The Phillies first-half “issue” may be misidentified by some

Quick: What was the Philadelphia Phillies largest first-half problem in this year’s once again stumbling effort to be relevant in the NL East? I hear a loud chorus of voices (and see objects hurled from the back of the room) indicating the team’s horrid closer situation.

So, I will back up a bit and say, cautiously, “Not so fast.”

Many Phillies fans blame the team’s closers for their middling start. Are they right?

Without a doubt, the Hector Neris meltdown was a sadly dramatic part of a sad overall picture – 22 team-blown saves – particularly since hopes were high for the rebuilt Phillies bullpen only three months ago. However, even given that most Phillies fans know last year’s bullpen was a historically bad one, many wouldn’t correctly answer this multiple guess question:

How much has the Phillies bullpen improved by this year in ERA terms? A) 4.77 runs, B) 2.22 runs, C) 1.83 runs, D) 1.33 runs, E) 0.59 runs.

Of course, it’s not A) – that’s just silly – but I’ll bet you flew right by B), too, the correct answer, according the MLB.com’s Paul Casella. The Phillies relievers are not good, that’s clear, but even their horrible number of blown saves likely would have been far lower if another, larger problem hadn’t arisen.

The Phillies 2021 offense was supposed to be much better. It was supposed to cover for a few runs given up here and there. But then, offense all around Major League Baseball fell into a manhole in the first half, and the Phillies went right along with them, partly because of injuries.

Quite simply put, the Phillies seemingly never played together as a team. It was obvious even to people who hung in there casually rooting for the minor leaguers pressed into service – often with decent results. One thing that’s likely to be lost in the mists of the Phillies failure to make the playoffs  again this season are the valiant efforts of young Luke Williams, and even younger Nick Maton.

The guys who get big checks from the Phillies? Bryce Harper had back spasms, J.T. Realmuto had this and that, Jean Segura had a bad hammy, and Didi Gregorius, bless him, had pseudogout, which no one, literally, ever heard of. But they all got together on July 2, finally, for the first time since Napoleon was complaining about toilet paper in exile.

And they won, 4-3, over the frisky, younger Padres.

Those four runs, including the one scored on an RBI double in the 10th inning by utilityman Brad Miller, were 0.3 runs under their seasonal average, and 0.8 runs under their average production last season.

This may not seem like much, but MLB competition throws up narrow differences between good and not so good now. In 2020 Philadelphia was outscored by only four other teams, one in the American League. And that Phillies team didn’t make the playoffs.

So, the Phillies task of the second half is to maintain the health of their core seven hitters – Harper, Realmuto, Segura, Gregorius, Alec Bohm, Andrew McCutchen, and Rhys Hoskins – and those hitters must do better.

As Casella notes, only two of those hitters have improved OPS figures over last season, McCutchen and Segura, although Hoskins should probably get a pass since he had driven in 46 runs by the halfway point of the season.

Then, in the first and second games of the second half of the season, against the free-falling Cubs, the Fightin’ Phils became the Explodin’ Phils. They battered Chicago, 13-3 and 15-10. The fourth and fifth games in a row with the team’s core seven together produced home runs by Andrew Knapp, Gregorius, Odubel Herrera, Hoskins, Bohm, McCutchen, Hoskins again, and Harper in that order.

McCutchen’s homer was a grand slam. Harper’s was his first of the season with someone on base, and Hoskins raised his RBI total to 53 by the end of the five-run win.

No one is saying, “Here come the Phillies” yet, but the second win against the Cubs demonstrated that Philadelphia can withstand not one or two, but three pitchers throwing rather poorly if they hit. Only the supposedly failing Hector Neris gave up no earned runs to Chicago on July 6, and he recorded only one out.

Perhaps together, and healthy, the Phillies can post their first winning record since 2011.