“He’s impressive,” interim manager Don Mattingly said Wednesday — before Harper slugged a two-run homer and leaped to make a catch at the right field wall in the first inning of a sweep-averting 6-0 victory over the Mariners. “This section of time has been as good as we’ve seen all year.”
Nine years, actually. Harper hasn’t reached base in 50% of his plate appearances in a month since April 2017 with the Nationals. His best month with the Phillies came in September 2021, when he reached at a .452 clip and sealed his second National League MVP award.
And, now, he’s doing it while readjusting to right field.
But that’s all for another day. The Phillies’ objective in a midweek matinee here was to pocket a victory and move on to Anaheim. Considering they arrived on the rocket fuel of a nine-game winning streak — punctuated by a six-run ninth-inning comeback at home Sunday — and fell pancake-flat in the first two games, it was almost an imperative.
Consider, then, the magnitude of Harper’s first inning.
Bryce Harper is hitting .338 in August.Lindsey Wasson
Not only did he take a vintage swing at a 98-mph heater from Mariners starter Bryan Woo and drive it the other way to left-center field for a two-run homer, but his catch at the wall took extra bases from Julio Rodríguez.
Talk about a tone-setter.
“Haven’t done that in a while,” said Harper, who moved back to right field three weeks ago after not playing the position since 2022. “It’s pretty cool to get back there and do that again. Felt pretty smooth, pretty relaxed on it. So, hopefully I can keep that going and feeling good out there.”
Jesús Luzardo didn’t need much more than a 2-0 lead and Harper’s helping hand. The lefty had no-hit stuff — and didn’t allow one until Jhonny Pereda’s two-out single in the fifth inning. It was the only hit against Luzardo in seven innings.
Don’t look now, but Luzardo has been the Phillies’ best starter since mid-May. In his last 19 starts, he has a 2.11 ERA. And with his fourth-inning strikeout of Cal Raleigh, he reached 200 strikeouts for the second season in a row.
“I like strikeouts, for sure,” Luzardo said. “It’s a nice accomplishment. But at the end of the day, I think the win is nicer.”
The Phillies usually win behind Luzardo. They’re 19-8 overall in his starts, including 5-0 this month and 15-2 in his last 17. And he dominated the Mariners. Riding his fastball and signature sweeping slider, he got 18 swings and misses and racked up nine strikeouts.
Most significantly, he halted the team’s two-game skid and kept the Phillies in possession of the second NL wild card, two games clear of the Padres, and three games clear of the Diamondbacks.
Phillies lefty Jesús Luzardo has a 2.11 ERA in his last 19 starts.Lindsey Wasson
“I think that was kind of the goal today,” Luzardo said. “The offense came out hungry, and my job was to go out and put a stop to the losing. I think that everyone that goes out there has the same mentality, especially after a loss. Everyone wants to be the guy that stops it and puts us back on track.”
But it’s Harper, the Face of the Franchise, who has put the Phillies on his shoulders this month with a laser-focused plate approach. While most of his teammates struggled, especially against tough Mariners starters Logan Gilbert and George Kirby, Harper went 6-for-11 in the series. He has reached base in 29 consecutive games, a career-long streak.
Harper didn’t feel much like talking about it after the game — “I don’t want to get into depth,” he said — in part because he can’t totally explain it.
But Schwarber found a way to put it into stark perspective.
“Every time that he steps up to the plate, we don’t ever feel like there’s going to be a negative result,” he said. “And I feel like that’s a really high compliment. Because whenever that pitcher sees him step in, he knows that, if he makes a mistake, he’s able to do something with that mistake and also just stay locked into what he wants to do.”
No less than Mattingly, himself with a .307 lifetime batting average and “The Hitman” moniker, is slack-jawed by Harper’s month.
“With the on-base, with the swings, and just staying with it — no matter the score, no matter the game, the at-bats are good — it’s been really good,” Mattingly said. “I don’t know how much you guys appreciate what he really does and how long he’s been doing it, but it’s impressive.”
SEATTLE — Kyle Schwarber is the charter member of the 40-Homer Club this season.
What, you expected someone else?
