Phillies Red-Hot Streak Continues In Pittsburgh | Hittin' Season

From WHYY, it is hitting season. Hey there, podcast pals. I'm John Stolnes from The Good Fight. You can follow me on X and Blue Sky at John Stolnes. Coming up, Phillies have the greatest weekend ever. In Pittsburgh, they swept the Pirates, finishing it off with a Paul Skeen's meltdown on Sunday afternoon, which was just a beautiful thing to see. And so the Phillies roll under Don Mattingly. And yeah, yeah, a Dusty Wathen game in there too, everybody. As the Phillies roll continues, they are now over 500 for the first time since very, very early in the season. And what a turnaround after that 10-game losing streak. So we're going to talk all about these three games in Pittsburgh. Really difficult for me to kind of suss out, I think, which was the best of the three games this weekend, but that'll be what we talk about here on this episode of The Roundtable. Justin Kluh and Liz Roescher joining me, as always. Justin Kluh, of course, is from Baseball Prospectus. He also hosts a couple of podcasts. So over at the hitting season Patreon, The Dirty Inning and Absolutely Hammered. That's at patreon.com slash hitting season. And you can also read his new book, Summer of the Cheap Wieners, which is over my shoulder. If you're watching us on the YouTube, follow him on Blue Sky at Justin Kluh. Justin, how's it going, buddy? Good weekend. We cleared a stroke. I'm paying attention now. Maybe if Paul Skeens had graduated from the Air Force Academy, he'd have given up fewer missiles. Thank you. Well done. My favorite statistic from the weekend is that the Phillies scored 23 runs. And of those 23 runs, 18 were either knocked in or scored by Kyle Schwarber or Bryce Harper. So as far as aspects of the team, you gotta get going. The top three guys, two of the top three guys in your offense, the big three, as they've started to be referred to, they're going. They're going pretty hard. And that's really, really helping out. And then, you know, we'll get into it, but you saw a couple of smaller contributions that were also just good to see as well. Absolutely. We're gonna dive into all that stuff here in the next few minutes. But first let's introduce Liz Roescher, the editor of Sabre's Baseball Research Journal. You can follow her on X and Blue Sky at Liz Roescher. Liz, how are you? I'm good. Though I had a hard time watching games this weekend in the Philadelphia area, and even here in Maryland, because a bunch of the games were exclusive to S&P 360. I could not watch Sunday's Gem. It was out of market for me on MLB TV. So I'm angry about that, but I'm happy about everything else that happened this weekend. Yeah. Every other thing that happened. Yeah. I think, you know, we should have a larger conversation at some point this year. And I might do a guest on this in terms of the fracturing of how people are able to watch baseball and all of the streaming and everything. Cause that's a, it's a fascinating conversation and how people are watching baseball has been a huge story with regional sports networks shutting down and all of that. So that is a half an hour right there to be able to kind of talk about how frustrating that is for folks. But we will start off the podcast talking about this incredible weekend in Pittsburgh. Three games that may be the three most fun games they've played all year. And I'm hard pressed to remember a more fun weekend of Phillies baseball. These regular season Phillies baseball finishing off a sweep of the Pirates. They won six straight series under Don Mattingly. They're now 14 and four under Don Mattingly. And yes, one and O under Dusty Wathen. And that is of course, after starting nine and 19 under Rob Thompson. Todd Zielecki noted that the Phillies were nine and 19 back on April 26th. And they are now 24 and 23 following Sunday's sweep in Pittsburgh. The last team to fall 10 or more games under 500, but later be at above 500 through their first 47 games was the 2001 Athletics who were eight and 18, but 24 and 23 by their 47th game. That was the season before the Moneyball season that was chronicled in the movie and all that. So we do not often see turnarounds happen quite this quickly. And you know, Liz, each of these three victories was different. On Friday night, you had the incredible comeback from down six to nothing in the third inning. They were down eight to five entering the ninth inning. Managed to pick themselves up off the deck. I mean, they had played, this was their fourth road series and their last five series. So you gotta think, you know, maybe they just, they're tired. They wanna kind of, you know, they don't have the fight in them. And they come back and they win that game with three in the ninth and three in the 10th. On Saturday, you get Christopher Sanchez extending his scoreless streak to 29 and two thirds innings with a complete game shutout. And then on Sunday, you have the Phillies, that big matchup, Zach Wheeler versus Paul Skeens. Wheeler outpitches Skeens. It's not even close. Skeens, they get five runs off of Paul Skeens on Sunday. So as I was sitting there last night, thinking about how to address this weekend, I was left with the question, I don't know which win I thought was best. And I thought I would ask the group which win they liked best. So which was your favorite win of the weekend, Liz? Oh my gosh, it's really hard. Cause the only part of the comeback win that I saw with my husband, we just went to a random bar on the main line and watched like the terrible part of the game. The part of the game that they gave up a bunch of runs and were down. And so when we went back to our hotel and looked like, hey, this is interesting. It'd be great for us to watch that on our hotel television. No wait, too late. So I have a hard time making that one my favorite, but I think Saturday's complete game shutout from Christopher Sanchez was my favorite. I think that was my absolute favorite. I really loved seeing him just take control of the game like that. Like for me, no three wins have felt this good. Like there was that series against the Mets a handful of years ago during the bad times on the edge of the good times, but still the bad times. But we thought everything was about to turn around. They swept the Mets over a weekend and everything went downhill from there. And so I thought that's not really the same. This three game sweep felt more like the 2008, 2009, 2010 Phillies than this team has like maybe ever. Like they were just humming on all cylinders. Oh, you know, they were down six nothing and they came all the way back. That feels like a really good team, a team that knows what it's doing, a team that's confident in what it's doing. Yeah, outside of the starting pitching on Friday night, and we can talk about Aaron Nola a little bit more in just a second, because- We don't have to. Well, I will mention just a couple of things when we get there that I thought was interesting from a Matt Gelbartical in The Athletic on Nola, but you had Schwarberg powering two home runs in that game on Friday. And then Harper almost sends a go ahead grand slam over the fence in the ninth inning. It turns out just to be a game tying double, but still your stars were starring in that game and a great job by the bullpen to keep the game close after Aaron Nola got him down so big so early. So, but yeah, if you're talking Christopher Sanchez, that certainly is understandable. Christopher Sanchez, again, the scoreless streak now at 29 and two thirds innings, six hits allowed. He didn't walk anybody, struck out a career high 13 batters. He has a 43% swing and miss rate in the game with his changeup. And I liked, I enjoyed this stat since he became a full-time starter in 2024, he is 25 and two when the Phillies score three or more runs for him. If he gets any run support, they win baseball games. 