Interesting article by Gelb on the pitching approach to the Phillies hitters since the all-star break that could have something to do with their decline in production.
Off Speed Pitching to the Phillies Hitters
Some excerpts for those without an Athletic subscription:
The first pitch Trea Turner saw Thursday was a fastball a few inches inside. He fouled it back. The second pitch Turner saw was a fastball, down and away but a strike, and he fouled that off the catcher’s mask. Turner looked to the sky. He was upset.
He saw 14 more pitches the rest of the night, a 3-2 Phillies loss to the Atlanta Braves. Only two of them were fastballs. He grounded out on a slider, popped out on a slider, flied out on a slider, and bounced into a back-breaking double play on a curveball to end the eighth inning. All of the pitches Turner put in play were strikes. He did not chase.
He just never got a fastball to hit. This is not a new phenomenon. No team in baseball has seen fewer fastballs since the All-Star break than the Phillies. The scouting report is clear.
Opponents know how to pitch the Phillies right now.
and....
Phillies hitters have seen 49 percent non-fastballs since the All-Star break. That is the highest percentage in baseball. That rate, over a full season, would be the highest percentage of off-speed pitches an MLB lineup has seen since the league’s Statcast system came online in 2015.
Opponents have thrown the Phillies 29 percent fastballs in the strike zone, the second-fewest in baseball, since the break. The Phillies slugged .480 on those in-zone fastballs. They slugged .359 on all of the off-speed pitches. It has disrupted hitters’ timing.
and....
Some of the team’s hitters noticed a shift in a late-July series in Minnesota when Twins pitchers threw off-speed pitches more than half the time. The Cleveland Guardians and New York Yankees attacked the Phillies with more off-speed than fastballs in the following homestand. Then, when the Phillies went to Seattle, they saw more off-speed pitches in a series than they had all season.
Of the eight series in which they’ve seen the highest percentage of off-speed pitches, five have come since the All-Star break.
and....
The Phillies are tied for the worst record in the National League since the break. It’s not all on the bats. But the offense, save for a few games against the Washington Nationals in which they saw 60 percent fastballs, has not had a rhythm for five weeks. The Phillies scored six runs in three games at Truist Park and departed here with a six-game division lead.
It was jarring how obvious Atlanta’s attack plan was Thursday night. The Braves threw 130 pitches and 49 of them were fastballs. That marked the third-fewest fastballs (38 percent) the Phillies had seen in a game this season. From the final out of the second inning to the final out of the eighth inning, Braves pitchers retired 15 straight Phillies on off-speed pitches.
Braves rookie righty Spencer Schwellenbach used his fastball less Thursday than he had in any of his previous 13 big-league starts. His prior low came on July 6 — against the Phillies. That night he did not face Kyle Schwarber or Bryce Harper, who were injured.
“I kind of just tried to do what I did the last time with them,” Schwellenbach said. “Same scouting report. Harper and Schwarber in the lineup this time around, but watching the last couple of games, they struggled with curveballs. … Later in the game that’s kind of what I leaned on.”
Rob's advice to the team:
“Just slow it down a little bit,” Thomson said. “Try not to do too much. Use the field. All those things I always talk about.”
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