Schwarber, only the most prolific slugger in the National League since 2022, became the majors’ first player to get to 40 home runs with a three-run 425-footer to right-center field in the second inning of the Phillies’ 6-0 victory over the Mariners here Wednesday.
It’s the second season in a row that Schwarber reached the 40-homer mark. He led the NL last season with a career-high 56 homers. He hit 46 and 47, respectively, in his first two seasons with the Phillies.
“Obviously it’s a good thing because that means you’re hopefully producing runs for your team,” said Schwarber, tied with the Yankees’ Aaron Judge for the most homers (227) since the beginning of the 2022 season. “But it’s not about going out there and trying to achieve and or attain a certain number. I think it’s just more trying to stack as many at-bats as you can to keep trying to help the team win.”
Kyle Schwarber (12) was the first player to reach 30 and 40 home runs this season.Lindsey Wasson
Schwarber, who has 380 career homers, was also the first player to 30 homers this season. But his pace cooled considerably through the summer as he dealt with a sore lower back.
After snapping a drought of 78 plate appearances without a homer on Aug. 9, Schwarber has seven homers in 75 plate appearances over his last 16 games.
SEATTLE — Despite how it looked — or how Zack Wheeler sounded — after his latest rough start, the Phillies don’t believe their ace is far away from getting back on track.
“He’s a click off, but I don’t think it’s big adjustments,” pitching coach Caleb Cotham said Wednesday before the Phillies wrapped up a series here against the Mariners. “It’s small things.”
The Phillies ruled out pitch-tipping, a theory floated by Wheeler after he allowed a season-high eight runs on nine hits, including four homers, and five walks Monday night to leave his ERA at 8.51 over his last six starts.
Instead, after reviewing recent video and comparing it with previous seasons dating to 2021 when Wheeler threw from a higher arm slot, Cotham identified “some things in the delivery that [opponents] are kind of attacking.”
“I think it’s just kind of getting back to the basics that we know is like headquarters for him,” Cotham said. “Just making sure we’re getting into the lift and out of the lift and the postures are in a spot where he can be freed up to let the ball rip.”
Earlier this month, Wheeler drew scrutiny from the Blue Jays for the placement of his right foot. He tends to keep his foot on the farthest edge of the rubber as he goes through his delivery. Toronto contended that he was disengaging from the rubber.
The Phillies ruled out pitch-tipping as a potential reason for Zack Wheeler’s recent struggles.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Wheeler said then that the Phillies were contacted by MLB a few weeks earlier after a camera angle from a nationally televised game gave rise to questions about whether he was on the rubber. The Phillies provided camera angles to show that he was.
“I would defend that until I’m blue in the face,” Cotham said. “It wasn’t really for me a thought. He wants to be on the rubber. He’s on the rubber.”
Regardless, Cotham said Wheeler is “pitching from the same spot he’s always pitched at.”
And upon reviewing video from Monday night, Cotham said Wheeler’s command wasn’t as erratic as it looked. Despite the five walks, he actually threw 61% strikes, not far off his 63% season average.
“It was a pitch here and there that he normally hits, that he’s hit for a long time, and he didn’t hit that and they put good at-bats and didn’t miss it,” Cotham said. “It’s just a click off enough that one pitch is in the zone when he wants to be out of the zone, one pitch is expanded when he wants to throw a strike, and you lose the count.”
“So, it might be a little delivery and a little maybe [pitch] mix and targeting and where we’re trying to throw pitches. But I think it’s just a sum of a couple of small things for him.”
Bryce Harper is playing through mild tendinitis in his left knee.Matt Krohn
Don’t Harp on it
It hasn’t stopped him from having the best month of his Phillies career, but Bryce Harper continues to manage a “tendinitis-type scenario” in his left knee, according to interim manager Don Mattingly.
“Yeah, he’s going to be dealing with it,” Mattingly said. “Any kind of tendinitis-type scenario, every once in a while you take a misstep, you feel a little swelling and soreness.”
In those cases, Mattingly said the Phillies will continue to look for opportunities to use Harper as a designated hitter. But he has started 13 of the last 14 games in right field, a sign that his knee isn’t flaring up.
