April 27, 2026
Patrick Gorski/Imagn Images
Trea Turner has been one of the worst leadoff men in baseball through one month of the 2026 season.
It wasn't supposed to be this bad again. At least not for a very long time.
After a decade of futility, the Phillies have spent four years contending for World Series titles. Their front office has been spending money hand over fist, and the city has fallen in love with baseball again.
Love affairs are fleeting. So are eras in major pro sports.
Shockingly ahead of schedule, the Phillies have had one of the worst starts to a season in memory, going 9-19 and showing little fight, few impressive at bats and even fewer top notch pitching performances.
Baseball is a marathon, and somehow, all is not lost yet. With more than 130 games left to go there is plenty of time to turn it around.
The Phillies are idle Monday, licking their wounds ahead of a brief three-game set at home before heading to Miami for a short road trip. Here are some intriguing and interesting thoughts for the Phillies' off day:
For the first time since the 2007 Royals (who won just 69 games) an MLB team has gone 0-10 against left-handed starters (h/t NBCSP's Cole Weintraub).
That's just mind-blowing. Sure, the best Phillies hitters are lefties, which often implies a weaker offensive output for left on left match ups, but it's been the right-handed hitters who have been completely invisible every time a southpaw takes the mound.
| Category | Slash | MLB Rank |
| All hitters vs. lefties | .179./270/.293 | All 30th of 30 teams |
| LHB vs. lefties | .197/.299/.345 | 24th/16th/14th |
| RHB vs. lefties | .166/.249/.256 | All 30th of 30 teams |
All of those numbers are bad, but the left-handed hitters having the 14th best slugging percentage against lefties in the league is totally bizarre, in contrast to the righties being literally dead last.
Of hitters on the roster with 15 or more at bats against left-handed pitching, Bryce Harper has the highest batting average at .229. Trea Turner is hitting .128 with one extra base hit in 45 plate appearances. The numbers are just gross.
The Phillies ended their regular losing streak Saturday (at 10 games, their longest since 1999). But if they can't end this lefty streak, there's no chance they contend in any way shape or form this season.
The Phillies made deep playoff runs from the Wild Card position in 2022 and 2023 — ironically much deeper (the World Series and NLCS respectively) than they did as NL East winners in 2024 and 2025. Which is probably reassuring right now, as the Phillies are extremely unlikely to catch the Braves, whom they've spotted a 10.5 game lead in April and are also probably going to lose the tiebreaker to (after going 1-5, they would need to go 6-1 in the final seven games against them).
But the final Wild Card participant in the NL in each of the last four seasons has ranged from 83 wins to 89 wins. Which means the Phillies would need to go somewhere between 74-60 and 80-54 for the rest of the season to finish in playoff range.
They have shown in recent seasons they can play 14 games above .500. They haven't come close to showing it this season. But getting to the 90-plus wins likely needed to win the NL East is a pipe dream after the team's 9-19 start. It's Wild Card or bust from here on out.
The rumors are flying — we touched on it yesterday here at PhillyVoice — that the Phillies are candidates to not only eventually hire recently let go Red Sox manager Alex Cora, but to do it imminently.
There is a real argument to be made for Thomson's firing, notably based on some of his suspect decisions made in the NLDS against Los Angeles last October. And another one can be made based on recent Phillies history, as the 2022 team jettisoned Joe Girardi after 50 games and made a run all the way to the World Series.
For a team down on its luck and struggling, sometimes a coaching change is the best and only real move that can be made.
But are we sure Cora is really better than Thomson?
| Cora | Thomson | |
| Win % | .534 | .568 |
| Playoff berths | 3 | 4 |
| Pennants | 1 | 1 |
| World Series | 1 | 0 |
| MoY Top 5s | 3 | 3 |
Aside from the World Series title in 2018, Cora didn't accomplish much more in his eight years than Topper did in his four with the Phils.
Awful is actually probably an understatement. There is no metric from the Phillies defense that gives the team any sense whatsoever of being a solid unit. And with an offense that doesn't make up for mistakes in the field, this could be a problem that isn't going away.
The Phillies have 18 total errors this season, the fifth most in the majors — nine throwing and nine fielding. Their defensive runs saved (a key and self explanatory defensive metric) is last in MLB, at -15. For contrast, the Dodgers DRS is 21. So by this measure, the Phillies are 36 runs on defense worse than L.A. — and it's only been 18 games! That's a lot. And, according to Fangraphs, their range factor (a metric that measures how far a defender can expand to make a play) is -4, the sixth worst.
It certainly doesn't help a struggling pitching staff when there is such little confidence in the defense behind them.
The Phillies have had their hands full with the Braves and Cubs and Diamondbacks over the last few teams, a trio of teams that are currently contenders (and bashed the Phillies to a 3-13 record in that span). There might be a little help from the schedule gods ahead.
Next on the docket is the Giants at home, and despite losing two of three to them in San Francisco a few weeks ago, the Giants have a losing record and negative run differential. That should be a series win if the Phils have any hopes of contending themselves. Four games against the rarely competitive Marlins in Miami follow, three games against the surprising first-place Athletics at home and then a trio of contests versus the typically lowly Rockies after that. It's a relatively easy stretch and the Phillies have a real shot of turning it around in the weeks ahead.
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