The awakened Phillies face Giant (and Dodger) hurdles

Have the Philadelphia Phillies awakened? It’s a fairly absurd sentence, right? Coming out of a two-game sweep of the New York Yankees, some might think it rather than say it out loud or type it into an opinion piece.

On Sunday, June 13, the eternal .500 Phillies floated out of three straight walk-off wins into a shutout of the Bronx Bombers, 7-0. The team was actually hitting and playing intelligently, playing without their usual ration of really, really careless errors, and were a whole game over .500.

Jean Segura finished the day batting .339, and became only the third Phillies batter ever on Sunday to have three hits in three consecutive games, according to the NBC Sports Philly broadcasters. He had won the two games immediately preceding the 7-0 win over New York, delivering walk-off hits.

The Phillies are burdened by talk-show carping about their best hitter this season.

However, somewhat absurdly, one talk radio commentator in Philadelphia had suggested benching the second baseman before Saturday’s game because of a perceived lack of hustle. The situation was debatable, but not really.

Segura was batting in the bottom of the 10th inning June 10 (Thursday) with runners on second and third and no outs, one run down, when he slammed a pitch that looked like a home run that would give the Phillies a 6-3 win over Atlanta. He admired his ball’s flight a bit, and therein was the problem. It didn’t carry out of the field of play in left.

Thus, said talk show host was incensed, citing other Segura lapses in intensity, but ignoring the fact that had the ball been caught, the game would have been tied, minimally, on a sacrifice fly. Because it hit the wall, however, both runners did score, and…. Whatever.

In any event, the Phillies have actually been hitting largely to the opposite field over multiple games, often with two strikes, bunting successfully, and the first-place Mets suddenly didn’t seem so far away in mid-June, even up three games after play June 13.

Aaron Nola looked like the ace he has rarely been this season on Sunday afternoon; he had driven his ERA down 0.37 to 3.69 by throwing 7.2 brilliant innings.

However, problems loomed. The Fightin’ .500s would board a plane shortly after their sweep of the Yankees for the west coast for an immediate meeting with the Dodgers on June 14.

Their named starting pitcher for Monday was Spencer Howard, a young pitcher who had struggled with his velocity, of all things, past the first few innings. A rare problem, without an injury. He would start the series against the enormously talented Dodgers.

Great.

The Phillies, now 32-31 with 99 games to go, and no hope of a Wild Card, considering the NL West and maybe the NL Central, have some issues beyond no real fifth starter.

They are playing a utilityman at short while Didi Gregorius recovers from an elbow bone bruise, and despite the fact that Ronald Torreyes has played very well, they have to rely on the extraordinarily intelligent hitting they’ve displayed for all of about four days to hope for some success against the Dodgers and, then, the Giants. These are the Phillies’ opponents for the next six games.

It is fair to say this will be the Phillies’ test of the season. They will likely succeed or fail to even post a winning record this season, never mind the playoffs, based on their play in the next week.