Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals

For the Philadelphia Phillies, the seemingly minor team record was set in the seventh inning of 12-1 blowout win Saturday over St. Louis. Bryson Stott had tied the old record in the fourth inning with a home run to right center off Dakota Hudson.

That dinger was the Phillies’ 46th home run of August, tying a franchise record set the year before in September.

In the seventh inning, then, Nick Castellanos established a new record with a screaming line drive just inside the foul pole in left that plated three. Soon thereafter, Brandon Marsh padded that record with the team’s 48th bomb of the month, this one to right center again, which also scored three.

In all on Saturday, the Phillies collected four doubles as well as those three homers in the rout. In total, the team went 5-for-9 with runners in scoring position.

An objective observer would likely say here, “Well, the Phillies were built to carpet bomb opponents into submission.”

Kyle Schwarber may be hitting only .188 after play on Saturday, and his WAR figure (as per Baseball Reference) may be a poor -0.2, but the guy also already has 35 homers and 83 RBI. According to one Twitter statistician, Schwarber may become the only hitter in MLB history to be awarded a negative WAR despite hitting 40 home runs.

No matter. The Philadelphia Phillies bat him first. Saturday, he had one of the team’s doubles and scored a run.

Philadelphia Phillies are shaping into October form

The three home runs lined into the stands by the Phillies Saturday night, however, signal to the rest of baseball that Philadelphia is absolutely ready for the September stretch run and beyond. Yes, they may finally be foiled, as they were last year, by the kind of excellent pitching Houston featured in the Fall Classic. However, at this juncture, there is this indisputable truth: The Philadelphia Phillies are the proverbial team no one wants to face this fall.

After their fans gently nursed struggling superstar Trea Turner back into production mode with a warm round of applause on August 4, the Fightin’s have been on a roll. In a way, they remind some fans of an NBA team that looks entirely unimpressive in the regular season, but then flips a switch for the playoff run.

Indeed, this is the story of Zack Wheeler’s season. After his first 12 starts, he was 4-4 and had racked up a 4.33 ERA. In his 14 starts since then, he is 6-2 with a 3.02 ERA. On Saturday night, he needed only 80 pitches to strike out 10 and make his manager gush about his Cy Young chances.

And Wheeler is not the only current success story among Philly’s hurlers. The entire rotation is consistently reaching six innings a start at the moment.

The Phillies are fundamentally the same sort of team they were late last fall. But when the engine is running smoothly, they are a serious playoff threat to the best teams in the game, including Atlanta and Baltimore.

This year Bryson Stott looks more like the MVP candidate he will surely become soon, Nick Castellanos is hitting again … and, oh yeah, so is Trea Turner. Moreover, Bryce Harper’s name only appears here once, in this sentence.