June 17, 2026
Kyle Ross/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Brandon Marsh's hot streak at the plate continued this week against the Marlins.
It usually isn't ideal lineup construction to stack three left-handed bats at the top of the order, nor is it to come back the next day with seven out of nine lefty hitters in total.
Sometimes, though, the unusual just works, like it did for the Phillies this week on the way to taking two of three games from the visiting Miami Marlins.
"I like it. I actually do," Phillies manager Don Mattingly said Wednesday morning of the lefty stacking. "I just think hitting left-handed against the righties, it's an advantage."
And one that the club jumped on.
The Phillies opened with a 7-0 shutout of the Marlins on Monday night. Outfield call-up, and lefty bat, Gabriel Rincones Jr. crushed his first career home run, and Marlins right-handed starter Ryan Gusto was pulled after 4.2 innings, not long after veteran catcher J.T. Realmuto tagged him for a two-run shot of his own in the fifth.
Tuesday night, Brandon Marsh (another lefty) was bumped up to the leadoff spot in place of a banged-up Trea Turner, and the Phils kept the runs piling on. Marsh drew a lead-off walk, Bryson Stott tripled, and then Marsh, Alec Bohm, and Kyle Schwarber each came back around to homer off of former Phillies righty Tyler Phillips in an 8-2 rout. They had six left-handers in their lineup for a second straight game.
In Wednesday's series finale, they tripled down with seven against another righty in Sandy Alcántara, but couldn't outgun a brutal Andrew Painter start in a 12-4 loss.
Still, that's 19 combined runs across 24 hits, with the left-handed bats stacked heavily against three consecutive right-handed starting pitchers.
So is it usual or ideal lineup construction? Probably not.
But against one NL East opponent in the Marlins, with another on deck in the rival New York Mets this weekend at Citizens Bank Park, it worked pretty well for the Phillies in their continued climb back up the standings.
Besides, it's still June. Take it as it comes for right now.
"I don't mind them being together just because we've hit 'em," Mattingly said of the order rolled out this week that kept three lefties – Marsh, Schwarber, and Bryce Harper – clumped together at the top. "Right now we're looking at – what do we got? Two righties in the lineup? So we're stacking them somewhere."
And for two out of three games, they really stacked up the runs.
A few loose thoughts...
• Trea Turner took a pitch to the wrist Monday night, and after sitting out Tuesday, the shortstop was put back in the leadoff spot for Wednesday's finale by Mattingly.
Turner went 3-for-5 back at the top of the order, coming home to score a run in the bottom of the first inning.
He's been in a rut for much of the season so far, but Mattingly said prior to Wednesday's game that he has to be patient in letting Turner try to work through it, because ultimately, the best version of the Phillies requires their $300 million shortstop being at his best, too.
"Your vision for your best team is with Trea at the top, or the top couple," Mattingly said.
"If we're gonna get where we need to go, he needed to get going," the manager added. "Whatever you have to do to get to that."
• Brandon Marsh did look pretty good, though, in his one-night showing as a leadoff man. He drew the aforementioned leadoff walk, which set him up to score on a single from Bohm two batters later, then came back in the second inning to loop his ninth home run of the season into left-center for a 5-0 Phillies lead.
Brandon Marsh lifts one out 🔔 pic.twitter.com/cmvs5ZrAoU
— MLB (@MLB) June 16, 2026
Entering Wednesday, Marsh was batting .324 with an .863 OPS, nine homers, 13 doubles, and 34 runs batted in.
He's slashing .339/.372/.536 with eight of his homers off of right-handed pitchers, but his biggest revelation these past couple months has been his breakthrough against lefties, carrying a .279/.318/.410 line with both of his triples on the year so far.
And now Marsh just showed he's capable of handling the leadoff spot.
Would Mattingly pencil him in at No. 1 again if the lineup ever needs a spark?
"Just for a spark? I don't know if I would play a whim necessarily like that," the manager said. "There's times, like when we hit Schwarb and Harp 1-2, right? It's who's not playing that day, or who's getting a day off, it sometimes dictates how you kind of start forming your lineup."
So in the case of Tuesday night, it was Turner's wrist needing time to recover. Granted, Mattingly went on to say that he wouldn't completely dismiss using Marsh as a leadoff man again either.
"I can't say I wouldn't do that," Mattingly continued. "But also [Marsh] kind of ends up being protection, himself, for Harp, when the guy's swinging the bat good behind him like that. You want to try to keep as much where guys like Harp and Schwarber are getting pitched to as much as you can. So you use guys in different spots for different reasons."
But this Marlins series might have just given him one more to consider when it comes to Marsh.
Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly was asked if he would ever hit Brandon Marsh leadoff for a spark.
— Dave Uram (@MrUram) June 17, 2026
He was also asked how tough is it to balance the belief in Trea Turner and his track record with the need for production at the top of the order.@SportsRadioWIP… https://t.co/VLFx6zxkPE pic.twitter.com/S722y2T67g
• Zack Wheeler on Monday (6.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 9 Ks) and Jesús Luzardo on Tuesday (7.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 9Ks) were both excellent on the mound against Miami.
Andrew Painter, though, was painful.
Three batters and 15 pitches into his turn through the rotation, the Marlins' Kyle Stowers had just crushed a two-run homer to leave the Phillies down early, which led pitching coach Caleb Cotham to take his first visit to the mound.
With one out in the second, after Joe Mack scored from third to make it 4-2 Marlins on a Liam Hicks grounder that Stott bobbled at second trying to field, which followed an Owen Caissie solo shot, Cotham made another jog out, this time with Painter's pitch count having crept up to 37.
But whatever words Cotham had, they did nothing to stop the meltdown.
Owen Caissie smacks the second @Marlins homer in as many innings! pic.twitter.com/BqtgIs5m5F
— MLB (@MLB) June 17, 2026
Painter got Otto Lopez to fly out to right in the next at-bat, but then Stowers came back up and doubled off a four-seamer up in the zone to score Ruiz. Then Xavier Edwards singled on a check swing of another high fastball that stayed fair down the third base line to score Hicks and make it 6-2, Miami.
Painter finally escaped with a Javier Sanoja pop-up to third, but by then, it was too late for the 23-year-old and too steep of a climb for the Phillies to rally back from.
Painter was done after two innings in a long day for the bullpen. He was tagged for two homers and six earned runs on off six hits and two walks. He struck out just three, and dropped to 1-7 on the season with a crushing 7.06 ERA.
He's received losing decisions in three of his last four appearances, and has surrendered at least four earned runs and a homer in those last three turns.
He's getting crushed at the major league level. There's really no sugarcoating it, and soon enough, the Phillies are going to have to make a decision on what's next for him, because leaving their once-prized prospect hung out to dry like this every five days, at a certain point, is just going to destroy his confidence – maybe irreparably – if the club doesn't do something quick.
• Garrett Stubbs came on to slow pitch with two outs in the ninth to close out Wednesday. Yeah, it was that kind of day again. But hey, Hicks flied out to center.
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