Phils wrap up home games for the regular season today

It’s the end of the road for the regular season at home for the Phillies today. Hard to believe how fast the baseball schedule has zipped by. Today is Game # 152 on the long MLB schedule, it’s the 81st and final regular season home game of the year. The Phillies home record stands at 47-33.

I had the pleasure of going to Opening Day this year for the Phils with my podcast co-host and @PhilliesBell on Twitter maven, Matt Veasey, and attended many other games during the season as well this year. It was a breath of fresh air for me, literally, as during the worst of the Covid times, you either couldn’t go to the stadium to watch a ballgame or didn’t want to risk it when fans were initially back at the ballpark after that. Plus added to this, it was, believe it or not, my first trip ever to see a Phillies fireworks display at the stadium around the July 4th holiday. It was magical, and an event that I think I will be returning to for the rest of my baseball-watching days!

2022 was also a very nice season for watching several ballgames at Citizens Bank Park with a special someone this season that is a staunch baseball fan and passionate fan of the Phils and has been for years. One day, I’ll have her on the podcast, to give a perspective of the female Phillies fan, of course, there are plenty of, that love going to watch their team. So stay tuned for that on my Phillies Talk Podcast.

Alright on to today’s finale with the Braves at CBP. Last night, the Phils got soundly beaten by a 6-3 score. Bailey Falter was on the mound for the Phillies. Now nothing against Bailey Falter, cause he is doing the best that he can. But, he is a reliever primarily, and the Phillies sort of thrust him into a role of starter when they needed a spot start or two earlier in the season and he did well in doing that. Why then would they continually put him out as a starter though when he just wasn’t doing that great? Falter has had some good run support in games that he’s pitched, 4 times the Phillies scored 4 runs for him in a game, and 1 time each they scored, 6, 7, and 8 runs. In fact, the Phillies run support has been an average of 5.49 runs per game with Falter over the season. Aaron Nola has had average run support of 4.65 runs per game this season. Falter though had reeled off 5 wins in a row though during his hot streak from his start on August 12th and every start after that through September 13th, hence his continuation in the rotation and him reaching his 14th start of the season last night. So we should tip our cap to him for that, and the fact that the Phils chose to sit Noah Syndergaard and go with Falter as the ‘hot’ starter, though he did give up 6 ER last night against the Braves, he only gave up 1 ER against the same team in his start in Atlanta on September 18th in 4.2 IP. Look at this fact, Falter came into last night’s game from 7/29/22, he was 5-0 with a 2.45 ERA and since that date has had the lowest ERA of all Phillies starters.

Bailey’s 2022 Game Log so far:

2022 Pitching Game Log

Rk	Gcar	Gtm	Date	Tm		Opp	Rslt	Inngs	Dec	DR
1	23	3	Apr 10	PHI		OAK	L,1-4	5-7	L(0-1)	99
2	24	6	Apr 13	PHI		NYM	L,6-9	8-GF		2
3	25	9	Apr 16	PHI	@	MIA	W,10-3	8-GF		2
4	26	17	Apr 25	PHI		COL	W,8-2	9-GF		8
May	May	May	May	Tm		Opp	Rslt	Inngs	Dec	DR
5	27	31	May 11	PHI	@	SEA	W,4-2	GS-5		15
6	28	46	May 27	PHI	@	NYM	L,6-8	GS-3	L(0-2)	15
Jun	Jun	Jun	Jun	Tm		Opp	Rslt	Inngs	Dec	DR
7	29	66	Jun 17(2)	PHI	@	WSN	W,8-7	GS-5		20
Jul	Jul	Jul	Jul	Tm		Opp	Rslt	Inngs	Dec	DR
8	30	78	Jul 1	PHI		STL	W,5-3	GS-4		13
9	31	83	Jul 7	PHI		WSN	W,5-3	GS-4		5
10	32	95	Jul 24	PHI		CHC	L,3-4	GS-5	L(0-3)	16
11	33	100	Jul 29	PHI	@	PIT	W,4-2	GS-6		4
Aug	Aug	Aug	Aug	Tm		Opp	Rslt	Inngs	Dec	DR
12	34	120	Aug 20(2)	PHI		NYM	W,4-1	GS-6	W(1-3)	21
13	35	126	Aug 26	PHI		PIT	W,7-4	GS-6	W(2-3)	5
14	36	131	Aug 31	PHI	@	ARI	W,18-2	GS-7	W(3-3)	4
Sept	Sept	Sept	Sept	Tm		Opp	Rslt	Inngs	Dec	DR
15	37	136	Sep 7	PHI		MIA	W,4-3	GS-6	W(4-3)	6
16	38	141	Sep 13	PHI	@	MIA	W,2-1	GS-6	W(5-3)	5
17	39	146	Sep 18	PHI	@	ATL	L,2-5	GS-5		4
18	40	151	Sep 24	PHI		ATL	L,3-6	GS-4	L(5-4)	5
							12-6		W-L:5-4	4.5

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/25/2022.

