It's been a bit of rocky start to the 2021 season for the Philadelphia Phillies. Consider the following:
Rhys Hoskins, Alec Bohm and Didi Gregorius, considered the heart of the Phillies' lineup alongside Bryce Harper and J.T. Realmuto, each enter Sunday with an on-base percentage under .300.
Their center fielders -- the Phillies have started four of them -- have been a disaster, hitting .144/.228/.243 for the worst OPS in the majors.
Harper has been great, but recently missed seven of eight games after hit in the face with a pitch and then injuring his wrist.
Chase Anderson and Matt Moore, brought in to upgrade the back of the rotation, are a combined 1-4 with a 6.63 ERA.
The revamped bullpen has been better than the historically awful 2020 pen, at least before Saturday's loss in which it blew three different leads from the ninth inning, but still ranks 25th in the majors in both ERA and win probability added.
Jose Alvarado embarrassed himself and the club when he nearly incited a brawl last week after yelling at the Mets' Dominic Smith after a strikeout.
Manager Joe Girardi attempted to use reliever Enyel De Los Santos this past Tuesday, only to realize De Los Santos was ineligible because he had not been included in the computer-generated lineup card.
They lost last week's Sunday night game when Hoskins' apparent game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth instead was correctly ruled a double.
The Phillies also made five defensive miscues in that game. They rank 28th in the majors in defensive runs saved, leading my friend Eric Karabell to say on the ESPN Fantasy Focus podcast, "They've set defense back 80 years with the way they've played."
Did we mention the Phillies are now tied for first place in the National League East?
The most notorious bad pennant race was probably the 1973 NL East race. On the morning of September 12, the standings looked like this:
St. Louis: 72-72
Pittsburgh: 70-71
Montreal: 70-73
Chicago: 69-74
New York: 69-75
Philadelphia: 65-79
The Mets, who were 12 games under .500 at 58-70 on August 26, ended up winning the division at 82-79, and even upset the Reds in the NLCS before losing the World Series to the A's in seven games. As the Phillies take on the Braves on Sunday Night Baseball (ESPN, 7 ET), it seems fair, given the mediocrity we've seen in the division so far, to wonder whether the NL East is headed for another playoff race more defined by the stumbling and bumbling of its teams rather than a high level of play.
(We should point out that the worst division of all time was the 1994 AL West. The Rangers were leading the division when the season ended in August at 52-62, so the strike and eventual cancellation likely kept us from the first under-.500 division champion. Those '73 Mets still hold the mark for fewest wins by a division winner in a full season, with the 2006 Cardinals right behind at 83-78.)
The NL East was arguably supposed to be the best division in baseball, or at least the most balanced, with four strong playoff contenders, plus the potential of the rotation-rich Marlins, who did make the playoffs last year but whom the projection systems did not like. FanGraphs' preseason win totals had the AL East teams winning the most games with 415, with the NL East a close second at 412. Baseball Prospectus had the AL East and NL East both at 414 wins, despite predicting just 68 wins for the Marlins. The Marlins actually have the best run differential in the division so far, thanks to that rotation (3.08 ERA) and offense that has been middle of the pack.
Maybe it's too early to draw any conclusions. One good series can turn a team around, which is maybe what happened to the Phillies with their four-game sweep over Milwaukee before the Atlanta series.
"We won a really grind-it-out series against Milwaukee," Girardi said before Friday's game. "Those were tough games. We win four games by the total of five runs. I think guys felt that we pitched really well, we came up with the big hits when we needed it. That's basically what baseball is. You have to pitch well and you have to get the clutch hits when you need them."
Harper and Jean Segura, who had missed 15 games with a quad strain, then both returned to the lineup on Friday, and the Phillies beat the Braves 12-2 as Segura had four hits and Harper two. Odubel Herrera, now the center fielder with Roman Quinn on the injured list and Mickey Moniak back in the minors, hit a big three-run home run in the first inning off Charlie Morton.
