Jun 10, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies second base Bryson Stott (5) reacts after striking out to end the fifth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
Last week, when the Phillies endured a 1-5 road trip in Toronto and Pittsburgh after getting swept at home by Milwaukee, the team's offense collectively was sputtering.
They collected all of 24 hits in the five losses to the Blue Jays and Pirates, fewer than five hits in each game.
Something needed to give.
They came home, and in the last two games against a very good Chicago Cubs team, they've posted 26 hits.
That might seem like a positive, until it's not.
Of those 26 hits, 23 of them have been singles. They have two doubles and one home run.
The team is really struggling to slug the ball more than anything, and that's what's costing them.
Yeah, they reached a goal in each of the last two games that they look at and say - this is what usually wins us games - and that's score four runs. When the Phillies score four runs or more in a game they are 28-11. One of those losses was Tuesday, an 8-4 defeat at the hands of the Cubs in a game where the pitching wasn't as good as it usually is for the Phillies.
That said, that means they are 10-18 in games where they've scored three runs or fewer. The records shouldn't surprise you. What should is the total number of games. The Phillies have been held to three runs or fewer 28 times in 67 games this season. That's not good.
Take Bryce Harper out of the mix - and he's missed 10 games now this season due to injuries, and have Kyle Schwarber hit his first really rough patch of the season - and there doesn't seem to be any consistency with the offense from anyone beyond them.
Schwarber has been very un-Schwarber like in the month of June. Known for having great stats once the calendar switches to the sixth month of the season, Schwarber has been going through this month after a torrid start for the Phillies.
In nine June games, Schwarber is 4-for-35 (.114) with one home run. He has struck out 17 times and walked just four.
He spent time after the game in the batting cage trying to get right.
It shows he knows just how much he carries the load for slugging the ball for the Phillies.
Without him the team can accumulate hits, as has been made obvious the last two games, but they aren't necessarily timely, nor are they very productive.
Heck, after their 4-3 win in 11 innings on Monday, manager Rob Thomson inadvertently pointed out just how unproductive it is.
"We had 19 base runners tonight and scored (four) runs," he said. "That's kind of hard to do."
When you aren't slugging the ball, it isn't.
"Obviously, you'd always rather have more slug than not," said J.T. Realmuto, who had a couple hits - both opposite field singles - in Tuesday's loss. "We've all hit for power in the past, so we're just in one of those slumps right now where we're not really doing much damage."
Max Kepler came out of the witness protection program to hit a wall-scraping, rainbow home run on Tuesday that caught a fan squarely in the chops.
Lady got SMOKED https://t.co/aCZgkKxmyw pic.twitter.com/SaBtw7XCZw
It was Kepler's first homer since May 24 and just his second since May 3.
Kepler's been a bit of a disappointment. He's hitting .105 (4-for-38) in his last 14 games.
Brandon Marsh was two-for-two, including an opposite field double in the fourth that would score as part of a two-run single by Alec Bohm.
Alec Bohm cones through to give the Phillies the lead! 🦒
pic.twitter.com/u5Iww9v3rq
Marsh has been one of the Phillies who is swinging the bat better - against righties only, as he still can't hit lefties - and, as the Athletic pointed out, is the only Phillie this season to have a better slugging percentage on non-fastballs compared to last season.
However, Marsh, who after going without a hit in the entire month of April (partially because of time missed with an injury and partially because he was just awful at the plate) has been one of the Phillies most productive hitters since May 1 (.324/.412./.446; .858 OPS) had to leave the game with a hyperextended elbow after receiving a hard tag at second base while stealing a base. He's now day-to-day.
"It just feels like anything that can go wrong has gone wrong," Realmuto said. "I know we say it all of the time, but that's part of the game. It happens every season where you go through stretches like this."
But in the past, the Phillies have had the bats to slug their way out of it. Harper and Schwarber, sure, but even guys who are getting a lot of singles right now and have the three highest batting averages on the team- like Bohm, Trea Turner and Nick Castellanos - are underperforming what they usually do on the slug front.
Castellanos is on pace for 16 homers after hitting 29 and 23 the last two seasons. Bohm is on pace for 23 doubles after hitting 44 a year ago. Turner is on pace for 11 homers after hitting between 21 and 28 each of the past four seasons.
"It definitely feels better when we're at least getting hits," Realmuto said. "A lot of times you can win games with singles and just putting the ball in play, and right now we're not getting singles at the right time to score those runs. But the big swings will come for us. We have a lot of guys who have power, so we're not too worried about that for now. Just keep putting good swings on it, and the power will come."
No one is expecting a sudden explosion of power and slug, but the Phillies need to produce more than what they've shown so far. Because it's been substandard - well, by their own standards.
That's because slugging is down across the sport. As weak as the Phillies have been, their team slugging percentage of .396 still ranks 12th-best in the sport and is better than the league average (.395).
"It'll come," Thomson said. "We're going through a stretch where we're not getting the ball in the air and we're not hitting the gaps. There's more power in this lineup than we're showing right now."
They're all singing the same old song, but we're all seeing a different version of it.
It's no longer early. The trade deadline is six weeks away. They maybe have about a month to prove that their version of the song is the original and that they aren't just some lame tribute band for what once was.
