5 Phillies thoughts: The offense is better than you think

The Phillies are, at least through the first month-plus of the 2025 season, a painfully flawed but talented playoff-caliber team.

Which is basically what they were last year. And the year before. And the year before, though in 2022 they nearly brought home a World Series title.

With the Phils resting before a short road trip, there were a handful of thoughts we wanted to get off our chest:

The bullpen continues to blow it

The Phillies' bullpen has a 4.71 ERA, sixth highest in the league. No team has more than their eight blown saves, and the back of the bullpen converts just 53% of save opportunities. They also allow 43% of inherited runners to score, a bottom-six statistic as well. 

The offense has overcome some of the pen's mishaps, thankfully. But we were curious how many games they've lost as a direct result of the bullpen blowing it, starting with Sunday in Philly when the Phils nearly overcame a horrible Ranger Suárez start to sweep Arizona. 

Of their 15 losses, these five would have been wins if not for the pen's antics:

• May 4: José Alvarado allowed three runs in extras to the Diamondbacks
• April 23: Jordan Romano blew a save to the Mets
• April 22: Tanner Banks and Orion Kerkering allowed three runs in a winnable game against the Mets
• April 20: Kerkering blew a save and Matt Strahm gave up two runs in the 10th to the Marlins
• April 8: Strahm blew a save and Kerkering and Banks allowed runs to the Braves in the seventh and eighth

Philly trails the Mets by 2.5 games right now.

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Bryce Harper has to get it going

It's not really a hot take to say the Phillies would be playing a lot better if they were getting anything resembling All-Star caliber hitting from Bryce Harper. The Phillies' former MVP is hitting just .234 so far (only Alec Bohm has been worse), and he has the second-most strikeouts on the team. 

Yet despite all the struggles at the plate, he's still second on the squad with 17 RBI. His rich history of being a superstar suggests he'll get it going. Anytime soon would be nice.

In a 10-inning loss to the Diamondbacks on Sunday, he was at the plate with two men on and with the Phils down two. He flew out, and was frustrated talking to the media later.

“I’m just frustrated on a bigger level,” Harper told reporters (via OnPattison). “I just want to come through for the team and play well. Obviously, I’ve been through ruts in my career and gone through ups and downs — worse than what I’m on right now. But I’m just frustrated for the fans, frustrated for my team...I just want to play better. Got to play better.” 

The Phillies are patient

The eye test, at times, might bring to light a team that often swings and misses at inopportune times, but the numbers as a whole through 34 games paint a picture of a team that picks its spots and has pretty good plate vision.

Here is a look:

As our Adam Aaronson noted last week, no one in the majors sees more pitches per at-bat than Bryson Stott — 4.52 of them — and he's settling in as a leadoff hitter who allows Kyle Schwarber's power to sit in the cleanup spot. Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto and Trea Turner have been among the most patient hitters so far in all of baseball.

And hit the ball really hard

The offense has been solid by other metrics, too. Beyond having one of the better batting averages and on-base rates in baseball, the Phils are also pummeling the ball.

Phillies hitters have the seventh-highest exit velocity on the ball on average when it leaves the bat, and hit it 95 MPH or faster 44.1% of the time, the fourth most of all 30 teams. They also hit line drives the fourth most of any lineup. 

It comes as no surprise that the best of the bunch so far has been Schwarber, who has hit it hard 59.8% of the time he puts it in play, and an average exit velocity of 94 MPH. Somehow, this hasn't translated to home runs. Philadelphia has just 34 of them so far, two less than the league average and 23 fewer than the Yankees.

An American League road trip

Philly will take a brief pause from playing NL contenders this week, as the team heads to Tampa to face the Rays, a club playing just below .500 baseball so far. A test this weekend against the Guardians in Cleveland will pit the Phils against the top Wild Card team in the AL after that. 

This is one of the more manageable stretches in the schedule. In mid June, things get really tough. Between now and then, the Phillies should find a way to either keep pace with or eclipse the Mets in the NL East before a bevy of good teams hit the slate.

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