31 and five in those games overall, by the way. And the last Phillies pitcher, he was only the second Phillies pitcher since 1900 to record at least 13 strikeouts with no walks in a game since the only other guy we all remember, Vinny Velo in that 2016 game, the 16 strikeout shutout against the Padres, one of the best pitched games in Phillies history that was not a perfect game or a no hitter. Justin, any thoughts on the Saturday game before you give me your pick? Yeah, I mean, it was, it kind of bleeds into my pick to be totally honest. All right, lead the way. I think the Phillies are kind of like a one functioning or at times not functioning body and the offense is it's flailing arms and the front office and John Middleton are it's yammering mouth and the bullpen is, the best I could do was like a knife in their sock and that you can't always reach it, but when you can, it can be devastating, but that's not really a body part. But anyway, the point is the starting pitching is, I guess I've called it the spine in the past, but the word that came to my mind was the legs because like when they're chugging forward, you're just, you're always making progress when the starting pitching is working. It's the center point of this team. And that was really on display this weekend because of, like you said, the different ways they were winning, but the commonality in the last two wins was obviously they got a really deep, really dominant start from their starting pitcher. And in the first one, they didn't get that. So the reason that's probably winding up being the most impressive and best one of the weekend is because they had set the tone, early on the tone of that game was, what else are we doing this weekend? Because they were down so quickly and so early and it was demoralizing, but being able to pull yourself out from under a bad NOLA start, which can get bad so quickly, given that his fatal flaw is giving up home runs, you winding up in that point and still finding a way to dig your way out and then kind of have that momentum ride through the rest of the weekend when you're getting the starting pitching you need for that offense to really come through. I mean, they really showed how that can be a strong point of this team, even though it's not what it's really built around. You know, the offense, as you were saying, Sanchez doesn't need that much offense to win. NOLA needs more. And they were able to find it even after he left the game. So that, and given the dramatics of everything and the way it all went down, was like, it really had to be the best win of the season, I think, by far, because it just featured so much about what you don't always get, but you have to come to rely on about the Phillies. Yeah, I mean, and so it's, first of all, thank the heavens for Gregory Soto, right? I mean, thank, I didn't know he was- That Schwarbrick bat was so comical. Like, you don't want to pitch to him, but you're not gonna intentionally walk him, I guess, for pride. And then you're gonna have the, he was gonna challenge that ball forward no matter what, if it was even like remotely close, but then what's the point of that? You know, they're not gonna like get that wrong. So they kind of just decided to pitch to him, even though they wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Soto basically did the equivalent of walking off the field. Yeah, yeah, I don't know why they're, I don't know why either Schwarbrick or Harper are getting anything to hit right now. But I mean, I guess you can't put two guys on back-to-back every inning, every time they come up. I mean, you are gonna get bit from that. You gotta choose one guy to go after. But right now, neither of those guys are who you want to go after. And he'd already had two home runs in the game, 20 on the season, still leads Major League Baseball. His 980 OPS on the season right now is sixth best. By the way, I couldn't believe it. Mickey Moniak's OPS of 996 is fifth best in Major League Baseball right now. Mickey Moniak is, that's unbelievable. Yeah, I pointed that out on Absolutely Hammered last week. Everyone hated it. Man, unbelievable, unbelievable. But the Phillies benefited from the meltdown by Gregory Soto in the ninth inning. But hey, listen, being a good team means having a good bullpen, too. And the Pirates have a brutal bullpen. They don't have, Dennis Santana was just demoted. They said, let's try Gregory Soto, which, let's try Gregory Soto. Four words that no baseball decision-maker should ever have to say out loud. And what happened in Philadelphia so many times with Greg on the mound happened with Pittsburgh. This time, the Phillies were the beneficiaries. I mean, that Harper home run, I can't, that double almost cleared the fence. Like, inches from the fence, almost was a grand slam, which would have just been unbelievable. But I agree with you. That was a situation where, again, you're starting your fourth road trip in five days. You get blitzed early on. But really, Schwarber gave them the reason to stick around mentally. Hitting those home runs, that's the reason they were able to stick around mentally. Like, he never got them tied or anything like that, but got them within three, got them within two. You know, you stay within shouting distance with those home runs to the point then, yes, now you can take advantage of a weak Pittsburgh bullpen in the ninth and 10th innings. And let's not forget about the Brandon Marsh double in the 10th, and then Raphael Marchand, for the first time this year, he's had so many plate appearances in run-producing opportunities and failed miserably, finally gets a big hit with runners in scoring position and scores two runs with a single in the 10th inning to kind of give the Phillies the insurance that they needed. It was great to see, yeah, the big boppers did their thing, but then in the 10th inning, you had some of the other guys were able to get you the three runs that you actually needed to win the game. But Schwarber-Harper, those were the engines in that Friday game. Yeah, Schwarber kept me around in