Through four innings Wednesday, the Phillies and the Braves were having a hard time making solid contact at the plate.

The two teams had combined for five hits. The Braves’ two hits were bloops to the outfield, one of which, hit to right field, would probably been caught by an outfielder with more range.

The Phillies’ three hits were a flyball to left field that Marcel Ozuna lollygagged on and let it fall in front of him, an infield single that went about 30 feet by J.T. Realmuto and a line drive single to centerfield by Darick Hall.

That hit by Hall, according to Statcast, came off the bat at 103.9MPH. The 18 batters who made contact prior to hall combined to average 84.8MPH off the bat.

The translation? One of either Kyle Gibson for the Phillies or Charlie Morton for the Braves were going to have to break in order for one team to pull ahead.

With the Phillies winning 7-2, it was obviously Morton that broke, but the reason why might not have been as evident.

But here it was:

Morton faced his first bit of adversity in the fourth inning when he allowed two baserunners, although he got out of it by forcing Nick Castellanos to hit into a double play.

However, in the top of the fifth, Gibson got the Braves to make all three outs on just four pitches.

Morton barely had a chance to sit and take a breath on the Braves bench before he had to go back out onto the field. That quick of a turnaround is often tough on a pitcher both physically and mentally.

In the fifth, Bryson Stott led off with a walk and then the mental errors started to occur:

https://twitter.com/BrodesMedia/status/1552352808724209666

There’s the break by Morton. This pick off attempt wasn’t even close, allowing Stott to go all the way to third. With the score so tight and a feeling that one or two runs might be enough to win this game, the Braves brought the infield halfway in, when the hottest Phillie – and maybe the hottest hitter in all of baseball – Alec Bohm stepped to the plate:

https://twitter.com/BrodesMedia/status/1552353012919803904

Bad pitch by Morton and Bohm jumped all over it to extend his hitting streak to 12 games. In those 12 games, Bohm is hitting .488 (20-for-41).

It’s not just those 12 games for Bohm though. The month of July he’s been outstanding with a .439 average and an OPS of 1.099.

Add in another week’s worth of games, and since Bryce Harper came out of the lineup, and Bohm is slashing .416/.439/.597 for an OPS of 1.036.

It makes you wonder, where would the Phillies be without Bohm at this point?

Back to the game… as the inning continued to unravel for Morton:

https://twitter.com/BrodesMedia/status/1552353228360220673

Robinson Cano should not be in the field anymore. Ever. Hell, he’s not hitting either, so maybe he shouldn’t be in the major leagues. I mean, I hardly play on my men’s softball team anymore, and I can still field a grounder cleaner than Cano.

From there, Odubel Herrera, who for some reason hits Charlie Morton really well, had an RBI single, then he stole second. After a Kyle Schwarber sacrifice fly and another walk to Rhys Hoskins, the Phillies put on another double steal with Herrera and Hoskins (what were the odds on that?) and then both scored on a single by J.T. Realmuto.

It was 5-0. For all intents and purposes, the game was over.

Yeah, Matt Olson hit a two-run dinger off of Gibson in the sixth, but the Phillies answered with two more runs on a bloop double by Nick Castellanos, an RBI double by Bohm, and a wild pitch and a sac fly by Didi Gregorious.

The bullpen was lights out, again, as Connor Brogdon, Brad Hand, and Andrew Bellatti each worked a scoreless inning. And the Phils won the series. Which is really what I want to talk about.

NOT BACKING DOWN TO OPPONENTS

The Phillies may be battling for the final wild card spot right now, and enter this four-game series in Pittsburgh a half game behind the St. Louis Cardinals for that final spot. But there’s a trend to like with the Phillies this season – they play up to the competition.

And while most of this has happened since the managerial change in early June, there were even some signs before that where the Phillies are a team that can matchup with anyone in the NL.

Let’s take a look at this.

Since Rob Thomson has taken over, the Phillies are 29-18. That’s been well-documented. But how has Thomson’s team done against winning squads? –

  • 3-0 at Milwaukee
  • 3-1 at San Diego
  • 3-3 vs. Atlanta
  • 4-3 vs. St. Louis (2-1 at home, 2-2 on the road)
  • 0-2 at Toronto

That’s 13-9 overall, and 13-7 against teams they will either be competing with for a playoff spot or potentially playing in the playoffs if they get in. Even better, is the 8-5 record (8-3 vs. the NL) on the road.

