GDT 7/15/18 Philadelphia Phillies (De Los Santos) @ Miami Marlins (Ureña)

[LoneStarPhan]

Valentin K puts Phillies into double digits for Ks again. They did take 5 walks, two by Knapp.

Not a good finish to a road trip but they do limp home with a 6-5 record for the 11 game trip. Several losses that are tough to take but all part of a long season. Biggest concern for me is the very poor offensive showing.

Team should enjoy the off days. I certainly think the Phillies make one or more trades in the next 16 days. The remainder of July should be fun.

[zambonir]

Glass half full, the team's problems aren't a problem. They are already in first place; if they improve the offense, defense and bullpen (whether by changing personnel, ending some slumps or just getting better over time) they could win 100 games. And those three aspects truly can't get worse, health permitting.

[EastFallowfield]

Hopefully as a young team they'll learn how to play better on 4 city 11 game road trips that end in an empty stadium with little real atmosphere.

[LoneStarPhan]

All star break record:

53-42 11 games over .500

This has to exceed the expectations of >98% of us here on the board.

This season so far has been an amazing journey. Starting pitching has been outstanding and the bullpen has, with some exceptions, done very well. I fully expect that a few changes to the roster will be made over the final two weeks of this month and hopefully, these changes will contribute to making this an even better team.

[Philsmania]

If they win 6 of 11 of their road games from here on out, like on this trip, I'll take it, no matter in what order the wind and losses occur.

In the abstract, you are right. But, considering the quality of the opponents we faced, this trip simply fell short of acceptable.

The one excuse one could put forth for this weekend may be that we happened to get the Marlins during their one good stretch of the sesson.

[LoneStarPhan]

Phillies hold lead over Braves by 0.5 games; 5.5 over third place Nationals; Marlins pass Mets on percentage points and both are essentially tied for fourth, 13 games behind the Phillies.

[EastFallowfield]

The opponents we played do win 40 percent of their games, so winning at about that rate at their home parks seems acceptable to me.

[zambonir]

Baseball's hard. The fact that the Phillies seem to lose more than a few games that they had in hand is frustrating, but also, perhaps, encouraging. Really bad teams don't have early 5-0 leads to blow, or a high number of late-inning save situations to squander. And on paper they probably shouldn't have won both games of the Mets doubleheader (especially with Eflin apparently injured) or both De Los Santos games. But they almost did.

More amazing to me than these last two weeks are that they got through June with Pivetta and Arrietta pitching so poorly.

[EastFallowfield]

The Nats only split in NY and didn't face DeGrom, the Brewers were swept in a 5 game series in Pittsburgh....

[Austinfan]

De Los Santos has a bright future, but he also showed why he should spend the rest of the year in AAA ball.
We rushed Pivetta and Eflin and Thompson last year because of injuries, but it takes time to learn how to pitch, and to control your emotions and your adrenaline. De Los Santos was yanking the ball in the 5th inning and leaving it high over the plate, sign of inexperience as he tired and overcompensated instead of trusting his stuff and maintaining his mechanics.

One sign that the organization has arrived will be when they're deep enough to leave someone like De Los Santos in AAA for a year and half or so until he's stronger, more consistent and has a better idea how to pitch, so he has a higher probability of success when he comes up. Which is why I'm wary of giving up too much in TDL deals and thinning out the organization - been there, done that.