Eventually, lack of home run hitter could hit Phillies hard
No player in lineup has ever hit 30 home runs in season
PHILADELPHIA >> The Phillies won the 2008 World Series with Ryan Howard hitting 48 home runs and Chase Utley and Pat Burrell adding 33 each, each protecting the other, all protecting the manager, and the pitcher, and the pennant hopes.
That was a special team at a special moment, with in-their-prime power-hitters raining batted baseballs on occupied, fair-territory seats. And when Utley, Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez all hit 30-plus homers and Howard delivered 45, the Phillies were in the 2009 World Series, too.
Power: It’s a good thing. The threat of power: It could be even better.
“You hate to see a guy come up against you who has that kind of pop,” Pete Mackanin was saying Saturday, before the Phillies played the Washington Nationals. “One of the things I consider when I am intentionally walking a hitter is, ‘If I put another run on base and the next guy that’s coming up has home run power, I might not be so quick to make that decision.’ That might make my decision easier if the guy doesn’t hit home runs.”
Mackanin is not sold on the concept that home runs rule. It’s why he half-dismisses the accumulation of them as “sexy statistics,” alluring at some level, but potentially empty. He picked a good night Saturday to argue that, too, with the Phillies scoring a dozen times in the first inning without a home run. Yet with his roster, it’s just as well. Because while the Phils have the potential for power, they do not have one player who has ever hit 30 home runs in a major-league season.
And how is that likely to work on nights when Jeremy Guthrie is not the opposing starting pitcher?
“You can hit 30 home runs and drive in 90 or 100 but it’s those at-bats with a man on third that, instead of striking out or popping up, you put the ball in play,” Mackanin said. “To me, RBIs are more important than home runs. The threat of a home run is good. But you can hit 30 home runs and 27 of them are with a big lead or might give you the lead early in the game. And then that guy comes up in the seventh inning and can’t put the ball in play with the winning run at third. So, to me, sexy statistics – meaning home runs – can be misleading.”
Earl Weaver once sat in a Baltimore dugout before a late-season game, his Orioles sputtering. Someone asked what could help. “George,” he growled. George? George who? “George Herman Babe Ruth,” he snarled. “That’s who.”
The Phillies do not lack for potential home-run hitters. Maikel Franco hit 25 last season Tommy Joseph, who began the season in the minors and later had to share some major-league playing time with Ryan Howard, had 21. Michael Saunders hit 24 last summer for the Blue Jays, good for a spot on the American League All-Star team. Even Freddy Galvis went for 20. But there are not any home run hitters that an opposing manager will begin plotting against three innings in advance.
As they prepared to play Saturday, no one in the heart of the Phils’ order – Odubel Herrera, Franco, Saunders, Joseph or Cameron Rupp – had yet hit a 2017 home run. There were ample reasons for the 1-3 start. That was one.
“We’ll have to find out what we have to do to get better,” Franco said try to find out what I have to do to drive a run in. It’s four games already, but I have to get better every single day.”
The Phillies can try that. But there no evidence that any of them can hit 30 home runs in a major-league season. Maybe this year?
“I believe that Joseph is capable,” Mackanin said. “I believe Rupp is capable. I believe they have the power potential. Certainly, Franco has it. Saunders has it; he hit 24 last year. Those guys, I’m hoping, will do something like that. That potential is there. It’s up to them to put it together.”
Opposing pitchers and managers will react to that when they see it.