Good teams make opponents pay for mistakes.

Unfortunately for the Phillies, they were the ones too often picking up the bill during their recent six-game road trip.

The Braves and Mets capitalized numerous times on the Phillies’ mental lapses and defensive miscues, and that’s why they limped back to Citizens Bank Park on Friday night hurting from a 1-5 stretch.

During Friday night’s second inning, the Phillies flipped the script. Like Michael Scott says in The Office, “Well, well, well, how the turntables….”

The inning started innocently enough for Cardinals starting pitcher Carlos Martínez when he struck out J.T. Realmuto. It looked like he was on his way to sitting down the first two batters when Alec Bohm bounced a grounder in the hole that shortstop Paul DeJong failed to get across the infield.

Didi Gregorius followed with a single off the glove of Matt Carpenter that carried into right field, putting runners on the corners.

The Phillies then got some help from the swirling winds hovering around South Philly — and Cardinals center fielder Dylan Carlson — on what appeared to be a routine fly ball off the bat of Jean Segura.

The wind-aided double plated the game’s first run. It appeared Martínez would have an opportunity to limit the damage after an intentional walk to Mickey Moniak loaded the bases for Zach Eflin. However, he would instead hit Eflin to make it 2-0.

That’s when the floodgates opened.

Andrew McCutchen’s sixth hit of the season scored two more runs. Two batters later, Bryce Harper capped the inning with a two-run double that made it 6-0.

Sure, a slew of Cardinals mistakes spurred a desperately-needed six-run outburst following three losses in which the Phillies scored a total of just four runs. But the Phillies’ also hustled their asses off while showing more urgency and energy than they have in recent days.

Some examples:

  • Bohm was all-out, busting it from first to third on the Gregorius single.
  • Segura was hard out of the box on the routine-fly-ball-turned-double. His hustle enabled him to reach second base.
  • Harper was thinking two all the way on his double that broke things wide open.

Some would say this is the bare minimum of what should be expected from pro baseball players, but following a week of sleepy offense and a lack of energy that elicited criticism from me, these plays are noteworthy.

Plus, we like to do fair and balanced journalism here at Crossing Broad.

Was it a textbook way to generate runs? No, probably not. Was it a sustainable way to generate runs? Of course not, but after a rough road trip, it was the Phillies finally making an opponent pay for some mistakes.

Zach Eflin’s Stellar Night

For the second time in three starts this season, Zach Eflin was outstanding.

He needed just nine pitches to complete a scoreless first inning, which was a breath of fresh air from a Phillies starting staff that yielded multiple first-inning runs in four of its five previous games.

After allowing a single in the second, Eflin responded by retiring 12 consecutive batters.

The Cardinals didn’t reach base again until the sixth inning with two down when Tommy Edman broke the streak on a single to center. Eflin would bounce back in the seventh inning by setting down St. Louis in order.

At 92 pitches, he returned for the eighth but quickly yielded a double and homer. The sequence was the lone blemish on an otherwise outstanding evening for a pitcher that many believe is ready to turn the corner.

His final line: 7IP, 6H, 2ER, 0BB, 6K

BCIB Update

It has been a quiet start for many Phillies hitters this season, but it has not been a quiet start for J.T. Realmuto.

Realmuto is now hitting .325 with a .961 OPS through 40 at-bats.

That’s Next-Level Bad Luck

There’s bad luck at the dish, and then there’s the type of bad luck Bryce Harper had on Friday night.

A 1-for-3 night with a walk and two-run double was thisclose to going down as a three-hit night featuring at least one homer.

In the first inning, Harper struck a ball with a 109 mph exit velocity that carried a .980 expected batting average, according the MLB Statcast. Somehow, it hung up just in front of the right field fence.

Remarkably, he topped his own bad luck in the fourth inning when he struck a ball 108 mph that carried a .990 xBA.

Instead of resulting in a hit, it resulted in another loud out.

I pointed out Harper’s bad luck on Twitter and some hero responded by writing, “They were outs. Who gives a shit about the statistics of those outs.”

And I get it. Production is the name of the game, but you don’t have to be an “analytics dork” to know that hitting the ball hard is good. And doing it consistently, well, that’s really good.

Approaches in certain situations matter. For instance, sometimes a groundout to the right side that moves a runner to third with one out is huge. A play like that can win games.

Generally speaking, however, I’ll take the guy who consistently hits the shit out of the ball over a guy who consistently hits three-hoppers around the infield and can sometimes squeak one through.

Home is Where the Wins Are

Sure, the Phillies need to figure out how to win away from Citizens Bank Park, but they seem to be quite comfortable at home right now. Check out these home/road splits:

  • Home: 6-1 (+17 run-differential)
  • Away: 1-5 (-16 run-differential)

Since the start of the 2020 season, the Phillies are 25-14 at home but just 10-24 on the road. That’s a particularly bizarre split given the roster is filled with veteran players, meaning one would figure it would be less prone to road woes.