Tuesday, April 28

Welcome to the latest edition of the Phillies Beat newsletter.

ATLANTA -- Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola faced his first three batters on Sunday at Truist Park, and it went like this:

Ronald Acuna Jr.: 109.4 mph single

Drake Baldwin: 109.4 mph single

Matt Olson: 105.4 mph three-run home run 

In the blink of an eye, the Phillies trailed the Braves in the series finale, 3-0. They lost, 6-2, to fall to 9-19 and 10 1/2 games behind Atlanta in the NL East. Nola allowed seven hits, six runs, three walks and two home runs and struck out six in 4 2/3 innings. He fell to 1-3 with a 6.03 ERA, which is a tick higher than his career-high 6.01 ERA last season.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, following an encouraging offseason and spring.

But then it wasn’t supposed to be like this for the Phillies, either.

Now, the team’s terrible start has Phillies manager Rob Thomson answering questions about his job security.

“Well, I mean, that’s natural, right?” Thomson said Sunday. “It’s normal. And I’ve never worried about that in my entire career. I worked for a guy for 28 years [Yankees owner George Steinbrenner] who, as the 'Seinfeld' episode will tell you, ‘Fires people like it's a bodily function,’ and it never bothered me. It didn’t. I don't have time to think about it. I’m a person that thinks about other people and what can I do to help them?

And it's out of my control. So that's where I'm at.”

But the team’s losing ways -- they snapped a 10-game losing streak on Saturday -- also has players like Nola and Kyle Schwarber answering questions about their manager and coaches.

“I haven’t been doing a great job pitching-wise, been giving up too many runs,” said Nola, when asked about the heat Thomson is facing. “Giving up a lot of three-run homers and putting the guys in holes and not giving them a great chance to string up some hits. The game could be 0-0. Like today, we went down 6-0 really quick. It’s hard to come back against a really good pitcher on the opposing team, when I’m putting them in a position like that.”

Nola put the blame on himself.

After all, Thomson isn’t throwing pitches, just like hitting coach Kevin Long isn’t standing in the batter’s box.

But these are the people that typically take the fall. It just happened on Saturday with the Red Sox, who fired manager Alex Cora and several coaches.

Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said Tuesday at Wrigley Field that a change is “not being pondered at this point.” But Boston’s moves fueled immediate speculation that Dombrowski and Cora could reunite in Philadelphia.

They won a World Series together in Boston in 2018.

Asked Sunday morning if he wanted to address the Cora speculation, Dombrowski declined.

The Phillies have an off-day on Monday. No doubt these conversations will continue internally and externally. If Tuesday rolls around and everything remains status quo, the only way to end this talk is by winning … and winning a lot.

It starts with the players on the field.

“I never thought we would go on a losing skid like this,” Nola said. “It’s baseball, though. We’ve got to get out of it and we’ve got to stay out of it.”

The Phillies snapped a 10-game losing streak on Saturday night in Atlanta. What is the Phils’ longest winning streak since 1900? 

A. 21 games 

B. 18 games 

C. 13 games 

D. 10 games 

Something is wrong with the Phillies’ defense. 

It entered Sunday’s series finale in Atlanta ranked last in baseball with -17 defensive runs saved, according to FanGraphs, and tied for 23rd with -5 outs above average, according to Baseball Savant. 

The eye test supports the metrics. Lots of hits allowed. Lots of near misses on balls that could have been caught. Now, it’s true the Phillies haven’t been a consistently strong defensive team for years, but this season’s struggles have been especially glaring because of the team’s terrible start. 

The poor defense partially explains the pitching staff’s 5.13 ERA, which ranks 28th in baseball. If you look at other metrics, the pitching hasn’t been nearly that bad. The Phillies’ xERA (amount of contact, plus quality of contact) entering Sunday is 3.88, which is 9th.  

Their batting average on balls in play is .353, which is not only the highest in baseball, but the highest through a team's first 28 games since at least 1950. The highest mark for a non-shortened season is .331 by the 2007 Rays. 

It suggests some combination of poor defense and bad luck.

Is it the positioning of the infielders and outfielders? 

“We are adjusting,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “The pull-side middle infielder, we’ve adjusted back and forth at times. The depths of our outfield, we’ve adjusted. We’re always looking at it and always sort of playing with it.” 

No team in baseball has had more difficult defensive chances than the Phillies, according to Statcast’s expected success rate. It measures distance, time and direction in the ability to catch baseballs. 

Phillies infielders have an expected success rate of 66 percent, easily the lowest in MLB. Again, it suggests that they aren’t in the right spot to catch the baseball, for one reason or another. 

No other team ranked less than 70 percent. 

“You go in stretches where guys are standing right there,” Thomson said. “We’re running into it right now offensively. And then there are times when a ball gets through, a ball drops, a ball gets into a gap. But you’re always adjusting. You’re always looking at adjusting.” 

Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley played their 1,090th game together on April 27, 2014. It set an MLB record for the most games played together by a shortstop and second baseman. 

C. 13 games

The Phillies had 13-game winning streaks from July 30-Aug. 12, 1991, and Aug. 3-16, 1977. 

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