Two weeks into a rehab assignment in triple A, backup catcher Rafael Marchán (knee) was 6-for-24 with five walks and five strikeouts through seven games. It’s likely he will rejoin the Phillies after rosters expand to 28 players on Tuesday. … Lefty reliever Tanner Banks (forearm) began a rehab assignment in triple A. … After a day off in Southern California, the Phillies will open a three-game series against the Angels. Andrew Painter (3-6, 6.04 ERA) is scheduled to start Friday night against lefty Reid Detmers (4-8, 3.62).
SEATTLE — Two years ago, when the Phillies last played here, Trea Turner heard that Ichiro Suzuki was at the games but never got to meet him.
Turner wasn’t going to miss another chance.
Before Tuesday night’s game, a 4-1 Phillies loss, Turner chatted with Suzuki, the Mariners legend and Hall of Fame hitting machine with 3,089 major-league knocks after coming over from Japan and a statue outside the home-plate entrance to T-Mobile Park.
“What are your thoughts, your approaches in certain situations?”
“If you’re doing this wrong, what would you do?”
“Just all sorts of stuff,” Turner said. “It was just great being able to pick his brain. I really enjoyed it.”
Coincidentally, Turner’s chat with one of the most gifted hitters on two continents came at a time when he’s hitless in 13 at-bats, part of a 4-for-25 tailspin entering Wednesday’s series finale.
Mariners legend Ichiro Suzuki was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame last year.Seth Wenig
The root of the problem: “I’ve been trying to hit the ball the other way [to right field] and stopflying open.” After working with hitting coach Kevin Long, Turner said he made an adjustment Tuesday night that, despite going 0-for-4 again, represented “progress.”
And no, Don Mattingly isn’t considering moving Turner down in the order. Doing so would project “panic,” the interim manager said.
“You’ve just got to hang in with guys over the course of a season,” Mattingly said. “And if there’s a point where it’s like, OK, this has got to go, then you get there. … I think we all know that Trea’s going to come out of this. And when he does, it’ll be hot.”
Turner went 0-for-4 Tuesday night but lined out in his final at-bat.
“I didn’t get the results I wanted,” Turner said. “But I feel like today was good.”
Turner grew up in South Florida as a fan of Derek Jeter and Ken Griffey Jr. He didn’t watch Ichiro as often — “Maybe it’s more of like a West Coast-East Coast type deal,” he said — but noted that he’s been told there are similarities in their hitting styles.
“In the sense that he didn’t walk a lot, he wanted to hit, he hit the ball all over the field, could hit it out of the park sometimes,” Turner said. “So, talking with him about his mindset and what he physically does, a lot of it kind of applied to me in my game. It was kind of nice just hearing him, trying to ask him as many questions as possible.
“Growing up watching him, I maybe probably didn’t appreciate him as much as I should have as a kid. I loved Griffey and Jeter. But his career is incredible. I knew he was a really good player, but I wish I got a chance to watch him a little bit more.”
Turner isn’t the only Phillies player to meet Ichiro this week. Rookie center fielder Justin Crawford was introduced to him Monday by his cousin, Mariners infielder J.P. Crawford.
Bryce Harper has reached base in 28 consecutive games, a career-best streak.Matt Krohn
Extra bases
Bryce Harper went 2-for-4 Tuesday and extended his career-long on-base streak to 28 games, tying the Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong for the fourth-longest in the majors this season. … J.P. Crawford returned to the Mariners’ lineup after missing 18 games with an inflamed left wrist. The Phillies’ first-round pick in 2013 was traded to Seattle after the 2018 season for infielder Jean Segura. … Jesús Luzardo (11-5, 3.35 ERA) is scheduled to start the matinee series finale Wednesday against Mariners righty Bryan Woo (9-8, 4.10).
SEATTLE — The second-best option in the bullpen hadn’t pitched in six days. Nothing to see there, the Phillies insisted. The game situations simply didn’t call for Jonathan Bowlan.
“But tonight,” interim manager Don Mattingly said before Tuesday’s game, “is probably almost a must-pitch.”
So, here were the Phillies, trailing by one run against the Mariners as the seventh inning began. And there was Bowlan, still sitting in the bullpen as Orion Kerkering came on in relief of starter Aaron Nola.
Bowlan pitched, true to Mattingly’s word. But by the time he entered in the eighth, the deficit had swelled to three runs in a 4-1 loss, the Phillies’ second setback in a row here in Seattle after nine consecutive victories.
