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You’re Not Gonna Win Many Baseball Games if Your Best Hitters Don’t Hit
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Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, and Kyle Schwarber went 1-11 in Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday night, striking out six times and mustering a walk.
Said Rob Thomson about that:
“(Ohtani) really pitched them well. A lot of offspeed pitches and dotted his fastball. Ohtani was good tonight. He really was. So you tip your cap and move on.”
Yeah, well, that’ll do it. Story of the game if we’re keeping it simple and going with Occam’s Razor here. You can talk about the decision to keep David Robertson in there for another inning, and nitpick the timing of the Cristopher Sanchez pull, maybe lament Edmundo Sosa getting under that pitch, but if you don’t get hitting from your best hitters, then you’re not gonna win many ballgames. Matt Strahm missed on a fastball (more on that later), and that was all she wrote.
The Phillies had five hits on the night, and four of them came from Brandon Marsh, Max Kepler, Bryson Stott, and J.T. Realmuto. And the thing about Realmuto’s triple is that it probably doesn’t get to three bases if Teoscar Hernandez gives some more effort running down that ball in the outfield.
Alas, Hernandez made up for his laziness while the top of the Phils order came up small. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.
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