The Phillies find a way to keep winning, and it’s starting to show in their record, with the win last night, they are now 2 games over the .500 mark. The best that this team has been all season just occurred on September 1st when they were 1-game over .500. The new high mark comes with the 3-0 victory last night against the Nationals.
Embed from Getty ImagesZack Wheeler is now 4-0 for the Phillies in 2020, he’s come up big just about every time he’s needed to for the team. His 2.20 ERA is number 9 in all of baseball right now among pitchers (Aaron Nola is right at #11 in the MLB with a 2.45 ERA). For what’s next, it’s anybody’s guess. Is this team finally finding the kind of form it had in Spring Training 1 this year? Will they start running the table in September as the season starts to fade away?
The Phils were 2-8 with RISP last night, so there is still a lot of work that this team needs to do, many times the Phillies just can’t score runners when they need to. Neil Walker got a start at first base last night, he went 3-3 with 2 RBI, Jay Bruce added an RBI with a solo HR last night.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe top of the lineup produced basically nothing last night. Andrew McCutchen was 1-4 but left 3 stranded on base. Didi Gregorius and Bryce Harper went a combined 0-7. They need more production out of hitters, and better results.
The Phillies retire #15 Dick Allen‘s number today at 4:05 pm prior to the game. In the past, the Phillies would only retire a players number if certain criteria were met. The Phils decided that they will wave the criteria in the case of Allen.
Listen to a vintage edition of Phillies Talk Podcast from 2015 with author Mitch Nathanson we’re talking all about Mitch’s new book on Allen (to be released in 2016), and my old friend and former co-host of the Phillies Talk Podcast program, Jim Mulry (RIP), who watched Allen play during his career.