The record will reflect that Nola yielded the go-ahead run in the sixth inning on back-to-back singles to Julio Rodríguez and Josh Naylor. But Nola allowed only three hits overall to continue a resurgence in the midst of ace Zack Wheeler’s worst six-start stretch in nearly 10 years.
So, let’s not pin this one on Nola. Not after the Phillies went 15 consecutive at-bats without a hit between the third and eighth innings against Mariners starter George Kirby.
And certainly not after Mattingly put a 2-1 seventh-inning deficit in the hands of someone other than his well-rested setup man.
Why Kerkering over Bowlan in the seventh?
“He’s kind of been our seventh-inning guy, eighth depending on where it goes,” Mattingly said of Kerkering. “It felt like he was the right guy.”
Aaron Nola has a 3.57 ERA in his last 10 starts.Lindsey Wasson
To be fair, Kerkering seemed to have gotten a second wind lately after struggling to throw strikes in late July. But he hit Taylor Ward with one out in the seventh, then allowed a single to J.P. Crawford and walked Brock Rodden to load the bases before Randy Arozarena fouled out.
With two out, Mattingly played the matchups, turning to lefty Brooks Raley to face lefty-hitting Dominic Canzone. Raley’s 1-1 pitch was a low-and-away sweeper. But Canzone covered the outer edge of the plate and lined it to center field for a two-run single.
Bowlan, meanwhile, pitched around a one-out walk in a scoreless eighth with an assist to Bryce Harper, who made a diving catch in right field to end the inning.
Kirby muted an offense that had been fully operational throughout the nine-game winning streak. With a blazing fastball and a four-pitch offspeed mixture, he gave up a run on Justin Crawford’s RBI single in the second inning, then slammed the door.
“He’s good, man,” Trea Turner said. “He’s got four or five really good pitches and then just the command is really good. He doesn’t give you much to hit in the middle of the zone. The fastball was hard today. I think I saw a bunch of 99s up there, so he’s tough.
“I felt like we did a good job early battling to get some runners on there, but it’s hard to put a big inning against him as a team.”
Justin Crawford’s RBI single in the second inning was the Phillies’ lone run.Lindsey Wasson
Before the game, most of the attention of the Phillies’ pitching brain trust was focused on trying to solve the riddle of Wheeler’s 8.51 ERA in his last six starts. It’s his worst six-start stretch since he posted a 9.89 ERA midway through the 2017 season when he was still with the Mets.
Absent a solution, not much else matters.
But imagine the state of the Phillies’ rotation in these waning days of summer if not for Nola.
And imagine saying that even a month ago.
“He’s been on a good roll,” Mattingly said. “He was really good tonight.”
Nola gave up a game-tying solo homer to suddenly scorching Cal Raleigh in the second inning. He retired 13 of the next 15 batters, allowing only two walks before the back-to-back hits by Rodríguez and Naylor in the sixth.
It marked another quality start for Nola, who has a 3.57 ERA in his last 10 starts. Since July 5, he has lowered his season ERA from 6.04 to 5.03.
“I just kept trying to work, keep working, having good weeks, and keep competing out there,” Nola said. “I feel a little more on the attack, and my misses are a little bit smaller.”
Since July 5, Aaron Nola has dropped his ERA from 5.87 to 5.03.Lindsey Wasson
But after flying across the country on the wings of an improbable ninth-inning comeback at home Sunday, back-to-back losses in the Pacific Northwest have felt like a bucket of ice water.
It has also stretched the deficit in the NL East back to 4½ games and narrowed the Phillies’ wild-card lead to three games over the Diamondbacks.
“It’s tough,” Turner said. “But I think we ran into two really good starting pitchers the last couple of days and just didn’t get the job done. I don’t feel like we’re beating ourselves or doing some stupid stuff. I just feel like we just got beaten. You move on.”
SEATTLE — Six weeks after the Phillies lost their primary eighth-inning reliever for the season, five weeks before the playoffs, the bridge to Jhoan Duran is taking shape.
And Brooks Raley is emerging as the top lefty.
