Phillies Not Worried About Offense Despite Historically Bad Stretch
· Yahoo Sports
The Philadelphia Phillies’ offense has, unfortunately, been in the spotlight for all of the wrong reasons once again. Offensively speaking, we've seen the same problems that Philadelphia has had over the past few years come up once again. It's been the same team that we've typically seen, and although it's only 12 games into the season, there hasn't been a whole lot to like on the offensive side of the baseball.
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We can go one by one down the lineup right now, and some of the best hitters in the organization are struggling at a level they just shouldn't be. It's unfortunately been something that's been said too often in recent years.
Entering a series against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night, the Phillies will need to get a lot going. They were outscored by the San Francisco Giants 11-0 in the final two games of their set in San Francisco. Despite how poorly they looked on the offensive side of the baseball, players on the roster don't seem too worried just yet. I'm unsure if we should believe how they feel, as most teams would feel worried after not scoring for 20.0 innings, but we have to take what they say and hope that they mean it.
“You just have confidence in the guys in this room,” J.T. Realmuto said, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I think they have a good track record of playing really good baseball. Obviously right now, that’s not what we’re doing, but we know that we’re just one good swing away from the whole team taking off. So we’ve just got to keep working, keep being diligent. Nobody likes to struggle, but there’s nobody in this room panicking, that’s for sure.
“We have a lot of confidence in ourselves, and we know we’re going to be where we want to be at the end of the year.”
If there's one positive about the struggles and comments from Philly's players and higher-ups in the organization, it's that a lot of these guys have been around. This isn't a young group that's going through struggles for the first time, as we've seen this happen far too often over the past few years. Ultimately, while the Phillies' offense has been frustrating at times during those years, it typically finds a way to figure things out.
Manager Rob Thomson had similar comments, stating that players need to control what they can control and that younger players need to get used to playing in a big-league season.
“Just control what you can control,” Thomson said. “This guy can hit. It’s just difficult when you’re not getting many at-bats, consistent at-bats. Especially for a young guy, because they’re used to playing every day.”
I don’t have any problems with guys like Justin Crawford and others not playing as well as they possibly can just yet. I've actually liked what I've seen from Crawford, and I'm a bit more concerned about veterans not doing their job on both sides of the baseball to start the year.