If you go back before the managerial change, the numbers aren’t as good, but they are mostly skewed by struggles against one team:

  • 3-9 vs New York Mets (2-4 at home, 1-5 on the road)
  • 2-1 vs. Milwaukee
  • 2-1 at Seattle
  • 4-3 vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (1-2 at home, 3-1 on the road)
  • 1-2 vs. San Diego
  • 2-2 vs. Atlanta

That’s 14-18 overall (and shows just how hard the Phillies schedule was to start the season), but take away the Mets and it’s 11-9.  Also, it’s 6-7 on the road, but again, take away the Mets, and it’s 5-2.

That’s not to say the Phillies should dismiss the Mets, but both teams are a lot different now than the last time they saw each other.

Since the last time they played the Phillies are 30-20 and the Mets are 29-20.

Nevertheless, the Braves have been one of the best teams in baseball since late May, and the Phillies are .500 against them. The Phillies won the season series’ against the Dodgers, Cardinals, Brewers and Padres. Unless the San Francisco Giants recover from their freefall (unlikely), or someone unexpected like Miami, Arizona or Colorado goes on an unexpected tear in the remaining nine weeks of the season, it’ll be those seven teams battling for six playoff spots, and the Phillies have been .500 or better against five of the other six.

Does this mean the Phillies are playing down to competition as well, and struggling to beat bad teams? Not at all.

You might feel that way after getting swept by Chicago last weekend, but the fact is, since Thomson took over, the Phillies are 16-9 against sub-.500 teams. They were 9-10 against those teams under Girardi, which wasn’t great, and brings their season total to 25-19, which should be a few games better, at least.

But, keep this in mind too, they have played the last 26 games without Bryce Harper and Jean Segura in the lineup, and are 14-12. Segura, who also missed an additional 22 games (in which the Phillies went 16-6), started a rehab assignment this week and could be back in the lineup by next week. Harper is hoping for later in August.

So, the Phillies are having this success minus the reigning NL MVP, minus one of their better contact hitters, and with guys like Schwarber, Castellanos and Hoskins experiencing cold streaks.

The reason has been their pitching. Not just the starters, but the bullpen as well. And when you have that kind of sustained pitching success, it can, and should, only get better from here.

The Phillies have 64 games left this season. Of those games, only 21 are against teams with a winning record. In fact, of their next 45 games, only nine are against teams with winning records – two in Atlanta next week, and seven with the Mets in a span of 10 days in mid-August.

Let’s say the Phillies go 4-5 in those nine games (I’d be more positive if I knew Harper would be back for the second Mets series). Then, in the other 36 games against, Pittsburgh (7 games), Washington (7), Miami (9), Cincinnati (7), Arizona (3) and San Francisco (3), let’s say they do one game better than their current winning percentage under Thomson (.640) against losing teams  (24-12). That will have the Phillies at 79-64 with three weeks to play.

And while those final three weeks are tougher, with seven against the Braves, two against Toronto and a season-ending three in Houston, there’s also seven against the Cubs and Nationals. Are 11 wins possible? Definitely, especially if Houston has nothing to play for in those last three games.

As such, is 90 wins out of the question? It’s not.

And is a 90-win team good enough to make a run in the playoffs? No doubt. Especially considering how the Phillies have played this season against likely playoff competition.

And the fact that the Phillies have competed with the best in the NL this year already, and are still in the middle of this thing without Harper for the past month, and likely another few weeks as well, it tells you this team is different than any of the past few seasons where you might have bought in only to receive fool’s gold as a reward.

A lot can happen between now and then. The trade deadline could swing things in many directions, too. If Dave Dombrowski can add another starter who isn’t just a backend guy, and you can throw said pitcher into a series with Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, the Phillies can matchup with anyone.

Get into the playoffs, even as the final wild card team and have to play the NL Central champ in a best-of-3 on the road, I’ll take the Phillies over both Milwaukee and St. Louis, no matter where the games are being played. They’ve already proven they can win everywhere except New York – but they’ll have a chance to do that in a couple weeks.

The point is, Red October is on the horizon. And I’m starting to feel like it won’t be all that brief either.