that game as well when he brought it back to 8-5. It was like, all right, I mean, it's three runs. It should not be insurmountable, even for this offense. But yeah, I think you're right. Mentally, that plays a role as well. As far as people contributing, I mean, I don't wanna make too much of it, but Justin Crawford was making a lot of noise at the bottom of the lineup this weekend, even without the most impressive stat columns, like two hits in game one, two walks in game two, and an RBI in game three with stolen bases in games one and two as well. What else are you looking for from your rookie nine-hole speedster? He's getting on base. He's coming in when they're knocking him in. Turner was able to knock him in, and he's able to be a part of the offense, even though he's the lowest hitter in the lineup. I mean, that's really something. If he can do that at a steady pace, are you gonna win Rookie of the Year? Maybe not, but it's still gonna be a success story that you were brought up and played this role. Again, we've said it before, but this comfort he has up here in the major leagues playing in the spot they have him in has not wavered, and that's been really good to see. I wanna ask you guys a question. In terms of OPS, where do you think Justin Crawford ranks on the Phillies in terms of overall OPS? Six. Okay. Liz, what do you think? I feel like six is the right number, but I'll say eight. The number is fourth. He is fourth on the Phillies in OPS. Kyle Schwarber leads with a 980. Bryce Harper is second with a 934. Brandon Marsh is third with 830. Justin Crawford is the only other Philly player with an OPS over 700. It's 729, hitting 263, 338, 391 on the season so far. Weighted runs created of 106 for him, which means he's an above-average hitter for his position so far here in the early going. So that number, I shocked me, because I was looking up some numbers for some of the right-handed hitters. He has a better OPS than any right-handed hitter on the team. Bryson Stott has moved up to fifth on the team, but still just a 653 OPS, but that number's been climbing. But it's better than Adonis Garcia, better than Trey Turner, better than Real Muto, better than Edmundo Sosa, certainly better than Alec Baum. Justin Crawford right now, according to OPS and according to weighted runs created, is the fourth best hitter on the Phillies overall right now as we're sitting here. All right. I mean, I'm not gonna say that's how it's designed, and I think you could also point out that, hey, look, if you're getting out-OPSed by the rookie center fielder who hits the ball on the ground all the time, then there's some improvements to be made by you, honestly. It might be like a testament to who isn't hitting in the Phillies lineup. But that being said, it's still great numbers you wanna see from a guy like Crawford. And as he gets more comfortable, dare I mention, perhaps, that those numbers go even higher. You never know. Yeah. Yeah, he's certainly developed a really good baseline for himself. I mean, listen, he's not hitting over 300 like he did in the minors, but we weren't expecting that. But he's, I think, playing the way, he's playing as well as anyone could have hoped he would play. And that's the bottom line. Well, you know, the other night when he bopped the ball straight into the plate and it went like 200 feet in the air or whatever, like, he gets on base on that. You don't even have to wonder about that. That's just like, that's a base hit for Justin Crawford. So you can make more out of what the differences are in like what he's able to do versus a Schwarber or Harp. And the only area he needs to improve is his defense. He made a nice sliding play, a nice in the game, in the series against Pittsburgh. But overall, he still struggles with getting to baseballs with his route selection and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, the Phillies have not said as much. Like he needs to get better defensively in center field if he can figure out that component and produce at this level, the three and a half wind player right there. Easy. I mean, he's adjusting. He's a JP Crawford like player in center field. Like JP Crawford for Seattle was like three and a half four wind player because of what he provides defensively based running. And he does enough offensively to make him productive. I mean, that's kind of what you're looking for in a Justin Crawford here. And so far on the offensive side of things, he's given you everything you could have wanted. And I agree with you. I thought about that too, this weekend. I'll mention it in the Sunday game because I think the Friday game was the most fun. I thought the Sunday game though was probably my favorite because there were certain things in this game that I really liked most of all. Now, the first thing is Zach Wheeler out-dueling Paul Skeens and the way the Phillies got five runs off of Paul Skeens. I heard this stat on the Philly special podcast. This is only the second time in Paul Skeens' pro career that anyone's ever scored five or more runs off of him. The first one was on opening day this year when he took on, when he faced the Mets. So the Phillies did something to Paul Skeens that really no one else has ever done before other than one other time, getting five runs off of him. And they were legit, like nothing fluky about it. They got Bryce Harper hit a bomb off him. I wanted, the underrated moment in this game, I thought, came in the fifth inning when Skeens walked Adolis Garcia. It was the first batter he'd walked in his last five starts and that immediately started a Phillies rally because you have JT Realmuto up at the plate and what I liked is Don Mattingly put on a hit and run with JT Realmuto. Now, there's a few reasons why this really works. One, Realmuto's not hitting very well. So all you're telling him to do there is just focus only on making contact the other way. That's all we want for you to do. Don't try to do too much. One run, two runs may be enough to win this game. That may be all we get against Paul Skeens in this game. So let's try and get that runner to third with less than two outs and let's get him home somehow. JT Realmuto executes the hit and run perfectly. You get first and third, nobody out. You have a Justin Crawford RBI ground out. Again, a productive at bat. Get you that RBI. That first run of the game comes from Justin Crawford and then Trey Turner comes through with a base hit to make it 2-0. You've gotten two runs off of Paul Skeens because of small ball there. I'm not a huge advocate of small ball. I know the old heads are hitting run all the time. But there are times against certain pitchers and in certain matchups when that's the right call. That's the right move. And I thought it was a really smart managerial move to put on the hit and run there. And then the Phillies added on after that. That seemed to break the seal. Harper goes deep. And in the fifth inning, you have some hits by the bottom