Philadelphia Phillies

Patience may be a virtue, but in baseball it often has a time limit.

The Phillies have benefited from sticking with first baseman

Tommy Joseph, who was hitting .400 in the first 12 games this month after getting off to a .179 start in April. Manager Pete

Mackanin kept putting Joseph’s name on the lineup card, more times than not, and by last weekend he was hitting cleanup.

“There are a lot of managers who may not have been as patient, but Pete was and continued to encourage him and we're being rewarded for that because Tommy is playing better,” general manager Matt Klentak told philly.com.

Then there’s the former cleanup hitter, third baseman Maikel

Franco. He was hitting .209 through Sunday, but there was a catch. According to MLB Statcast, 42% of his batted balls had left his

bat at 95 mph or higher, which ranked 16th out of 99 major league hitters with at least 100 batted balls.

Mackanin and Klentak weren’t thrilled when veteran

Joaquin Benoit blamed the bullpen’s struggles on a lack of defined roles. Benoit, who has pitched almost exclusively from the seventh inning on, had a 5.06 ERA through 17 appearances.

“I told him he needs to make baseball No. 1. When he did that, he was on top of the world.” Mets manager Terry Collins, on his message to Matt Harvey when the right-hander returned from a three-game suspension