Philadelphia Phillies sterling pitching stats don’t inspire

The statistics highlighted on Twitter/X by the Philadelphia Phillies communications group included several eye-openers. Not only did they imply the team was set up beautifully a month out from the playoffs, as has been suggested for other reasons than they highlighted, they suggested it may be time to order that case of champagne for the sixth or seventh World Series game.

“Holy Cow!” According to the Phillies, the Phillies were first in NL starter effectiveness/durability (fourth in MLB) with 756.1 innings pitched, and they were also first in fWAR for starters (14.9), for starters and relievers combined (20.5), and second in the NL (fourth in MLB) in fWAR for Phillies relievers alone (5.6).

For those somewhat unconversant with some analytics terminology, fWAR above indicates aggregate WAR figures from FanGraphs. Some fans likely figured fWAR had something to do with astrophysics and baseball rotations on the way to the plate, so…

Better, as of September 4, the Phillies relievers ranked 30th in MLB with a mere 452.0 innings pitched, the least in the majors. For a team destined for the playoffs as the Philadelphia Phillies surely are (right?), a bullpen ending the season “best rested” should be good. How far could they slide in a month?

Wow.

No. Sorry. As anyone familiar with Philly fans and Philadelphia Phillies history knows, we don’t buy this.

Oh yes, the team is loaded with talent that generally delivers now, but anyone who watched said team do battle recently with the Angels and Brewers knows that a whole bunch of aggregate firsts and seconds for a pitching staff may belie real worry. And this goes beyond the business of WAR figures being “imaginary” and so forth.

For example, although the Phils took two of three from that L.A.-sort-of team, their pitching staff gave up 21 runs to their visitors in three games. On August 29, starter Michael Lorenzen gave up two home runs to Luis Rengifo, a nice versatile player, but a guy who has struggled for five seasons to establish himself as an everyday player; reliever Jose Alvarado gave up a late homer to journeyman Randal Grichuk.

The Brewers, who have a nearly identical record to the Phils, took two of three from them in Milwaukee, and anyone who watched Craig Kimbrel and Alvarado dance on hot coals for the eighth and ninth innings in San Diego September 4, knows that their “locking down” the game was very much a Mitch Williams experience.

For younger fans, Williams was the closer Phillies management wore out by overuse in 1993. He ultimately gave up the World Series-winning homer to Toronto’s Joe Carter, inspiring at least one Phillies fan to start throwing his fiancee’s potted plants off her apartment’s balcony onto a back lawn.

(The Philadelphia relief innings total jumped by four September 4 to 456.0. Four more a night for another month … You can track the Phillies’ progress or regression by this link.)

Numbers may say the Fightin’s may win it all, now, in the lengthening shadow of Labor Day. However, history says Philadelphia Phillies fans will believe it when they see it.