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Starting the Work Week the Right Way, with the Phillies 5.5 Games Ahead of the Ice-Cold Mets
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Lot of baseball left to play! But it’s nice to wake up to this on a Monday morning:
Five and a half games up with 45 left to play. The Phils hadn’t won a game in Texas since 2014, and wound up taking all three from the Rangers this weekend while allowing just five runs and scoring 16. They’ve won three series in a row and seven of their last nine games.
If you go back to the All-Star break, they have series wins against the Red Sox, Yankees, Tigers, Orioles, and Rangers, and their only series losses are against the Angels, and, inexplicably, the White Sox. The Phils are 13-8 since the break.
The Mets, on the other hand. Oh boy. They were swept by the white-hot Milwaukee Brewers in Wisconsin this weekend, but that followed a three-game sweep at the hands of the Guardians, a sweep at the hands of the Padres, and a home series loss to the Giants. They have won just one of their last 12 games after going on a seven-game win streak.
What’s funny is that they went out and got some bullpen help at the deadline, adding Ryan Helsley, Tyler Rogers, and Gregory Soto, but the starting pitching has been god awful. Since the break, Mets starters have a 4.96 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, and .773 opponent OPS. They’ve walked 40 batters and only struck out 84, allowing 15 homers in the process. They are bottom 12 across the board in almost every meaningful statistic. They are also tied for worst in the league when it comes to “quality starts,” which is when a pitcher goes at least six innings while giving up three or fewer earned runs. They only have three quality starts since the break.
They’re also not hitting the ball very well, a .662 OPS since the break and a .216 batting average, which is tied for 2nd-worst. 150 hits is the fewest in MLB and their .297 on-base percentage is fourth-worst. For comparison, the Phillies are slashing .253/.318/.482 since the break.
What a great way to start the week.
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