“Brooks has been easy to trust,” Don Mattingly said as the Phillies continued their West Coast trip here Tuesday. “He’s throwing strikes. He’s not walking people, all that. So, yeah, he’s easy to trust.”
Mattingly’s word choice was notable because, this time of year, there’s only one question for a manager as it relates to the composition of the bullpen: Who do you trust?
The Phillies tweaked the bullpen in the offseason. But their most expensive addition, Brad Keller, had Tommy John elbow surgery last month. Jonathan Bowlan has outkicked expectations. But holdovers Kerkering and Alvarado have been inconsistent.
So, as the Phillies attempt to cement a wild-card spot and close in on the division-leading Braves, the bullpen is coming into focus again, with relievers jockeying for position behind Duran in Mattingly’s circle of trust.
Hard-throwing Phillies rookie reliever Alex McFarlane has pitched well since returning from triple A.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Here’s what we know: Raley is earning more late-inning chances after being acquired in a deadline trade with the rival Mets. But hard-throwing rookie Alex McFarlane isn’t quite there yet.
Let’s start with Raley. After giving up a pair of two-out runs in his Phillies debut on Aug. 5, the 38-year-old lefty has allowed one run on three hits and a walk in six innings over his last seven appearances.
And with Duran unavailable last Tuesday night, Raley picked up his first save since 2023 in a 6-4 victory over the Marlins.
“He’s given up some hits, but I feel like he’s going to make pitches,” Mattingly said. “He’s not going to panic.”
There isn’t a more essential trait in October. Raley has appeared in 15 postseason games, mostly with the Astros, and has a 4.73 ERA that was inflated by a three-run outburst in Game 3 of the 2021 American League division series. He allowed two runs in his last 7⅓ postseason innings.
Raley also has a track record against some of the most dangerous left-handed hitters in the National League. Shohei Ohtani, for instance, is 1-for-7 with three walks and a .506 OPS against him. Freddie Freeman is 1-for-6; Pete Crow-Armstrong and Max Muncy are both 1-for-4 with a walk; Christian Yelich is 1-for-4 with three strikeouts.
And with Alvarado struggling (five earned runs in his last five appearances), Raley appears to be Mattingly’s lefty of choice with a late lead.
Phillies reliever Jonathan Bowlan has a 2.89 ERA in 49 appearances.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
From the right side, Bowlan moved into the setup role vacated by Keller. But Mattingly has leaned hard on him and Kerkering, who appears to be catching a second wind after struggling to throw strikes for a stretch in late July.
The Phillies have given McFarlane some higher-leverage tests since recalling him from triple A two weeks ago. The 25-year-old righty has uncorked 32 pitches that reached at least 100 mph, with his fastball averaging 99.9.
But he also has given up three runs (one earned) on five hits and three walks in seven innings.
“I think he’s been good. He’s been fine,” Mattingly said. “But there’s no reason to have to push him forward. … He’s been easy to trust when I don’t have another righty out there. I trust him in right-handed pockets. I don’t put him in Bowlan’s category yet, or even Kerk’s. But I do put him in the category of like, if you match him up in the right pocket.”
Mattingly’s level of trust figures to rise as McFarlane’s command improves. He hasn’t issued a walk in his last three appearances after walking the leadoff batter in each of his previous three.
“We talked about the walks earlier with him,” Mattingly said. “He’s thrown strikes for the most part. I think he’s a tough at-bat, especially on the righty, with the combination of his movement and velo. Just the velo, in general.
“The more specific he gets over time with his breaking ball, the fastball, not just throwing it but getting it to an area of the plate. Being able to use both fastballs, the sink and the run straight [four-seamer], those are going to kind of dictate how good he becomes.”
Every appearance is an audition for a larger role. And the auditions will continue for another month.
Extra bases
With a third-inning single Monday night, Bryce Harper became the 34th player to record 1,000 hits with the Phillies. He has 1,922 hits overall, seventh-most among active players behind Freeman, José Altuve, Andrew McCutchen, Paul Goldschmidt, Manny Machado, and Nolan Arenado. … Aaron Nola (5-9, 5.12 ERA) is lined up to start Tuesday night against Mariners righty George Kirby (8-10, 4.18). The series wraps up Wednesday with Jesús Luzardo (11-5, 3.35) set to face Mariners righty Bryan Woo (9-8, 4.10).
