The Philadelphia Phillies have put forth a horrendous effort this week.
The Philadelphia Phillies should be absolutely embarrassed by what has transpired over the last two games with the New York Mets, and how they have performed this week in general.
After taking the opener in a four-game series with their NL East rivals, the Phillies have dropped the last two against the Mets by a combined score of 16-6, falling 10-3 on Saturday.
Philadelphia has now scored just three runs in five straight games, going just 2-3 during that span. And who were the Phillies' opponents throughout that stretch? The Washington Nationals and New York. Two bottom feeders.
Andrew Painter was tagged for four runs over 5.1 innings Saturday. Then, the bullpen got rocked, as Brooks Raley has proven to be a horrendous MLB trade deadline addition, and Orion Kerkerking is becoming more and more of a pariah.
Once again, the Phillies struggled to generate any sort of offense, leaving 10 runners on base. Bryce Harper's power outage continued. So did the struggles of Kyle Schwarber. Brandon Marsh, meanwhile, is seeing his OPS continue to plummet, and at this rate, there is a chance it finishes below .700 this season.
Last month, Philadelphia was clicking on all cylinders. Everything was working. The Phillies were getting on base. They were getting big hits. They were shutting down opposing offenses. Fast forward to the back half of September, and they are letting the lowly Mets put a 10-spot on the board.
I'm not sure what exactly has happened to this ballclub. Maybe the Phillies really were just playing over their heads during that 17-4 stretch. It was pretty clear that they were benefiting pretty strongly from luck, so perhaps it has caught up to them.
But there is no excuse to go 2-3 in such critical games against bad teams.
Philadelphia had a chance to win five of six in what should have been an easy stretch. Now, the Phils are just hoping to finish .500.
As for the Phillies' last two series of the regular season? They will have to face the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays, both of whom are leading their respective leagues.
It would still take a gargantuan collapse for Philadelphia to miss the playoffs, but it had an incredible opportunity to lock things up this week. Somehow, some way, the Phillies fell short.
