Philadelphia Phillies become Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Right when the Philadelphia Phillies needed consistent play the most, the team has resembled a character of fiction.

Philadelphia Phillies fans have wrestled with defining their team for most of August now. Some are likely losing sleep over questions such as: How can they look so good against Boston, then lose a series to San Diego? All such questions are merely disguises worn by the basic question about the club: Is it actually good enough to compete and win in September?

Ultimately, the doubleheader the Phillies played against the New York Mets Aug. 16 provided no clear answer to that fundamental question. However, their egregious 24-4 loss in the first game and their 9-6 victory in the second did clarify the nature of the 2018 Phillies.

Simply put, this team is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This means, of course, that September is very likely going to be a rollercoaster ride for Delaware Valley baseball fans, and that’s not just a matter of the team being defined by the dual nature theme Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel is famous for. Nobody’s going to be surprised if they don’t know until the end of the month whether or not Philadelphia will advance to the post-season, and if they do advance, no one will be able to predict what happens then.

Certainly, the circus of the Mets doubleheader should have been a bit predictable, but the stark contrast between games one and two will probably be, in retrospect, a defining moment in the season.

Game one was about as embarrassing a loss as an MLB team can suffer, but again, it featured all the negatives of this season’s version of the team, unearned runs related to errors (eight in one inning), four of those errors (two by Maikel Franco), and innings pitched by position players. Six Mets had at least three hits apiece. New York gathered 25 hits in total, but only three home runs, and only one off a position-pitcher. One could go on here for a while, but what’s the point?

About the only thing both games had in common besides the same two teams was the fact Phillies slugger Rhys Hoskins homered in both games, pushing his total for the season to 25 (with 77 RBI). The pitchers suddenly became more effective in game two – well anyway, they did after starter Zach Eflin gave up three doubles to start the contest. Only one error was committed, by a relief pitcher probably exhausted by his constant shuttling between the minors and the team in South Philly for two years, Yacksel Rios.

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Rios’ bouncing around baseball for those two years hints at the second parallel between Dr. Jekyll’s two sides and the Phillies. Stevenson’s story is also about scientific experimentation, and Phillies manager Gabe Kapler may eventually be known as Philly’s mad scientist.

At the very least, no one can fault Kapler for pulling out all the stops while trying to push his flawed team across the finish line. To note only one example, he explicitly defended his use of position players to pitch Aug. 16 as a matter of “protect[ing]” his team in a lost game. Further, as Matt Breen points out, Kapler has managed his squad through 16 transactions involving his 25-man team in seven days. That team, by Breen’s count, included 32 different players in that stretch.

You can almost hear the beakers clinking against each other on the workbench.

The outcome of the Phillies experiment may turn out better than Dr. Jekyll’s, but that outcome won’t be clear for a while. At the end of one weird day, however, the team had gained a half-game on first-place Atlanta.