of the lineup that chase Paul Skeens out of the game and relievers give up a couple of inherited runners. And then you have Zach Wheeler on the other side of that. Seven innings, four hits, no runs, one walk, eight strikeouts. The ERA down to 1.99. But the most important thing was the old Zach Wheeler fastball velocity was there. Average 96 miles an hour on the fastball. Topped out at near 98. His first four starts of the season, it was only averaging 94.7 miles an hour. And he got four strikeouts on the fastball in the strike zone, which is something he hadn't been doing in his previous starts. So to me, having that matchup, that Zach Wheeler-Paul Skeens matchup was where Wheeler rose to the occasion. I didn't know if he still had that kind of a performance in him with that velocity and to go mano a mano with Skeens, who's the best pitcher in baseball? I mean, there's just hands down, no doubt about it, was such a satisfying, fulfilling, complete win to win that game. That was my favorite game of the weekend. Can't believe you for that. It felt to me that Zach Wheeler had been not saving bullets for this one, but ramping up over time, sort of waiting for an occasion to bring all of the power back, to really blow hitters away. And with Skeens on the mound, you almost don't have a choice. If you're at the same talent level, which Wheeler clearly is, you have to throw gas. And he rose to the occasion is the perfect way to put it. Seeing him throw in the velocity again makes you feel very thankful that those minor league starts are completely meaningless and no one cares about them now. Because he's the same. He's back to where he was, at least as of this start. There's nothing more encouraging for the Phillies than that. And I don't know if you explicitly said it, John, but obviously the velocity was encouraging, but also just his ability to use his entire arsenal and his command and just keeping the ball over the edge of the plate. I mean, like Liz has said, you're in a hurry to get back to a comfortable place with Zach Wheeler, given how important he is for the team's success, but he's coming back. It's not like he's just coming back from a tweak to whatever or a sore or something. We all know the gravity of what he's coming back from. And I think that adds a little more drama and concern to not just his performance, but his ability to perform at the same level as before. And you see a start like this and you're like, yeah, okay, well, I guess I can put that concern aside. Like this is just simply happening back the way I wanted it to. And then things are working out great. I mean, there's a reason this was a marquee matchup across all of baseball, seeing these two guys go up against each other. And as Don Mattingly kind of famously phrased it at this point, Todd Zielecki was saying on their show, on the Phillies show, we have a guy, like we have a guy for that. We have a guy to go up against Paul Skeens. And it worked, he out-pitched him. So it's good to see your pitcher do that, especially as things ramp up for the Phillies here as far as the competition goes at the end of May. Can I comment on Don Mattingly for a second? Yeah. You mentioned some of his managerial decisions. Wondering sort of what he might, what the difference has been between him and Rob Thompson. I think what you are seeing is that there are expectations being placed on everyone now. It's don't just go out there and do this. Like we're gonna put on a hit and run. I think Mattingly seems to be making himself very clear. He actually has opinions and ideas about what he wants the team to do and how he wants them to play. He's actually guiding the team instead of letting the team sort of guide him to the kind of manager that they want. He's sort of like, I'm still a player's manager, but I'm gonna tell you what to do. I'm actually gonna tell you what to do. I'm gonna be explicit about it. I think that's the big difference that we've seen. If you want a guy to tell you what to do and that the players are gonna listen to, I think Mattingly has been the best choice. As far as managers go, I actually just finished reading John Miller's book on Earl Weaver, The Last Manager, which is a lot of, it's obviously a biography, but also talks about that style of manager and what managers were seen as era to era. And in Weaver's case, he was into small ball and bunting and statistics, and he kind of evolved beyond that and was more of a believer in the big inning, which he had been against earlier in his career. You just, I don't know, you start seeing parallels, I felt like, in this series where the Phillies, Mattingly using small ball in a moment where it actually worked at a time when most people aren't using small ball anymore, but then also having a team that's capable of a big inning, and especially going back to the famous Earl Weaver quote that popped up about the fundamentals of baseball are pitching, fielding, and the three-run home run. And you got that from Bryce Harper in this game. Yeah, the key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three-run homers. And you got that from the Phillies this weekend too. So if you use that as, okay, he was the last manager to be such a, to have that kind of role where you're less of a guide or less of a, how would you characterize, like a players manager. He certainly, I don't think you would qualify him as a players manager. He was much more into the sport and breaking it down and looking for any advantage possible, even if it made him look like an insane person or a scumbag. And I don't think Mattingly is quite there, but it's interesting seeing the toolkit from a bygone era of managing coming more into play here because perhaps Rob Thompson, who was such a players manager and was such a hands-off guy, perhaps had grown so hands-off that he would not employ some of the strategies that Mattingly had here. And the difference is, yeah, I mean, you're just seeing it. You're seeing what the difference is between those two approaches. I love that Mattingly is using all the tools in the toolbox. He's using all, he's using small ball because I think there's a place for that in baseball, especially when no other team is doing it. There's absolutely a place for all sorts of different types of strategies. I'm really encouraged that he's been using all of them. Yeah, I mean, I think we're in a different era now than the St. Louis Cardinals running Redbirds of the mid-'80s and stuff. That worked well in that moment when ballparks were much, much larger and it was much harder to hit home runs back in those days. It's much easier to hit home runs nowadays. Baseball's made it that way. So the rationale for playing all the small ball that you used to see back in the 80s and early part of the 90s, before the steroid era and before ballparks got smaller, is kind of, players have, they don't know how to do it anymore. I mean, one of the few games they've lost under Don Mattingly was an extra inning