The Phillies dropped their seventh straight game last night in a 4-1 loss to the Brewers. That also means they’ve lost 11 of their last 13, after winning eight of their last 11 before that. They’re still an incredible 14-5 in one-run games, but 1-9 in games decided by five or more runs. This is old news though. They can pitch, but they can’t hit. When the pitching goes, the bats can’t keep them in the game.

But with this streak, the exciting and promising Phillies – still exciting and promising – are transitioning into the team we expected to see this season. One that makes mistakes, shows flashes of brilliance, and loses big. In their first 27 games this season, their run differential was a bad -22. In the 27 games since then, it was an abysmal -34. They’ve been outscored by 25 runs in just this seven game losing streak alone. That’s bad. Still, they’ve won 26 games. Those wins count, and they’re not ruled out because they can’t score. Just last year, the Angels finished with a differential of -14 and won 85 games.

Still, there’s some good here. Charlie Manuel said earlier this year that this Phillies team reminds him of the ’86 and ’87 Twins. The ’86 Twins, GM’d by Andy MacPhail, had a run differential of -98 and finished 20 games below .500. The next year, MacPhail’s team finished with a -20 differential, won 85 games and the World Series. Cholly may be even more of a simpleton soothsayer than we give him credit for.

Aaron Nola and Vincent Velasquez, specifically, have been playing out of their minds. Nola is fourth in the NL in WHIP, seventh in Ks, and third in strikeout/walk ratio. Velasquez is seventh in K/9. And FanGraphs recently looked at the NL’s leading pitchers when it comes to contact-management. Saving the super-statistical details, here’s what it tells us:

Aaron Nola’s groundball percentage is 56.3%, well above the league average (46.5%). Nola’s K rate is 26.8%, above the league average of 22%. Here’s what Tony Blengino had to say about what Nola is showing:


This cat is the real deal. His BIP frequency profile evokes Kershaw, Syndergaard and Arrieta: strong grounder rate, limitation of authority of all BIP types, a near-average liner rate that doesn’t invite regression. Plus, his K-BB spread is at the elite level. Nola is well on his way to being one of the best starting pitchers in the game.

Velasquez, on the other hand, influences many more pop-ups (6.9% to 3.1%), fly balls (37.4% to 29.5%), and throws more Ks (28.8% to 22%) than the league average.

This season is going to go up and down and sideways before this team straightens out into something good (or great). But there’s no need to panic. We got a taste of what this team can do, and they have plenty of time to do it again, better.