As they fight for October, are the Philadelphia Phillies setting an odd trend that could make it quite difficult to finish with a playoff spot?
The Philadelphia Phillies didn’t quite limp into September or show up, exactly, on crutches, but when the calendar page did flip, things seemed to go south pretty quickly. The team dropped two games to the Chicago Cubs at home and then moved onto Miami, where they lost a game to the Marlins. They put three runs on the board over the course of three days, and even Aaron Nola managed to lose for a change pretty much on his own, giving up three home runs and four earned runs in fewer than six innings Sept. 2.
Nola’s start had been moved up, said manager Gabe Kapler, because Nola is “awesome.” Observers seemed to nod in agreement, and nobody has said much of anything after the move didn’t work out. Sometimes wisdom doesn’t come even retrospectively. Nola had been unbeatable at home.
However, then the Phillies did what they have often done this season, and exploded for nine runs against the Marlins as Jake Arrieta held the hapless Fish to four runs over 7 1/3 innings. Former reliever and NBC Sports Philly analyst Ricky Bottalico had pointed to Arrieta’s start as pivotal before the Marlins series even began, and although the win pushed the right-hander’s record to 10-9, and he struck out 11, he wasn’t 100 percent sharp. His ERA jumped seven points in the wrong direction, but he was protected.
In the first inning first batter Carlos Santana homered to right with an impressive piece of hitting, reaching down for a low pitch and lining it into the second deck in right field. By the end of the half-frame, the Phillies led by 4-0. Arrieta then allowed a homer himself to J.T. Realmuto in the bottom of the inning, but by midway through the fourth inning, the Phillies led by 7-1, largely because third baseman Asdrubal Cabrera had also homered into the second deck after he had doubled in two runs two innings earlier.
Juggling Santana up in the lineup, while pushing Cesar Hernandez (3 RBI) down to the seven-hole, and making sure Cabrera was in between them seemed to work better than moving Nola’s start up on the calendar.
However, with the Phillies record for the young month at 1-3 and the season drawing to a close, it might be argued that their game Sept. 5 against the Marlins will actually be more important than Arrieta’s start. That contest will pit rookie Miami hurler Sandy Alcantara (1.80 ERA, 1.600 WHIP in one appearance this season) against the Phillies least successful rotation member this season, Nick Pivetta (7-10, 4.66 ERA).
It will be the sort of game that could determine whether the Philadelphia Phillies move onto the post-season, or move into history as “that team that won every fourth day” in August and September.