game when they got, I think, the leadoff runner on second base and they didn't bunt J.T. Real Muto in the bottom of the 10th to try and sacrifice the runner over to third. And Mattingly's reason for that was, you can't ask a guy who doesn't ever really do it to do it all of a sudden. And he got a lot of flack for that. So, I mean, there's some, there's still some understanding, I think, by Mattingly, like, listen, I maybe would've been the right baseball call, but if Real Muto's not comfortable doing that, then I can't ask him to do it. He's gonna fail if I ask him to do it. And so we're better off letting him swing away and maybe trying to move the runner to right field the normal way. But I think being able to, again, recognizing, you've got Paul Skeens. He gives up maybe two runs a game. Maybe, if you're lucky. Here's our first base runner, really, in this spot. And I've got a contact guy in Real Muto who likes to go the other way. Let's do it. Let's draw it up. What could it hurt, right? You know, at that point, like, what could go wrong? You know, okay, he lines into a double play. All right, just as likely, Real Muto's gonna ground into a double play if you don't get creative and get. The other thing, too, is getting runners moving gets things active. It gets hitters moving. It kind of, you're not just waiting around, sitting there anchored at first base, waiting for somebody to hit a double off the wall or something. You get some things moving. You get Skeens thinking. You get the catcher having to react. The infielders have to move around. That's why the hit and run work. The guy on second base is covering. The guy playing second covers second base, leaves a hole on the right side of the infield. And so I would like to see more of that, especially like when the Phillies are struggling offensively and they might be facing a Chris Sale or something like that. Look, you're probably not scoring more than two or three runs off a Chris Sale. So if you're struggling and you're going up against a guy you have struggled with, play some small ball. But you gotta know coming into the series, we gotta work on this. This is stuff we're gonna do. We gotta start getting comfortable and maybe laying down a sacrifice bunt when it's called for here and there. And so maybe that's what's happening. Maybe that's what I'm looking to take this. They were collecting some cobwebs during that 10 game spiral. And it's in more ways than one. And those are kind of getting worked off at this point. But you're absolutely right. Like getting in a pitcher's like that's head, that's gonna be one of the big advantages if you're able to accomplish it. I don't know if you saw the clip that you just made me think of. Josh Naylor of the Mariners was messing with JT Jin of the A's, like on second base. He was just, I don't know. I don't know about that particular moment, but he was like skimping around, like taking the lead. He was raising his hand in the air to make it look like he had his signs when he didn't have his signs. It was completely working. And Jin just kept turning around, just looking at him. He was throwing a second. Naylor eventually comes in to score and then comes up later in the game. And like, they were doing like the Jaws music and he got on second, he hit a double and got on second base again. And everyone was like, oh no. And he's doing the same thing. And even Jin, you can see on his face. He was like, oh my God, I'm gonna deal with it. And they're like barking at each other coming off the field. Like it was completely effective. And when you're able to do that, again, that's an A's reliever. It's not even a, Paul Skeen's the best pitcher in baseball. And maybe those opportunities to do that, where like John, you're saying, those pieces really aligned perfectly for that moment. Maybe those are rare that you really don't have to go out of your way to use small ball tactics a whole lot because you're not facing Paul Skeen's every day or you're not winding up with a guy who just needs to have the pressure off and hit the ball the other way every day. But even so, recognizing that opportunity and executing on it, you know, hey, that's why the team has momentum. And I think it's fair to wonder, and again, I don't think any of us blames Rob Thompson for the Phillies' start this season, but you know, we said it after the playoff series, would it be the right thing to do to get a different voice in that clubhouse? And whatever the voice is saying, whatever Don Mattingly is saying, whatever it is he's telling them, the change has worked. I will say the change also coincided with Zach Wheeler coming back. And that's not to be lost on anything either. Zach Wheeler and Christopher Sanchez right now forming the best one-two combination at the top of the rotation in baseball. They've had back-to-back starts, giving up no runs, of course. Wheeler and Sanchez now have a combined 1.10 ERA going back to April 28th, third best among teammates in baseball. Amazingly, that's only third best. And since the Phillies have won 15 out of 19 games, Sanchez and Jesus Lizardo have the most strikeouts in baseball among teammates. So you mentioned it at the beginning, Justin, the starting pitching is, we'll talk about Schwerber and Harper in a second, but the starting pitching is really what's carrying this team right now. Specifically, Chris Sanchez and Zach Wheeler. Jesus Lizardo still is up and down. Great start his last time out. Jekyll and Hyde pitcher, as much if not more than Nola ever was right now at this moment. But Lizardo is capable of dialing up these gems as well. And then you've got Nola and Painter, who are works in progress still, it seems like. But do enough most nights to kind of keep you in the game. But man, the top of this rotation, doing what they're doing, is the stars of the rotation are carrying them. And right now, they're both probably top five Cy Young guys in the National League, aren't they? I mean, they have to be, yeah. Who else? You get a butt there. I mean, there's some pretty dominant performances so far this year, but you're right. And given that we were classifying this rotation as inconsistent, it's even more indicative of the dominance that's at their ceiling, that they're able to pile up another impressive amount of statistics despite the early struggles this team has had. I mean, Sanchez alone, like, good Lord. He's got a Player of the Week so far this year, right? All right, so he's- Yeah, he's itching for Player of the Month. He's itching for Pitcher of the Month. I would say at the moment, he's the favorite. Has anyone else thrown a complete game shutout in baseball this year? Let me look that up. I think probably, but let me look. Let's see. Yes, one other pitcher, Sandy Alcantara of the Marlins in the National League has thrown a complete game shutout. And now as I'm looking in the American League, one in the American League, Bailey Ober of the Minnesota Twins has thrown a complete