting rotation for the time being -- the team is expected to go to a six-man rotation at some point later this month -- but that is only because there really is no other option. Walker is still in the second year of a lucrative four-year contract and cannot be optioned to the minor leagues.
After an underwhelming but reasonable season in 2023, Walker did not appear in a single postseason game. That will almost certainly remain the case this time around, but he might not even be on the team's postseason roster this October. His season-long production -- a 5.68 ERA, 1.51 WHIP and .282/.353/.509 opposing slash line -- simply do not warrant it.
Unfortunately for the Phillies, Walker could have thrown a gem and it would not have mattered. The Phillies were shut out on Tuesday night, losing 5-0 after allowing Marlins starter Valente Bellozo to toss seven scoreless innings while only allowing four hits.
Before being called up, Bellozo pitched to a 4.64 ERA in 14 games across Double-A and Triple-A this season. His fastball averages 90.0 miles per hour, in the fifth percentile among all major-league pitchers. But against the Phillies, he looked unhittable.
The Phillies put together uncompetitive at-bat after uncompetitive at-bat -- taking pitches they should have swung at, swinging at pitches they should have taken and failing to square up the baseball.
This showing represented a new low for the Phillies' sputtering offense, which had not been shut out in their home ballpark in exactly one year prior to Tuesday's defeat. Among the culprits were Brandon Marsh, who went 0-3 with a pair of strikeouts, running his season-long strikeout percentage close to 33.3 percent -- meaning he had struck out in nearly a third of his plate appearances all season -- and Trea Turner, who looks like the version of himself that was one of the worst hitters in baseball for the first many months in 2023. Marsh was able to collect a pair of base hits on Wednesday -- one of which came against a left-handed pitcher -- and struck out once.
Turner's OPS has dropped by well over .100 points in just a month, and following an 0-4 performance on Tuesday, he was slashing .168/.210/.253 in 22 games since the All-Star break. Phillies manager Rob Thomson elected to give him the night off on Wednesday in hopes of resetting the star shortstop. Thomson indicated Wednesday afternoon that Turner is likely to remain in the second slot of the batting order moving forward.
Rookie starting pitcher Tyler Phillips put the Phillies in quite a hole on Wednesday night to begin what felt like a must-win game, allowing three runs in the first inning and another pair in the fourth. In the bottom half of the fourth, Johan Rojas -- who is putting together what might be the best stretch of at-bats in his major-league career -- loaded the bases with an infield single on a hard-hit ball in the hole to shortstop.
The lineup turned over, and with two outs and the Phillies trailing 5-2, Schwarber delivered -- just as he always has since joining the Phillies. Schwarber launched a grand slam to left-center field to give the Phillies the lead, sending the Citizens Bank Park crowd into a frenzy.
THANK YOU KYLE pic.twitter.com/98IznISiTA
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) August 15, 2024
For all parties involved -- Phillies players, Phillies staff and perhaps Phillies fans most of all, Schwarber's clutch blast provided the chance to breathe a sigh of relief, a jolt of catharsis that has rarely been felt around this team over the last two seasons.
When folks think about the most clutch Phillies hitters of this era, Bryce Harper will be the name that comes to mind most frequently -- and as the author of an iconic pennant-clinching home run, Harper has earned that. But Schwarber has also provided big hits in crucial spots time and time again, to the point that it almost felt inevitable that he would go yard when he came up with the bases loaded Wednesday night.
Schwarber's cleansing slam opened the floodgates for the Phillies, who posted three more runs in the seventh inning. After Schwarber and Nick Castellanos were retired to open the inning, Harper doubled, Alec Bohm singled him in, Stott doubled, and then J.T. Realmuto brought Bohm and Stott in with a double of his own.
Thomson used José Ruiz in the fifth inning before relying on his four most reliable options -- Matt Strahm, Jeff Hoffman, José Alvarado and Carlos Estévez -- to seal the deal. Thomson's bullpen got the job done.
Up next: Before heading to Atlanta for a pivotal three-game series against the Braves, the Phillies will host a four-game set against the Washington Nationals. Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Cristopher Sánchez and Walker are the team's probable starters. Washington will send left-handers to the mound in each of the first three games of the series; Edmundo Sosa and Weston Wilson could see plenty of action.
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