Let’s take a look at some offensive stats so far by the Phils:

Team Batting

Rk	Pos	Name	Age	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BA
1	C	J.T. Realmuto	31	130	471	73	130	21	81	.276
2	1B	Rhys Hoskins	29	146	549	78	137	29	76	.250
3	2B	Jean Segura	32	88	319	40	89	10	30	.279
4	SS	Bryson Stott*	24	117	395	53	90	9	44	.228
5	3B	Alec Bohm	25	141	545	77	158	12	68	.290
6	LF	Kyle Schwarber*	29	145	545	90	115	40	85	.211
7	CF	Matt Vierling	25	108	301	39	75	5	29	.249
8	RF	Nick Castellanos (10-day IL)	30	128	499	53	132	13	61	.265
9	DH	Bryce Harper*	29	89	333	61	96	18	60	.288
Rk	Pos	Name	Age	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BA
10	SS	Didi Gregorius*	32	63	214	17	45	1	19	.210
11	CF	Odubel Herrera*	30	62	185	23	44	5	21	.238
12	SS	Johan Camargo# (40-man)	28	52	152	8	36	3	15	.237
13	DH	Darick Hall* (40-man)	26	37	129	19	34	9	16	.264
14	C	Garrett Stubbs*	29	42	95	19	27	5	16	.284
15	CF	Brandon Marsh*	24	31	96	11	27	2	13	.281
16	UT	Nick Maton*	25	29	61	12	16	5	17	.262
17	UT	Yairo Munoz	27	28	57	7	12	3	7	.211
18	IF	Edmundo Sosa (10-day IL)	26	25	54	9	17	2	13	.315
19	CF	Mickey Moniak*	24	18	46	4	6	0	2	.130
20	CF	Roman Quinn#	29	23	37	8	6	0	3	.162
21	RF	Dalton Guthrie	26	9	16	2	7	1	5	.438
22	CF	Bradley Zimmer*	29	9	16	4	4	0	0	.250
23	CF	Simon Muzziotti* (60-day IL)	23	9	7	0	1	0	0	.143
24	DH	Donny Sands	26	3	3	0	0	0	0	.000
25	CF	Oscar Mercado	27	1	1	0	0	0	0	.000
26	2B	Scott Kingery	28	1	0	0	0	0	0
		Team Totals	28.3	151	5127	707	1304	193	681	.254
		Rank in 15 NL teams			6	5	6	4		4
		Non-Pitcher Totals	28.3	151	5126	707	1304	193	681	.254
		Pitcher Totals	6.9	151	1	0	0	0	0	.000
Rk	Pos	Name	Age	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BA

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/25/2022.

I was listening to some talk on the local sports station for Philadelphia WIP about Bryce Harper and what has been happening with him since his return to the team after his injury. We haven’t heard his name mentioned too much in the way of solid contributions to the team, post-injury. Bryce has been getting back slowly to this Phillies offense, he had the night off last night but contributed 2 RBI in the 6-3 loss last night and 1 RBI in the Phils 9-1 win on Friday night vs the Braves. He remains an offensive threat for the Phils and a solid performer. It will be fun to see what he does during the playoffs.

A nice smile from J.T. – he’s the Phils WAR leader at 6.0 on the season so far

Embed from Getty Images

What? The Phillies will make the playoffs? Baseball-Reference still has the team as an 83.2 percent chance of making the playoffs in 2022. The Phillies just have to keep winning, that is the key. They can’t let their foot off of the gas pedal now. As I write this, the Phils have a 1.5-game lead on the Brewers to be in the playoffs. It will be the first time since 2011 that the Phils will have made the playoffs. Yes, that is a long time away from a playoff berth, in fact, it’s the 2nd longest drought of a playoff appearance by a MLB team in baseball. That fact is very hard to believe, we’ve actually gone 11 seasons now without a playoff appearance, that is bad. On the bright side, we’ve seen an excellent season of hitting by Kyle Schwarber with 40 HR on the season so far, but J.T. Realmuto has been the solid performer of the team this year with his 6.0 WAR, he leads the Phils in that category. J.T. has 21 HR and 81 RBI on the year. Rhys Hoskins has impressed with his 3.0 WAR and 29 HR and 76 RBI so far.

Ok, back to the final game of the regular season. Just like Opening Day, which I love to go to, I love to go to the final game of the regular season as well. For many years, I had a Phillies Sunday plan and usually ended up attending many last games of the home schedule that way. One of the most memorable was of course 2007 when the Phillies caught the Mets at the wire and ended up winning the NL East on that day. It’s close to my favorite all-time Phillies games that I’ve ever been to. There was electricity in the air from the fanbase that day, that I’ll never forget. The hair on my arms stood up as the rabid fans cheered on this team from the first inning on that day, and exploded when the Phils won first place that day, it was a memorable celebration that will never fade away.

But today, it’s 2022, and at the end of this home regular game season, the Phils as I said need to keep grinding out wins if they expect to make the playoffs. Hopefully, we’ll see an extraordinary effort from them today in striving or pushing to get into the playoffs. Once in, you never know what can happen. The comparisons in records during the season between this team and the 2008 World Series championship team have been fun to look at, can this team end up being a champion?

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