game shutout. Those are the elements among qualified pitchers. I'll open it up to unqualified, to pitchers who don't have enough innings. No, those are the only three so far in Major League Baseball right now. Sandy Alcantara, Christopher Sanchez, and Bailey Ober of the Twins. Yeah, so I mean, and that's the thing. When Sanchez started becoming a pitcher that had a place in this rotation and had really formalized, like, yeah, no, this is for real. And he was a new, formidable starting pitcher. The ceiling just feels like it goes a little higher every time he makes a start. Like this was a career high in strikeouts. Like he performed at a higher level than he has even when he's been pitching at his best. And when you're still seeing that from a guy who signed a contract extension not too long ago, I mean, that's a good feeling considering how much nail-biting we've been doing about other long contracts and the fates of those players who are attached to them. So yeah, having not only bounced back from an inconsistent start, but also maintaining like an almost 30-inning scoreless streak and being named NL Player of the Week and setting a career high in strikeouts. I mean, it's all just working. It's not like he's, oh, he's back and effective. Like no, he's back and at better than his best. So kind of just sit back and wait for the Dodgers at the end of the month. I struggle to remember, I can't remember another Phillies pitcher that went from being kind of where he was, like a quad A starter, reliever type guy who you were hoping maybe could be a number five starter for you that turned into one of the very best pitchers in baseball. Like any time the Phillies have had a guy like this who is a Cy Young contender, a Cy Young candidate, is a guy who has, and Chris Finchance has done it for multiple years, not like a one-year wonder like a John Denny or something like that. You know, like a guy who has been doing this now for a number of years where you know this is who he is. Like this is who he is. I can't remember another Phillies pitcher that has this story. I just don't think there is one. No, I don't think there is one either. Otherwise, one of us would have found it by now. I feel like someone would have found it by now and written an article about it. Like these types of stories are really rare for good reason because usually people don't, you know, athletes don't randomly get better in the middle of their careers. It's not something that happens. You develop a set of skills, you develop routines, and the way you've thrown is the way you've thrown since you started throwing at baseball, really. You know, you've had tweaks, you've had changes, but you know, you've thrown a ball your whole life. And so for him to actually change something so significant that it moved him from being a quad A guy to an elite Cy Young candidate in the space of a handful of years, that's a rare story. There's gotta be one other maybe like that in baseball, but if there's maybe one or two in the modern day, and I mean, in the earlier days, everyone was someone who improved themselves over time. Everyone was someone, you know, with a weird story. Even if you just limit it to like the modern age, just to like homegrown Phillies starting pitching, it's really, I mean, you go to Cole Hamels and then there's been other success stories, but like to this level, unquestionably no. Because the comp after throwing a 108 pitch complete game shutout is Roy Halladay. Obviously, you know, that wasn't a farm system success story for the Phillies. And then all the other guys from that era, Oswald, Lee, I mean, these are not, Zach Wheeler, these are not homegrown Phillies pitchers. So it's a very, Sanchez has a very unique status, I think, among Phillies aces all time. And even though Chris Sanchez wasn't drafted by the Phillies, they did develop him. I mean, like that's the interesting, I mean, it is a testament to the development system and Caleb Cotham, you know, after they got him from the raise for Curtis Meade. But, you know, it's also Christopher Sanchez has discovered something in himself, another level to get to, which it's incredible that he had this talent locked away in there, and that he's been able to unearth it here over the last few seasons. Yeah, sorry, home cooked, not home grown. My bad. Yeah, yeah, that's probably a good way to describe it, for sure. Among National League pitchers, his 2.5 wins above replacement is best in the National League. The next closest is Jacob Mizoroski of the Brewers at 1.9. This is the only National League pitcher over two, and he also has thrown the most innings of any National League starter, 64 and a third. Sandy Alcantara and Bryce Elder of the Braves are the only ones who are over 60 innings so far this season. So he's not, unlike Skeens, who only goes five or six innings most of the time, he'll go six, seven, eight innings in a lot of these outings, and that's what he's been doing so far this year. And that's, if you're gonna give me a Cy Young tiebreaker right now, give me the guy who pitches more innings. Give me the guy who throws more pitches. And right now, that would be Christopher Sanchez. Although, Zach Wheeler may have something to say about this before the season's over, given what he's doing right now, which is pretty incredible. Five inning commonly makes five inning starts. I really would not have guessed that Paul Skeens and Aaron Nola have a lot in common, but look at that. They do. Yeah, very, very similar. I didn't think that's where that sentence was going, but we're going in a completely different direction. Yeah, yeah. All right, real quickly on Harper and Schwarber, I have a simple question. Who's hotter? Who's hotter, Kyle Schwarber or Bryce Harper right now? I don't know if you checked, but Kyle Schwarber actually went 0 for 5 with four strikeouts in game three, so I gotta go with Harper on this one, just on that alone. Completely, I'm on that. What is this, Kyle? No 500-foot home run today that created a new kind of cloud somehow when it got up into the sky? Don't like that. Loser. Is he cooling off? Did the Phillies make a mistake extending Kyle Schwarber? Asking the tough questions here on Hidden Season. We'll get to the bottom of this, friends. We'll get to the bottom of it. Yeah, Harper- I wanna say that game two, sorry, that game two home run of Harper's was just a pure rock solid, like, I think that was the home run that kinda created America in a lot of ways, you know? Like, 457 feet off the batter's eye, center field, I mean, that was just, that was beautiful. Just off the bat alone, it was just, it was crushed. And being a three-run home run on a day where he also walked twice was just like, yeah, this is Bryce Harper. This is the experience you're looking for. As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country, that really is the cornerstone or the keystone of it all, Liz. Yes, that home run is the home run he's been trying to hit