Phillies

The Phillies Have Taken Advantage of Their Schedule Just as the Flyers and Sixers Exit Our Conscience

By Nick Piccone

Published: May 11th, 2026 · 10:22 AM EDT

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The Phillies won their two series against the Athletics and Rockies this past week, and have now won four series in a row. After a putrid start to the season, the Phils are finally playing better baseball and being rewarded for it. The starting pitching has been better. The hitting has been better. The bullpen hasn’t been exactly a shutdown squad, but they’ve done their job enough to ensure wins.

While the managerial change has coincided with the team playing more solid and fundamental baseball, I don’t think that’s entirely the reason they’ve started putting together a solid streak of games. While Trea Turner has struggled, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper have carried the top of that lineup. It’s been a while since that was the case.

My biggest gripe with Don Mattingly thus far, other than the weird bullpen usage in the first few games, was Friday night’s 10th inning. With baserunners on first and second and zero outs and only needing one run to win the game, there’s really only one decision that makes sense – bunt the runners over.

Look, you can give me all the analytics you want, but having a runner at third with less than two outs is better in that situation 10 times out of 10 than having runners at first and second with one out. Now, obviously, Schwarber and Harper are usually the exceptions to this rule, because there’s not a chance I’d feel confident in either of them bunting there. The issue was having J.T. Realmuto bat to begin with if he wasn’t going to be asked to bunt. And as history dictates – he just can’t. However, there’s another catcher there who excels at it who could have easily been slotted in. There’s just no reason to not ask Garrett Stubbs to do a job in that situation. I don’t care if baseball’s different in 2026. Winning games to crawl back to .500 needs to be the main goal right now. And it certainly didn’t feel like it Friday night.

That was a game the Phillies were losing 6-0 and 7-1, too! Capping an incredible 8th inning comeback with a win would’ve made it the best win of the season. It would have marked a sweep of the Rockies. It would have made the radio clips that much sweeter. And it would have made that moment for Justin Crawford that much cooler.

HOWEVER, having said ALL of that, the only thing I really care about is winning series to get back in the thick of things. And the Phillies have done just that. They’ve won four series in a row, putting themselves back in the Wild Card chase. So, although they basically gave away that game Friday night, I’m glad they controlled the rest of the series pretty handily. It makes the nonsense of Friday’s 10th inning mean little in the grand scheme of things, although they could be only one game below .500 instead of three. At least it’s not September.

On Phillies Weekly Sunday night, I joined Oscar Budejen, Jeff Kerr, and Tyler Poitras to discuss the Phillies’ week that was and the upcoming road trip to Boston and Pittsburgh. You can watch it here: