Nick Markakis won’t have to worry about playoff baseball this year, his Braves are in last place but who is worst in the league in runs?
Well, the Eagles wrapped up their preseason schedule last night just across the street from where the Phillies will take on the Atlanta Braves in a weekend series starting tonight.
We used to be a baseball town, around this time for a few years, the baseball fans would still be in the forefront of the news, making their playoff plans, and getting ready for some of the best baseball that they would be seeing all year from those playoffs. We haven’t had that in a couple years now, but the ebb of Philly being a baseball town is now at an all-time low.
It will be a battle for who has the worst offense in South Philly this weekend. The Phillies and the Braves are having a really tough time with their offenses. Both teams rank down at the bottom of all 30 Major League teams in just about all categories that matter. The number one concern would be run production. Today, the Phillies are at the bottom of all teams in runs scored, with 492 on the season. They are also on the bottom of the league with OBP which is .296 – that is really bad.
With this team in a perpetual rebuild, this fact is a real glaring one for fans, but it doesn’t seem to be stirring much response from management. In fact, we haven’t heard too much from either GM, Matt Klentak, or team President, Andy MacPhail, about this subject. Are these guys even at the ballpark? They don’t make themselves available very much in the press, and it seems like they feel like they feel that they may be better off in the shadows.
The Phils got whipped by the Nationals in the last series. I know there was some close games in that series, but the Phils just keep getting out played and out hustled. This current Phils team just doesn’t have that magic ingredient, it has some talent but it just doesn’t have that team pull that is needed to start winning consistently. Phillies vs. the Nationals used to be an entertaining series to watch but lately it’s be a one-sided affair. In fact, the Nationals have now beaten the Phillies in the last 9 times that the team teams have played one another.
Is this Phillies team going anywhere? Or does it need to be imploded like we’ve seen happen many times in the last couple years? I am not so sure that the blueprint that management is following is the right one to make this a winning team.