Phillies

It’s Time For Another Phillies Vibe Check (Medium to Pretty Good)

By Matt Schultz

Published: Jun 1st, 2026 · 11:55 AM EDT

---

It’s been a minute since we checked in on the Phillies’ vibes, and with May coming to a close, now feels like the right time for an update. We all know about the Phils’ abysmal start to the season, but after playing a month-plus of baseball since firing Rob Thomson, how are things feeling now?

The answer is… pretty good. Medium, I’d say. Medium-good, somewhere in there. Let’s start with the good stuff.

The Good Stuff

The Phils went 18-10 in May with a 19+ run differential, and the pitching has been the biggest reason for the success. The team posted a 3.19 ERA in May — 4th best in baseball in the month — and in games they won, the Fightins had a 1.82 ERA with 5.22 runs scored per game. That’s an interesting stat, in my opinion — the arms and bats fed off each other. When the pitching was going, the bats were going, and vice versa. 

And if we’re talking Phillies pitching in May, the conversation has to begin with Cristopher Sanchez. The man was arguably the best pitcher in baseball through the month. In 5 starts, he went 4-0 with a 0.00 ERA — zero earned runs allowed across 39 innings (!!!). Sanchie’s current scorless inning streak is at 44.2 (going back to April 30th), and is still going strong after he surpassed Hall of Famer Grover Alexander for the longest scoreless innings streak by any Phillies pitcher since 1893 (when the mound moved to its current distance). Grover’s streak was 41 in 1911. Sanchez crushed that, and he’s not done yet…

Cristopher Sánchez — May 2026

GS	W-L	IP	ERA	WHIP	K	BB	K/BB	H	HR	OAVG	K/9	BB/9
5	4-0	39.0	0.00	0.72	45	3	15.00	25	0	.181	10.38	0.69

Sanchez was so good that he overshadowed Zack Wheeler, whose 2.09 ERA in May would’ve been headline news on most teams in baseball. Jesús Luzardo was solid with a 3.03 ERA. Andrew Painter and Aaron Nola were not good, but I’m not going to linger on that here. This is the Good Stuff section. And speaking of good, the backend of the bullpen was nails. Jhoan Duran was elite with 7 saves and a 1.64 ERA, and the comeback kid, Orion Kerkering, was excellent, going 3-0 with a 2.53 ERA.

On the other side of the plate, the offense wasn’t anything to write home about as a whole, but the highs were high. Kyle Schwarber was a monster with 11 home runs in one month, leading the team in both HR and RBI (19). Bryce Harper was excellent with great plate discipline (17 BB), scoring 18 runs and adding 7 homers. Brandon Marsh, of all people, led the team with a .337 average on 30 hits. Bryson Stott pitched in a team-high 20 RBI. And after looking like the worst player I’ve ever seen for the first month of the season, Alec Bohm bounced back with a nice May: .277/.333/.479, 5 HR, 11 RBI, and 26 H in 102 PA with just 10 Ks. Seeing the Phillies Daycare contribute meaningful AB’s has been so nice. I can feel those guys shedding their reputation as automatic outs in my mind, slowly but surely. 

That’s pretty much the end of the good. I’ll breeze through the bad quickly:

The Bad Stuff

Gotta start with Adolis García. Respectfully, he’s been dog shit — his 128 BA and 37 Ks were historically bad for a month, and looking at his slash line —.128 / .206 / .186, an OPS of .392 — makes me nauseous. Trea Turner was another disaster, hitting .189 and swinging at some of the worst pitches I’ve ever seen. The numbers back that up, too. His plate discipline is nonexistent — he had four walks in 116 PA in May. J. T. Realmuto wasn’t much better, hitting .192 with just one homer. All three are deeply unpleasant to watch at the plate. I’m much happier and healthier as a guy when I’m not watching those guys’s at-bats.

Other zoomed-out stuff: Team batting average was just .220 with a .667 OPS, which is middling at best. Painter was the pitching lowlight: 0-4, 6.14 ERA, 7 HR allowed in 29.1 IP — woof. Nola was terrible: 5.33 ERA and giving up crooked numbers left and right. Tanner Banks out of the pen had a 7.20 ERA in 10 IP. I like Tanner, too, but he’s been rough. And last, I’m going to put Adolis’ slash line here again — he was so bad he deserves to be mentioned twice: .128 / .206 / .186, giving him a .392 OPS. 11 hits in 86 AB with just 7 walks and 37 strikeouts. Awful. 

So where does that leave us overall? I feel weirdly bad about this team now, after writing all this out. I realize now that I should have written the Bad Stuff first, then the Good Stuff after, so we could all leave this blog feeling optimistic. Too late for that. It’s a good lesson to learn, though. Next time. I’m getting better every day…

I do think the Phils are in a very solid spot, though. Today’s June 1st! Hitting season has only just begun! We all know Kyle goes nuts in June. He may hit 40 home runs this month. He’s going to launch moon shots 700 feet. The Phillies arguably have the best one-two in any rotation in baseball, plus some elite arms at the back of the bullpen. And big picture, to remember where this team was just six weeks ago and see where they are now is pretty remarkable. If you told me in mid-April, after the Phils lost ten straight to fall to 8-18, that they’d be 1.5 games out of the Wild Card on June 1st, I would have smiled a nice big smile and nodded slowly and felt pretty damn good. And look me now… 

I’m smiling a nice big smile and nodding slowly and feeling pretty damn good. So there’s the verdict: the vibes are Pretty Good. Here’s to hoping a big June elevates the vibes to Great.