Phils still thirsting for signs of confidence
PHILADELPHIA >> Bryce Harper has been around long enough to have witnessed baseball’s highs and lows, to taste the difference between thrilling series sweeps and losing letdowns, even those subsequently eulogized like glorious victories.
Yet he knew he hadn’t seen it all when he went out to right field for the top of the fifth inning Sunday and began seeing spots. Literally ... and they weren’t only on some Ashburn Alley regulars’ shirts.
“It was weird,” Harper said after the Phillies flopped 3-2 Sunday to the San Diego Padres, thereby losing a home series to a team that had arrived in town nine games below the win-loss sea level mark.
“I went up to hit (in the fourth), and then slid into second and felt fine,” Harper added. “I got in the dugout and felt fine. Then I ran to right field and was throwing with (bullpen coach Craig) Driver, and just had little splotches and just didn’t feel right.”
Harper stayed in, sort of saw Phillies starter Jason Vargas cruise through the Padres fifth, tried eye drops in the dugout
... and couldn’t shake the spots. Couldn’t see clearly. Couldn’t hang in.
As it turned out, Harper would find out after removing himself from the lineup that he simply was dehydrated. Not enough water or Gatorade or Hi-C or whatever prevents such splotchy spots from usually occurring.
Sometimes, not even Red Bull can prevent cases of seeing something that isn’t there, especially when an accompanying effort is being made to keep a shaky level of clubhouse confidence above water.
“Really proud of the grind in today’s at-bats,” manager Gabe Kapler said after his team’s four-hit losing performance Sunday. “We saw 110 pitches off their starter, saw 27 pitches with three outs in the ninth inning.”
That tribute was especially owed to Jean Segura, who had two runscoring doubles earlier, then finished with a 13-pitch at-bat in the ninth. But it wasn’t noted that Segura, Corey Dickerson and Scott Kingery all struck out swinging against Padres closer Kirby Yates in that ninth inning.
At least it wasn’t easy for him to strike out the side when it counted.
But what’s clear through the Phillies’ more than occasional spots of offensive trouble is that they can’t outhit their fatal flaw ... that being the pitching staff, of course. As currently constituted, they continue to wallow in the lower-third of the National League in so many team batting categories, which makes it tough to support a thin pitching staff.
On occasion, however, they can inspire confidence, at least in their clubhouse.
“We’re playing good baseball here,” Rhys Hoskins said. “We feel like we are. We hit some balls hard today that found gloves and sometimes that happens. If we keep pitching like we do and the bullpen keeps pitching like we do, we’ve seen how hot we can get quickly. Tough loss today but we’ll be all right.”
Coming off a sweep of the Chicago Cubs, confidence had to be high when the Padres and their 5564 record hit town Friday. It had to go up after a fourth consecutive Phillies win that night put another weird little thing on the verge of extinction – a curious case of this Phillies team not being able to win five games in a row.
Winning five in a row is something the Phillies have done every year since 1990. At least until this season ... so far.
The latest stab to win the elusive fifth ended with a 5-3 loss to the Pads Saturday night. It went the other way via this loss Sunday. It’ll keep trending badly unless the hits come more consistently, and that’s presuming a fortified Harper sees clearly enough to resume his recent hot streak ways when the club hits the road this week in Boston and Miami.
“It’s frustrating to lose the game and series,” Kapler said, “(but) we were 4-2 on the homestand and like I said, really high-quality at-bats today across the board that didn’t end with the best possible result.”
That the game ended with Harper not being around long enough to bash a ball into the stands, as he did four times during the four wins on the homestand, that’s one likely reason it ended the way it did.
Another was Kapler’s Exhibit A in his argument that the Phillies were grinding out good, tough at-bats all day – struggling Rhys Hoskins.
In the pride department, Hoskins is hurting a little. Slumps like these will do that. That his slump almost took a long detour via a high and deep fly to centerfield in the eighth inning Sunday before San Diego’s Manuel Margot caught it against the fence?
“The toughest,” Hoskins said.
He’s had one home run and two RBIs in the 16 Phillies games over the month of August.
He’s had eight hits in his last 73 at-bats dating to July 27, or a batting average barely above a hundred smackers. Hoskins isn’t seeing spots, but his patience certainly has to be running dry.
“Look, I feel great. Obviously it sucks to not contribute and not produce, but swing-wise I feel great,” Hoskins said. “I feel like for the most part I’m seeing pitches. I’m seeing the ball fine. Just for whatever reason things are a little off and the last couple weeks when I do (hit) something, it’s right at somebody. That’s baseball. Unfortunately, I know that’s really cliché.
“I wish I had a different answer. I’ve sat for hours and hours and looked at film trying to find something that I can go in the cage and take a thousand swings to fix, but at some point you just have to keep going up there and stuff will turn. Water will find its level.”
Well, maybe not always ... just ask Harper.
For the Phillies, the line has been up and down, hot and cold. Over their last 13 half-lucky games, they have six wins, scoring 46 runs in those games, nearly an eight-per-game average.
In the seven losses during that span, they scored but 17 runs.
While such basic baseball math would surprise no one, it does illustrate one obvious flaw in the Phillies’ theory of clubhouse positivity ... they’re a team with a starting rotation of one solid starter and four other guys. Thus by the good graces of Charlie Manuel magic they have to stay hot offensively just to put themselves in position to somehow stay in the wild card mix until the end of September.
Their postseason hopes are based on the presumption that “hitting season” is ready to resume when they hit the road. That’s the only valid prescription plan for a team ripped asunder by injuries to pitchers all year long.
Either that or just keep drinking the Kool Aid in order to forge ahead.
Contact Rob Parent at rparent@21stcenturymedia.com; you can follow him on Twitter @ReluctantSE.