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Five Stats that Tell the Story of a Brilliant Phillies Regular Season
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On one hand, Phillies fans shouldn’t be surprised by the rampage the local baseball team went on this season, winning 96 games and claiming the NL East crown and #2 seed for the second straight year. This is a team on a four-year playoff streak with one of MLB’s top payrolls.
On the other hand, they finished with the sixth-most wins in franchise history, outperforming the recent teams that went to the World Series and NLCS in the process. They played fantastic baseball down the stretch, enough to perhaps garner enthusiasm even from the most bothered of fans, who wanted to sleep through the regular season and wake up when the playoffs begin.
Nevertheless, it was a phenomenal campaign, one of the best ever, so much so that the Phillies are the +400 World Series favorite at Pennsylvania and New Jersey sports betting apps. There’s reason to believe for these five reasons (and many more) –
1) beating good teams
The Phillies finished first in Major League Baseball with a .611 winning percentage against the 11 other teams that made the postseason. It was a 22 and 14 record with 10 comeback wins.
Notably, they went 4-2 against the Dodgers, Blue Jays, and Cubs. They swept the Mariners at home and won the season series against the Guardians, Yankees, Red Sox, and Tigers, 2-1. They split 3-3 with the Reds and Padres and their only losing record was 2-4 against the Brewers, though they won 2 of 3 in Milwaukee four weeks ago.
2) hammering relief pitchers
The Phils abused relief pitching in 2025, finishing first in MLB with a .264 batting average, plus a .345 on-base percentage, and .438 slugging percentage. That was good for a .787 OPS, which was #1 overall, ahead of the Yankees, Dodgers, Blue Jays, and, surprisingly, the Marlins in 5th.
More specifically, the Phillies clubbed 1.52 home runs per nine innings against relief pitching, which was 1st. They struck out only 8.29 times per nine innings, which was 7th best. And they mustered 213 extra-base hits, which was 4th. Their strikeout number against relievers was bottom ten and their walk number was inside the top 15. They scored 363 runs against relievers.
3) lockdown starting pitching
No surprises here. Even with the loss of Zack Wheeler, and long-term injury absence of Aaron Nola, the Phillies’ starting rotation had the second-best ERA in the majors, a cool 3.53. Opponents batted .242 against Phillies starting pitching, which was middle of the pack, but they only got on base at a .297 clip due to the strength of low walk numbers. Opposing batters only slugged .379, which was tied with the Brewers for the fourth-best number.
Most important, perhaps, is that the Phillies rotation did all of this while pitching 5.74 innings on average per start, which was also #1. They allowed just 2.36 runs per game and had a league-leading 84 quality starts (six innings of 3 or fewer earned runs), which was 12 more than the next-best rotation in baseball.
4) two-strike situations
The Phils did a really nice job when facing counts of 0-2, 1-2, 2-2, and 3-2.
They finished with a .177 average, .255 OBP, .286 slugging percentage, and .541 OPS, all of which were top eight. They also clubbed 70 home runs (7th), and 251 RBIs, which was 11th. What’s more is that they worked 288 walks from two-strike counts, which was 10th-best, and fouled off 1,694 pitches during these counts, two numbers that confirm their above-average ability to extend at-bats when behind in the count.
5) tight games and similar settings
The Phils were top-12 when it came to most of the situational team stats, for instance:
- .553 winning percentage in one-run games (tied 11th)
- .600 winning percentage in extra-innings games (tied 8th)
- 43 comeback wins (tied 3rd)
- .727 winning percentage when scoring first (8th)
- .621 winning percentage after All-Star break (3rd)
- 41 road wins (tied for 5th)
- 55 home wins (1st)
- .646 interleague winning percentage (1st)
- .623 night game winning percentage (3rd)
Ring the Bell / Campanazzo. It’s a Red October incoming.
Smash it:
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com