Hits remain squirreled away for Phillips
PHOENIX – Give Brett Phillips credit. He can make light of even the most frustrating of situations.
Hours before homering for the first time this spring and with opening day a little over a week away on a Milwaukee Brewers team stacked with all kinds of outfield depth, the youngster on Tuesday summed up his struggles at the plate in his own unique way.
“Just imagine me as a squirrel, right?” Phillips began. “In the fall he gathers up all his nuts and stores them away. I’ve worked hard to go out there in the fall,
worked out hard, gathered all my nuts and here comes the spring and next thing you know I forgot where I hid them.
“I’m just trying to dig them up. It’s looking like they’re probably behind the dugout in Colorado Springs or in the clubhouse. I don’t remember being there in the off-season to bury them, but I think that’s probably where they’re going to be at – which is fine.
“I’ll go gather my nuts and I’ll be eating again. That’s basically where I’m at.”
Phillips, 23, has been a popular figure among Brewers fans almost since the team acquired him as part of the July 2015 trade that sent Carlos Gomez to the Houston Astros.
Once known mostly for his unique laugh and affable nature, Phillips finally made his major-league debut with Milwaukee last season and impressed. Over four stints he hit a combined .276 with four home runs and 12 runs batted in while also making several standout defensive plays.
The way Phillips finished – with the Brewers in the playoff hunt – was especially impressive, as he hit .348 with two homers and eight RBI over his final 17 games. It was a performance that figured to put him solidly in the mix for a spot on the opening-day roster in 2018.
Then came the Brewers’ late January acquisitions of Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain, which left the team with a surplus of outfielders and young upand-comers like Phillips and Keon Broxton seemingly on the outside looking in.
While trades are still a possibility as teams begin dealing with their roster crunches, it’s looking more and more like Phillips and Broxton both are ticketed for Class AAA Colorado Springs as the Brewers stockpile their depth.
Phillips was well aware of the situation when he arrived in Maryvale this spring, and he struggled from the outset. His average hasn’t risen above .125 and he sat at just .098 before his tworun homer in the eighth off Jairo Díaz gave the Brewers a 4-3 lead over the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday.
After the game, Phillips described the at-bat as only he can.
“That guy was throwing absolute laser beams, missiles, and probably from one of the newer generation model spaceships,” said Phillips, who upped his average to .119 with his lone at-bat.
“Honestly, I couldn’t see it, so for me it was a matter of swinging just as soon as he got started. That’s how hard he was throwing. Luckily I was able to square it up, thank God, and it just happened to fly.
“It gets my confidence up a little. I’ve got a long ways to go to recover from the hole that I’ve put myself in.”
Manager Craig Counsell discounted the assertion that Phillips’ disappointment at the uphill battle he had to make the team might have had a negative impact on his performance.
“Was he affected by our moves this winter? Certainly he was affected,” Counsell said. “Regardless, would he have been a lock on the team? No, he would not have been a lock on the team. There would have still been a lot of consideration.
“Look, you have to earn everything you get here, and that’s the way it should be. We’re not dealing with a player that has four years of service time that might have to go back to the minor leagues. And he understands that. This spring, to me, he’s gotten off to a little bit of a slow start at-bat wise, but really nothing that I’m concerned about.
“In fact, until three days ago when someone said what his offensive numbers were, I wouldn’t have guessed it. Hadn’t even struck me that he was struggling.”
Phillips had a solid 2017 season at Colorado Springs, where he hit .305 with 19 homers and 78 RBI over 105 games, and he’s still considered one of the organization’s top prospects. His left-handed bat, strong throwing arm and defensive skills all work in his favor.
Armed with that knowledge, and a strong belief in his skills, Phillips isn’t putting a great deal of stock in his performance to this point.
“As a competitor, of course I don’t want to be where I’m at,” Phillips said. “Thank God it’s not going on the back of my baseball card because I feel like if I’m three weeks into a season and I only have 40 at-bats, I’m worried about that. If I’m hitting .098, I’m worried about that, too.
“There’s going to be more. I’m not worried about it. Obviously it’s not where anyone wants to be. But I’ve still got six months ahead of me that actually matter, so I’m just using this as a period to grow through and get ready for my season.
“Like a squirrel.”