That's what the Phillies expected from their lineup heading into the season, after ranking seventh in the majors in OPS in 2020 and averaging 4.76 runs per game: Plenty of depth one through eight. Instead, Harper and Realmuto have had to carry too much of the load, and they're averaging just 4.25 runs per game, even after 19 runs the past two games.
"It seemed every day was a different guy and when you have that, I think you have a chance to go on much better streaks, then when you're not just relying on a couple guys," Girardi said. "We need all eight guys in the lineup to contribute. Even more than that in a sense. You need your extra guys. Brad Miller had some big days in there and played extremely well. You want everyone to contribute and when you get that, you win games in a row, you win eight of 10, 10 out of 13."
The Phillies entered Saturday's game with a nice little five-game winning streak -- and then came a 2020-style painful loss. The Phillies blew a 3-1 lead in the ninth, a 4-3 lead in the 11th and then a 7-4 lead in the 12th when the Braves walked it off with four runs, all with Ronald Acuna Jr. out of the game after he had been hit by a pitch on his finger (just a contusion, so the Braves are hoping he's in the lineup on Sunday).
A week ago, the NL East was 29-40 outside the division with a minus-55 run differential, both worst among the six divisions. With help from that Phillies' sweep of the Brewers, the NL East has gone 13-4 since then with a plus-35 run differential.
Some of the various struggles are easy to pinpoint. The Mets, projected to have one of the best offenses in the majors, are second to last in runs per game. That offense isn't going to be that bad all season. The Nationals suffered the Stephen Strasburg injury after two starts, Patrick Corbin has been terrible and Juan Soto has missed a chunk of action with the shoulder inflammation. The Marlins are 2-7 in one-run games.
It's the Braves, however, who have been most frustrating. They had an opportunity to put some early distance in the division race, but failed to take advantage. Freddie Freeman, Marcell Ozuna and Dansby Swanson are all off to slow starts. Rookie Cristian Pache is a defensive wizard in center field, but looks overmatched at the plate, hitting .113 with 23 strikeouts and just two walks in 58 plate appearances. Like the Mets' offense, improvement is likely, so it's the pitching staff that is of most concern.
The Braves went the one-year route on Morton and Drew Smyly, a strategy that worked in recent seasons for them with Josh Donaldson and then last year Ozuna. Morton is 2-2 with a 4.98 ERA, but has allowed five or more runs in three of his seven outings and didn't get out of the first inning on Friday (although all six runs charged to him were unearned). The Braves gambled on Smyly, buying into the velocity spike he showed over 26 innings with the Giants in 2020. He's 1-2 with a 6.12 ERA and has allowed nine home runs in 25 innings. He's giving up a .550 slugging percentage on his fastball.
Meanwhile, Max Fried had three bad starts to start the season, injured his hamstring running the bases and spent three weeks on the IL. He looked much more like the Fried of 2020 when he returned a few days ago and allowed one run over five innings. Mike Soroka is still out. Ian Anderson has been excellent, but the big surprise has been Huascor Ynoa, who faces Aaron Nola on Sunday. He's 3-1 with a 2.36 ERA and owns a big-time fastball that has averaged 96.6 mph, with a wipeout slider that his primary go-to weapon with two strikes. Oh, he's also homered in back-to-back starts.
Anyway, I'm not ready to suggest the NL East winner is going to win only 82 or 83 games. It's certainly possible that happens -- right now, all five teams have flaws. They are likely to beat up on each other -- remember, you play 19 games against each opponent in the division -- which could mean that it won't take 90 wins. Still, my colleague Brad Doolittle still forecasts the Braves with 91 wins, the Mets with 89 and the Nationals with 84 -- and the Phillies with just 78, the Marlins with 67.
The last team to win the NL East with fewer than 90 was the 2007 Phillies, with 89. While the Mets and Braves do feel like they have the best chance to pull away, let's hope for a five-team race deep into September -- even if they all finish 81-81.