for like two years. Yes, great point. He's been trying to hit that specific home run in a game like that for two years, where he made a big contribution. It wasn't the only contribution, he was part of a team. But he, that was enormous. That was so impressive. That was such a great home run at a great moment, too. And that's, Harper has always had a knack for theatrics. I don't know if it's ever intentional, but I feel like his body just reacts to those types of moments. And he can feel it when, you know, there's a possibility for something big. And it's nice to see those instincts come back, you know? Yeah, well, and they weren't there last year. And that was our big complaint about Bryce Harper last year, was he just, he lost that last season. Like, he didn't have that, those moments last year. He didn't have, what I loved most about that home run is he gets himself into a 3-1 count, and then he does what an elite hitter is supposed to do on a 3-1 fastball, over the plate. We saw last year, a number of times, Bryce Harper would get beat with fastballs. All the time, foul him off, pull off on the ball, or, you know, sky it to left field. Up until 2025, Harper would have crushed that pitch every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Last year, he just wasn't. He wasn't doing that with that pitch. But that 3-1 fastball, pitchers should pay the ultimate price when you throw Bryce Harper a 3-1 fastball right down the middle of the plate. And he put it in exactly the plate where you're supposed to put that pitch. Must commit to Tepeco, ultimate price. You're absolutely right, John, is what I'm, I'm agreeing with you. Yes, completely. A 9.34 OPS for Bryce Harper right now through Sunday. 12 home runs, 2.82 average, 3.76 on base, and the 5.59 slugging percentage is the big number for him. I mean, we just, he hasn't seen slugging like that since 2021, so that's, he can wear whatever T-shirt he wants in the off-season if he's doing this. I don't care what it is, and since, I think it's since April 28th, his OPS is over 1,100 or something like that. Like, he's just absolutely caught fire. And we've talked about it before, you know, the stars are gonna drive this team. The rest of the lineup, I mean, Bryson Stott is making some pretty regular contributions now. He had a home run and a two-run double on Sunday. He's hitting the ball really well. Yes, he is. Justin Crawford's doing, you know, what we talked about earlier in the podcast, and Harper and Schwarber are absolutely carrying this team. The rest of the lineup is still kind of struggling. Brandon Marsh, Brandon Marsh still doing his thing. But the rest of the lineup, all the right-handed hitters are still struggling to kind of do their thing. So it really is, Harper and Schwarber have loaded this team on their backs, and they're putting up just crooked numbers on their own right now. And that's, it's not sustainable for forever, but right now it's giving the rest of the lineup cover as they hopefully get themselves going here. As Wiz Philly fans, we know that the team sometimes needs that. I will never forget Ryan Howard literally putting the entire team on his back for weeks. Yep. In, you know, the waiting weeks of the 2008 season. He was, he was like, I will do this. It's okay, you guys are struggling, I'm here. And it's cool to see that again. Like just some guys saying, you guys are struggling, we're doing great, let us do our thing. You guys will, you guys will get back. Alec Boehm's been in 300 for the last two weeks, just so you know. Yeah, hitting over 400 since he came back from being benched. Yep. Actually, yeah. Something to think about. Two hits off skeins on Sunday, right? Two hits off skeins. Oh yeah, the go-ahead, knocked the go-ahead, or he scored the go-ahead run? Yeah, he scored the go-ahead run. Yep, right. No, no, no, not the first. He scored it, he. In the game one, I'm saying. He scored the run that Marsh knocked him in, yeah. Gotcha, yes sir, yes sir. I was gonna bring up Aaron Nola, but I don't feel like talking about Aaron Nola. I would encourage everybody to read the Zach, the, not the Zach Gelb, gosh, the Matt Gelb. Zach Gelb's a talk show host. Matt Gelb writes for The Athletic. Matt had some good numbers about Aaron Nola and his fastball. Nola's curveball has been great this year, but the fastball has been, he's allowed, I'm just gonna read this stat, a 970 OPS in any plate appearance that begins with a 1-0 count for Aaron Nola. Aaron Nola, if Aaron Nola throws a first pitch ball, he's allowed a 970 OPS in that plate appearance. Whenever he's thrown a fastball with the batter ahead in the count, opponents are hitting 400 with a 556 on base and a 1,000 slugging percentage on those pitches. He's also only throwing 42.5% of his pitches in the strike zone, which is the lowest of his career. He's terrified of throwing over the plate. He's terrified of throwing, the curveball's great, you just can't get to the curveball. Well, opponents are hitting 293 against him, so I'd be pretty terrified throwing across the plate too. This is the problem that I don't know that there's an answer to. I don't know how they're gonna deal with this all season. Forget about the years after this, but. Christopher Sanchez ate his soul. He might have. You know what, it's in service to a greater good. It is in service to a greater good, yeah. Here's the question, maybe this is the answer to your Christopher Sanchez comp. I mean, Aaron Nola, at one point, was an all-star, and a Cy Young contender, and he is very much a Phillies homegrown starting pitcher. Yes, it wasn't prolonged, obviously. I think that window, I don't know, two, three years, we wanna say, before people, he really had this reputation as this very chaotic pitcher who seemed to be springing a leak somewhere at any point. You know, he did reach a high high for the game when he was at his peak, so perhaps there is a comparison there. Maybe, maybe. Anyway, I don't think we need to talk any more about Aaron Nola. We just need to. I'm happy not to. Yeah, let's grit our teeth and hope he figures some things out, because it's been ugly for Aaron Nola so far. All right, well, a fun series in Pittsburgh wrapped up, and now the Phillies are finally coming back home again. They're gonna take on the Cincinnati. As I look at my schedule here, the Phillies are gonna take on the Cincinnati Reds starting Monday night. Is this a three-game series or a four-game series against Cincinnati? Three. Three-game series against Cincinnati here starting on Monday night at Citizens Bank Park. You've got Andrew Painter going on Monday, Jesus Lizardo on Tuesday, and Aaron Nola going on Wednesday. We'll see if the Phillies can keep it up against a Reds team that is kind of like the Pirates team. Same record as the Phillies, 24 and 23, having a, you know, but they've been a little bit more consistent through the season. And of course, the Reds made the playoffs last year, as we all forget. Terry