August 17, 2024
Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports
How do Phillies lefty hitters Brandon Marsh and Bryson Stott handle pinch hitting late in games?
The Phillies found themselves in a bind heading into the bottom of the ninth inning during a home game against the New York Mets on May 16: the team trailed by a run, and two-time All-Star closer Edwin Díaz had been summoned to put up a zero and end the game.
Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott was not in the team's starting lineup that night. But within moments, the Citizens Bank Park crowd had risen to its feet singing "AOK." Stott's famous walkup music was playing and the ballpark was the loudest it had been all night. Suddenly, Stott was standing in the batter's box against one of the most feared relievers in the sport with two outs remaining and the tying run in scoring position. Down to his final strike, Stott slashed a base hit to right field, scoring Phillies outfielder Brandon Marsh, sending the game to extra innings and sending the park into a frenzy.
The Great Stott ties it up!! pic.twitter.com/3JnyKBgiqY
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) May 17, 2024
Pinch hitting is a unique craft that many of the great hitters cannot master. In conversations with PhillyVoice, Stott and Marsh discussed their ongoing journeys as they try to perfect it — from the inner workings of their strategies entering pinch hitting situations to the dramatic nature of those moments in a raucous stadium and everything in between.
Because of Phillies manager Rob Thomson's reliance on the optimization of lefty-righty matchups within the second half of his lineup, when October arrives the team will likely see its fair share of crucial pinch hitting opportunities. In 2023, the team posted a .781 OPS in pinch hit plate appearances, the fifth-best mark in the majors. But this year, their .485 OPS in those situations is fifth-worst among all clubs.
Why such a drastic change? Part of it may be due to relatively small sample sizes. But there is no doubt that pinch hitting is becoming more and more difficult each year as bullpens across baseball get better and throw harder.
Entering Friday night, 16 qualified starting pitchers threw four-seam fastballs averaging at least 95.0 miles per hour, according to FanGraphs. And 93 qualified relievers surpassed that threshold. Naturally, any job for a hitter becomes exponentially tougher when the person on the mound is capable of reaching triple-digits. Stott and Marsh each spoke to the difficulty of stepping up to the plate in a crucial situation without having been incorporated within the flow of said game. That challenge escalates considerably against upper-tier velocity.
"When the first pitch you see is 100 [MPH], it's not the best," Stott said.
Stott and Marsh, however, each excelled in pinch hitting situations in 2023 before struggling with those situations for the first many months of the 2024 season. The sample sizes are too small for anything substantial to be gleaned from these numbers, but the discrepancies in production as pinch hitters from year to year are stark for both players:
| Stott in 2023 (7 PA) | Stott in 2024 (11 PA) |
| .333 AVG | .111 AVG |
| .429 OBP | .273 OBP |
| .833 SLG | .111 SLG |
| 1 K | 2 K |
| Marsh in 2023 (11 PA) | Marsh in 2024 (13 PA) |
| .429 AVG | .083 AVG |
| .636 OBP | .154 OBP |
| 1.000 SLG | .167 SLG |
| 3 K | 8 K |
There is no doubt that if the Phillies make another deep run into October, Marsh will be called upon for a critical pinch hit at-bat at some point. Marsh's struggles against left-handed pitching have been well-documented; it is difficult to imagine him starting any games against southpaws when the postseason is underway. However, when a right-handed reliever enters the game, Marsh will instantly be in play to pinch hit. The arrangement could net him more than one chance to swing games in either direction with just one plate appearance.
"Not being in the lineup to start, my opportunity is if they have a high-leverage righty coming," Marsh said. "Definitely just focusing on their right-handed relievers in leverage situations and just staying hot, staying ready."
Most players can stomach a single poor plate appearance. A starter bats at least three or four times, depending on their spot in the lineup. But a pinch hitter typically has just one opportunity to impact the game at the plate. How does a pinch hitter avoid overthinking their chance to swing the bat?
"It's tremendously hard not to do too much," Marsh said. "It's hard not to try to be Superman... you've got to find ways to tone it down."
While it was technically not a pinch hit appearance, Marsh came through for the Phillies off the bench about five and a half hours after detailing how hard it was to do exactly that. He entered Friday's game as a defensive replacement in the top of the ninth inning, but Carlos Estévez blew a two-run lead. Marsh led off the bottom half of the inning, matched up with — you guessed it — a hard-throwing, high-leverage right-handed reliever.
Washington Nationals All-Star Kyle Finnegan threw a two-strike fastball at 97 MPH and Marsh smoked it off the right field wall at an exit velocity of 108.3 MPH — his fourth-hardest hit of the season. It initially appeared as if Marsh would be held to a single, but an errant throw from right field enabled him to dash to second base. Three batters later, Marsh stepped on home plate as the winning run on a walk-off hit from Trea Turner.
There is another critical factor at play in these situations, particularly when the Phillies are at home: the lively South Philadelphia crowds who introduce a theatrical aspect to all of this — particularly when it comes to two fan favorites in Stott and Marsh. Both players' faces light up upon the mention of the instant when an entire crowd realizes at the same time that one of their favorites is coming off the bench to bat in a huge spot. The excitement often results in a deafening ovation like the one Marsh received before his rally-igniting scorcher Friday night.
Like Stott's "AOK," a hit song from Tai Verdes, Marsh has walkup music that fans immediately associate with him: a pair of songs by Philadelphia native rapper Lil Uzi Vert. The signature tunes provide an additional connection between player and fan.
"When they hear 'AOK,' the whole stadium stands up," Marsh said.
Stott likens pinch hit appearances at home to a much different experience.
"Oh, it's awesome," Stott said. "It feels kind of like you're in the WWE coming out for SmackDown!"
There is no question that this sort of moment can drastically alter the energy of a stadium. But does a sold-out crowd going ballistic actually add a jolt of extra emotions to the players themselves?
"Oh yeah," Marsh said. "And it's good juice, you know? It's good juice you've got to learn how to control, though. Just because if you go out there and you try to be Bryce Harper, you're not going to be Bryce Harper. 'You've got to be the best Brandon Marsh you can be,' that's what I tell myself."
"Just hearing everyone kind of explode," Stott said. "The second you hear the song, everyone kind of notices. It gets pretty loud in here."
Perhaps Marsh's well-timed laser off the bench is a sign of things to come for a player and team who will need more clutch late-game swings in order to reach what has become their singular goal: winning a World Series.
"Pinch hitting is..." Marsh said before pausing. "I won't lie to you: it's very hard. It's one of the hardest things to do as a position player, in my opinion, to come off the bench cold and face their back end of their bullpen."
"They're in there for a reason," Marsh said of the relievers tasked with getting the most crucial outs of a game. "But we are too... We all can do it at any given time."
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