SEATTLE — Julio Rodríguez unloaded on a two-strike splitter in the first inning here Monday night and set off the foghorn that signals Mariners home runs.
Because the Mariners’ five-foghorn, 9-2 victory was a five-alarm start for Zack Wheeler. Never mind that the Phillies’ nine-game winning streak went up in smoke. There was a more urgent question to keep the team’s pitching brain trust from sleeping in Seattle.
It wasn’t merely what happened against the Mariners, but as long as we’re on the subject: Wheeler allowed eight runs (a season-high) on nine hits, four homers, and five walks, tying season-highs in those categories. He didn’t record an out in the fifth inning after Don Mattingly sent him back out at 94 pitches. His ERA jumped from 2.92 to 3.40.
The Phillies could chalk it up to a one-off, just one of those nights, if not for the fact that the 36-year-old ace has given up at least four runs in four of his last six starts. Related: He has issued at least four walks in back-to-back starts for the first time since July 2017.
“I haven’t had a stretch like this in a while,” Wheeler said. “I mean, I just don’t really have anything else to say.”
At least not after saying this: “To be totally honest with you, I feel perfectly fine, healthy, strong. Everything’s there.” And that’s relevant because Wheeler missed the final six weeks of last season and the first month this year after having a rib removed to relieve a compressed vein that caused a blood clot near his shoulder.
Phillies starting pitcher Zack Wheeler gave up five runs in the first inning of his team’s 9-2 loss. Lindsey Wasson
Wheeler’s velocity readings appear to support his claim. His fastball averaged 94.9 mph, consistent with his 95-mph season average. The Phillies have other metrics that also suggest Wheeler is healthy.
So, if he insists he’s physically fine and not struggling with stamina 124⅓ innings into his comeback season, is there another explanation for walking 15 batters in a four-start span for the first time since … checks notes … May 2014, his second season in the majors?
“That’s why it’s so frustrating right now,” Wheeler said. “Because I’m on a rough stretch and I feel fine. You’ve really got to dig in. That’s what I’m going to do [Tuesday], you know? Sit down, talk, and try to get some stuff figured out.”
OK, start here: Wheeler said the only pitch he was able to throw for a strike was his fastball — “and that’s not even fully consistent.” He gave up homers on his splitter (to Rodríguez and Cole Young), fastball (to Cal Raleigh), and cutter (to Raleigh, the .167-hitting star catcher who went deep a third time against reliever Chase Shugart).
Wheeler gave up five first-inning runs for the first time since Sept. 12, 2023. The first six batters reached base, with the only out coming when Bryce Harper nailed Josh Naylor trying to stretch a single.
It all started by running a 3-1 count to leadoff-hitting Randy Arozarena, who drew a seven-pitch walk.
“I hate walking guys,” Wheeler said. “I used to walk guys a good bit [early in his career] and kind of got away from that, and now that this little stretch has been walking guys, it’s pretty frustrating.”
Considering this is Wheeler, the best pitcher in baseball over the last seven years, the Phillies won’t dismiss any theory for why he’s struggling. Odds are, he isn’t tipping pitches. Just in case, they’ll look into it.
“They were taking really good swings, so first, I’m going to check off the box of, am I doing something to where other teams are seeing it, you know?” Wheeler said. “At this point, you’ve got to check off all the boxes. It’s not where I want to be. But like I said, we’ll sit down and kind of dig in and see what’s really going on.”
Zack Wheeler gave up five first-inning runs and back-to-back homers in the fifth inning of a 9-2 loss Monday night in Seattle.Lindsey Wasson
Maybe it’s a mechanical issue that’s causing Wheeler to lack command. Then again, it’s not like he was missing his spot by an inch or two. Most of his pitches weren’t close to where catcher J.T. Realmuto wanted them.
“I would just say overall it’s more big misses that you’re seeing out of him than usual, and then more pitches in the heart of the plate,” Realmuto said. “As a hitter, it just makes the ball look a little bigger when your misses are big. And then when you do throw it in the zone, it’s covering a little more plate than usual, and that’s obviously not what we’re used to seeing from him.”