Francona coming back to his ancestral home of Philadelphia for this three-game series this weekend. So that's what's on tap. Let's finish up with final thoughts. Liz, any final thoughts for tonight? Sure. Do you have a baseball project you've been working on? Is there a player that you remember that no one else does? Are you just interested in learning more about guys that you watched while you were growing up? Come on to Saber.org. Our bio project has an enormous volume of player bios written by Saber members, fact-checked by our expert fact-checkers. They do incredible work on all of these bios. They do them in their spare time. It's all volunteer. You should go and take a look. If you want to find out things about Chase Utley that you might not have known, pick any player. They go through box scores. They go through articles day by day by day to find out everything that you can know about a player. So if you are interested in finding out anything about a player you watched growing up, about someone that you may have heard of once, come to Saber.org and you will find the bio project. It is there for you. Hi, I'm award-winning baseball writer, Justin Kluh. And when I see a link to the Saber baseball profile under a player's name on Baseball Reference, I click it because I know the research has been done for me. On that website is a cornucopia of facts about every single player you could possibly imagine. And even if they don't have one, you'll get a notice saying this has been assigned to someone and you can look forward to a profile in the future. So as a baseball researcher, I would call it an absolute fundamental resource for any kind of baseball project you're working on. So highly recommend as well. Thank you, Justin. He has not been paid for this advertisement. No, I have not. That was volunteer work. So I've checked that box for the year. Thank you. Yes, you have. Thank you, Justin. I wanted to mention real quick, I have some further details, but I want to hold off on this until it's a little more than a whisper. But a report came out of Japan from Sports Nippon that Phillies are keeping an eye on a new guy over there. And his name is Todawaki Sato. He is a third baseman and an outfielder. He is currently hitting 360 with an OPS of 1160 in the Japan Central League. That's one of two leagues that make up the Pond Professional Baseball in Japan. And just Baseball said of Sato before the season started that 2026, or no, after the season started, that a 2026 surge has established Todawaki Sato as the best player in Japan and the NPB superstar looks bound for Major League Baseball. According to the report from Sports Nippon, Preston Mattingly was quoted saying, we're interested in him. And I think all the MLB teams will be keeping an eye on him. For the past few days, I've been really looking forward to checking out every aspect of his play. I wanted to see everything. I wanted to see firsthand how he interacts with his teammates, how he moves on the field, his fielding, and how he uses his body during batting practice. Now, yes, that quote eventually just turned into what scouting is, but the point is that they're over there and they're looking at him and he plays third base and he was the 2025 League MVP. Just another, you know, just when you thought the book had closed this year on the Phillies' interest in potentially looking in the Japanese market. Kind of an interesting wrinkle here and really kind of funny given that we just saw Alec Boehm, you know, starting to hit better and also made some like Brooks Robinson defensive plays over the weekend in Pittsburgh, by the way, which we did not mention. That last play in foul territory was unbelievable, so gotta give him some credit. And just one last thing. I was just thinking, you were talking about the schedule after this. I'd like to see this version of the team go up on a two-week Cubs-Braves gauntlet against. Just out of curiosity. You don't have to count the wins or losses again. Like, they lost the games they lost, but now I'm just curious in that hypothetical. I don't think they'd win nothing a second time playing this well, but that's all right because as things currently look, the Phillies are powering up for a couple of big-time clashes at the end of this month. They got Cincinnati at home, John mentioned, which they should be totally manageable, but the Phillies have beat up also on Andrew Abbott before. The Guardians come next and they're a handful, but then it's off to San Diego and Los Angeles. So they get like this mini boss and then the final boss of the National League on the road. But right now I want to see that. Yes, you know, we're not, we don't get to play the Braves and Cubs again. I'm ready after this sweep in Pittsburgh, I want to see how they match up with the Dodgers now. I think it's kind of quiet around baseball at large, how the Phillies have been surging because nobody really blinks at you until you're back over 500, which they are now. So I think they may start getting a little more focused as like one of the hotter teams in the sport because they are, but that series in LA is going to have a lot of eyeballs. And now I'm way more interested than I would have been in that, you know, three weeks ago. It is fascinating, but I thought the same thing. Like, I wonder how this team would have played if they were playing like they are now and you get the Cubs and the Braves, maybe you go 500 during that stretch, you know, maybe a little under, maybe a little over, but it would be, they're in such a different headspace now. I think they were getting themselves out. They were losing games because as much mentally as anything else during that stretch. And they're just playing with way more confidence. They would walk into a series like that knowing they can win. And that's the difference. I think they went into those series not sure if they could win and they didn't. Good notes and we'll look forward to the end of the month for that. But in the meantime, yeah, take care of some central teams that usually the Phillies don't have a whole lot of a problem with. All right, everybody, that's going to do it for this edition of Hittin' Season. This, of course, again, the Roundtable episode is featured on the WHYY YouTube channel. So if you're into watching podcasts on your tablet or your phone or your smart TV, just subscribe to the WHYY YouTube channel and click on us and you can watch all of the Roundtable shows. And of course, if you are an audio podcast person, we're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, wherever it is you get your podcasts. That is where you can find us. If you're on Apple, leave a five-star rating for the show. Tell us what you think. Leave a review. We would love it. And you can always send us an email to share your thoughts with us here at the show, hittinseason at billypenn.com. Thanks everybody for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time right here on Hittin' Season.