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Sunday, May 2, 2021

A Total Joke: Phils’ Comically Poor Defense Leads to Hideous Loss - Crossing Broad

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What happens when you combine one of the game’s worst defenses with an underperforming-but-talented offense, a bottom-third bullpen, and three good starting pitchers that often take the mound knowing they have little margin for error?

You get the 2021 Phillies, a sub-.500 team that has, remarkably, demonstrated just two consistencies through its first 28 games — a sustained ability to play wildly erratic baseball and a complete inability to catch it.

Game to game, inning to inning, pitch to pitch, this team pivots between looking like an underperformer to looking like an overperformer.

One moment, fleeting as such moments may seem, the Phillies show themselves as a team with high-end talent that looks wholly capable of ripping off a run of victories en route to legitimate playoff contention. The next, they look like a team so incomplete, so indifferent, and so deeply flawed that it’s a true wonder they haven’t completely buried themselves just a little more than a month into this season.

The flaws were on full display once again on Sunday night, but this loss, a hideous 8-7 mess that played out in front of a national audience, was different.

In fact, it was downright comical. It was a shit show.

Holding a one-run lead in the eighth inning, Rhys Hoskins committed what at first appeared to be just another brutal Phillies’ defensive blunder when Jose Peraza’s liner kicked off his glove. He then compounded the physical miscue with an embarrassing mental lapse after retrieving the ball by lazily flipping it to second baseman Nick Maton.

Jonathan Villar, who had completely stopped at third base, made a heads up play by alertly restarting his sprint for home, scoring the game-tying run.

From there, the ensuing outcome was predictable.

Jose Alvarado imploded. David Hale couldn’t stop the bleeding. The Mets tacked on some important insurance runs to withstand was what was inches away from becoming a Hoskins redemption story.

From this perspective, the game will likely serve as the turning point of the Phillies’ season. It will either be the game in which this team comes completely apart at the seams, or the one that sparks Joe Girardi, who is now just 40-48 as manager of the Phillies, to take command of a team — his team — that far too often plays an apathetic and uninspired brand of baseball.

A Recap of Repulsive Defense

Bad defense isn’t supposed to be so pronounced at the major league level. Maybe a lack of range occasionally shows up on a ball in the gap. Maybe an infielder kicks one every now and then. But this? This is wild.

The Phillies entered play Sunday as the second-worst team in terms of defensive runs saved, according to FanGraphs. That they only committed two official errors on Sunday night was truly remarkable.

In the second inning, Andrew McCutchen couldn’t bring down a fly ball off the bat of Dom Smith that turned into what was generously scored as a double.

It looked like the misplay may cost the Phillies a run, but Roman Quinn came up big with a perfect throw on a Kevin Pillar single to nail Smith at the plate.

Unfortunately for the Phillies, Quinn’s throw and Realmuto’s tag provided the lone highlight of the night for an increasingly (and rightfully) maligned defense.

Later in the inning, second baseman Nick Maton couldn’t haul in a foul ball down the right field line, one that Bryce Harper probably could have called for and caught.

Third baseman Alec Bohm, who has consistently struggled with his glove this season, barely averted a potential error earlier in the game before being tagged for one on this play in the third inning.

The shaky defense returned in the sixth with runners on the corners and one away. With the game tied at 1-1, Zach Eflin induced a potential inning-ending double play off the bat of James McCann, but he didn’t field the ball cleanly and then threw wide of second base, allowing the Mets to take a 2-1 lead.

I don’t know what will ultimately become of the Phillies this season, but if they’re going to consistently kick the ball around like this, they’re going to need to outslug the mistakes. Given they are currently scoring less than four runs per game, that doesn’t sound like a winning bet.

Eflin Limits the Damage

Zach Eflin wasn’t at his best on Sunday night.

True, he didn’t receive much defensive help (an error of his own included), but he managed to hold the Mets to just two runs over six innings of work. Eflin gave up a season-high 10 hits just one start after allowing nine hits in a loss last week in St. Louis. In fact, the 10 hits he surrendered were the most he has allowed since June 24, 2019 when he yielded 11 hits over five innings in a 13-7 win against the Mets.

But he also didn’t walk a batter, struck out seven, and left nine Mets stranded.

The most important sequence of his night came after the Mets took a 2-1 lead, a lead they took thanks in part to his aforementioned throwing error that prevented a possible inning-ending double play.

With the bases loaded, two away, and the Phillies on the ropes, he remained in the game and got Francisco Lindor to fly out with his 97th and final pitch of the night.

Of course, his ability to bear down in such a tight spot was huge, as it allowed the Phillies to get up off the mat and Didi Gregorius to put the Phils temporarily in front with his three-run homer in the bottom of the frame.

McCutchen Homers, Apparently Stays In Base Paths

A night after Andrew McCutchen’s early defensive blunder helped spark a four-run first inning for the Mets, he helped spark a Phillies’ fast start with a 445 ft. leadoff shot.

Notably, first base umpire Jose Navas didn’t rule McCutchen out of the basepaths this time around, so we can report improvement on his end…which is nice.

McCutchen’s 16th career leadoff homer was also both his hardest hit ball of the season and his longest homer in a Phillies uniform. It just barely surpassed his 444 ft. blast off Ian Anderson down in Atlanta last month.

Unfortunately for McCutchen, for a second straight night, he was unable to avoid the incompetency of this umpiring crew. In the fifth inning, he was incorrectly called out on strikes by home plate umpire Andy Fletcher. He was understandably annoyed.

Bad Luck Bohm

Alec Bohm has hit into some bad luck in recent games, and that trend continued tonight with a first-inning scorcher that left his bat at 108.4 mph. Instead of plating Rhys Hoskins with a ball that carried a .710 batting average, Jeff McNeil started up a sensational inning-ending double play.

Come nerd out with me for a moment.

Bohm entered the game 48 out of 75 NL hitters in BABIP at .271. He also entered Sunday night with a .275 expected batting average, per MLB Statcast, suggesting that he has, in fact, been the recipient of some bad luck early on. That’s quite a 180 from last season during which Bohm far outhit his xBA of .285 by posting a .338 average. His .410 BABIP certainly helped his numbers.

In case you’re wondering, Bohm is also barreling a slightly higher percentage of balls so far this season and also has a higher hard-hit percentage than he did a season ago.

So, in short, if you feel like Bohm has had some pretty shitty luck lately, that’s because he has.

The Link Lonk


May 03, 2021 at 10:18AM
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A Total Joke: Phils’ Comically Poor Defense Leads to Hideous Loss - Crossing Broad

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