Wheeler being Wheeler, he wanted to start the fifth inning, according to Mattingly, who quickly added, “And I kind of wanted him to go back out.” So, although rookie Alex McFarlane was warming to enter a 6-2 game, Wheeler stayed in and gave up back-to-back homers to Raleigh and Young to make it 8-2.
For the sake of the game, Mattingly probably should’ve gone to McFarlane. But in the larger picture, the Phillies aren’t going anywhere if they’re unable to unlock the mystery of Wheeler’s last six starts, in which he has an 8.51 ERA in 24⅓ innings after running a 2.16 ERA in 100 innings through 16 starts.
“The stuff still feels sharp,” Realmuto said. “It’s coming out of his hand good. It’s just, he’s getting into some bad counts, and then throwing the ball too much in the middle of the plate. He’s going through a tough time right now, but we have all the faith in the world that he’s going to come out of it.”
Luis Arraez opened the door and revealed the secret to winning three batting titles.
Not even Tony Gwynn Jr. could believe it.
“Listen,” said the son of the late Hall of Famer, “my dad was as much of a worker as possible. Never once did he have a tee and a net in his hotel room. I walked into the room and watched this man go to work. It was mind-blowing.”
In fact, since 2021, the new Phillies second baseman has traveled with a portable tee, a fold-up net, a short bat, and a small weight that fit neatly into his backpack. He sets it all up in his room, takes full or partial swings (without a ball) to perfect his compact stroke, and often sends the video to his personal hitting coach in Miami.
“Just a short move, point A to point B, and that’s all he was working on the whole time,” Gwynn said on The Inquirer’s Phillies Extra podcast. “And at that point I was like, ‘OK, this gentleman is a little bit different.’”
In 2026, he’s actually one of a kind.
Arraez, 29, ranks in the lowest percentile among major league batters in bat speed, hard-hit rate, and barrel percentage, which measures how frequently a hitter makes contact with the optimal combination of exit velocity and launch angle. And these days, baseball is obsessed with exit velocities and launch angles.
Phillies second baseman Luis Arraez has won three batting titles.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Here’s the thing, though: Arraez has more hits than any player since 2022. He has won batting titles in both leagues: 2022 with the Twins (.316), 2023 with the Marlins (.354), and 2024 with the Marlins and Padres (.314).
Oh, and did we mention he hardly ever strikes out?
Entering the weekend, Arraez made contact on 92.2% of his swings. The major league average was 76.4%. His career strikeout rate was 5.9%, including 4.5% this season. In the last 50 years, three players struck out less than 6% of the time while maintaining a .300 batting average: Arraez, Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly, and the late Tony Gwynn, a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
“The skills that he has, they are so different that I think players in a lot of ways consider it a novelty,” said former Marlins general manager Kim Ng, who traded for Arraez before the 2023 season. “It doesn’t have to be just shooting for pull-side fly balls in hopes they’ll go over the fence.”
Yet the industry no longer values a contact-hitting savant. Arraez has been traded three times in the last 3½ years. And he went unsigned as a free agent last winter until a few days before spring training when the Giants gave him a one-year, $12 million contract.
On Aug. 3, the Phillies made a deadline trade for Arraez, a lefty-hitting second baseman, because their search for a righty-hitting outfielder lacked appealing options. And they were able to fit him in only because Bryce Harper consented to move back to right field for the balance of the season, part of a realignment in which they displaced three-fourths of the infield.
But now that Arraez is here, his one-of-one skill set will be on display for a new audience. The Phillies will form their opinion about his value, especially to a lineup that tends to strike out frequently and struggles at times to score without hitting home runs.
Maybe they will try to re-sign Arraez in the offseason. Maybe he will pack up his travel batting cage and shuffle to his sixth major-league team in a nomadic career. Whatever the case, the Phillies will have baseball’s most unique hitter for the playoff push.
Luis Arraez had his best season with the Marlins in 2023.Marta Lavandier
‘Infectious’ style
The Phillies aren’t the first team to move chess pieces around the field to accommodate a trade for Arraez.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. was an All-Star second baseman for the Marlins in 2022. But after a 93-loss season, they swapped righty Pablo López and two minor leaguers to the Twins for Arraez and moved Chisholm to center field.
“We were just lacking bats,” Ng said by phone last week. “Jazz was really good at second, but we also felt like he could be put in the outfield. We felt like he would really grow into the position, and then, you’d have two premium bats in the middle of the field.”
Arraez held up his end. He mimicked Ted Williams for almost half the 2023 season, carrying a .401 average into the final week of June. He finished with 203 hits, a career-high, and won his second batting title.
But Ng recalled Arraez’s impact beyond the knocks.
“I think our players were in awe of him,” said Ng, the commissioner of the 2-year-old Athletes Unlimited Softball League. “He’d walk up to the plate and size up the field and take note of where players were positioned, and he’d just put it where they weren’t. And I think the players were just so awe-struck by him and this uncanny ability that he has, and we were hoping that that would rub off in some ways on others.
“And I’m not saying it was a direct correlation, but if you look at our one-run record in 2022 vs. our one-run record in ’23, vastly different. Is it all because of Luis? No. We tried to change the way we thought about the game across the board. But Luis was a huge instrument to that change.”
Indeed, the Marlins went from 69 wins to 84 and made the playoffs largely due to a 33-14 record in one-run games. Arraez finished eighth in the NL MVP voting.
Ng said teammates became aware of Arraez’s work habits, including hitting for 15 to 20 minutes each morning in a batting cage at his house, similar to his exercises in road hotels. Seven-time All-Star outfielder Nelson Cruz introduced him to the daily ritual when they were teammates with the Twins.
“I do my routine every day,” Arraez said. “I’ll bring my short bat and my regular bat and a little heavy weight to do my routine and then to prepare my body and especially my mind.
“It’s helped a lot. You can tell. I feel really good when I do my routine every day.”
And when Arraez got to the ballpark, the young Marlins would either pick his brain about his approach at the plate or absorb it like a sponge by watching.
“His personality and the effect that he had on the team, it really was infectious,” Ng said. “And I do think that he was one of the core pillars of that team.”
The Phillies are seeing similar benefits. Mattingly batted him cleanup to utilize his contact skills in front of Harper. And even as Arraez cooled after going 5-for-13 with four RBIs in his first three games, the Phillies’ collective strikeout rate plummeted from 23.6% before he arrived to 15.9% through his first 11 games.
Coincidence? Maybe.
Then again …
“I mean, I’ve definitely learned a lot from watching him,” Alec Bohm said. “It’s the modern-day Tony Gwynn. Like, it’s one of the best bat-to-ball [hitters] that any of us have ever seen. So, yeah, I think obviously bringing a guy like that in not only makes the lineup better, but it’s also just hitters watching other good hitters. I think there’s something to be said for that.”
Luis Arraez went 5-for-13 in his first three games with the Phillies.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
‘Know thyself’
Ng left the Marlins amid a reorganization of the front office after the 2023 season. In May 2024, Arraez got traded to the Padres.
Upon arriving in San Diego, he visited the 9½-foot tall statue of Tony Gwynn — titled “Mr. Padre” — outside Petco Park.
And he asked Gwynn’s son to accompany him.
“I was like, ‘Of course,’” said Gwynn Jr., an eight-year major-league outfielder and now a Padres radio broadcaster. “Because I had seen Luis play, and it was very apparent his style of hitting was different than everybody else in Major League Baseball and had some resemblance to my father.”
Arraez seems to appreciate baseball history, maybe because it often feels like he’s from a bygone era. With the Twins, he became close with Rod Carew, the Hall of Famer who mentored him about using the field and being satisfied with line drives and ground balls instead of trying to pull everything in the air to right field.
Even before the trade to San Diego, Arraez heard the comparisons to Gwynn. His nickname: “La Regadera” — “The Sprinkler,” in Spanish — because he sprays the ball around the field.
If he played 35 years ago, he would’ve fit right in alongside Gwynn, Carew, and Wade Boggs. As Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long said, Arraez “would’ve been elite.”
But the 21st century launch-angle craze has changed not only hitting styles but also how players are paid. In 1991, when hitting for average still mattered, 29 players batted at least .300. Last season, there were seven; Trea Turner was the only .300 hitter in the National League.
“When there’s economics involved, players aren’t dumb,” Gwynn said. “They’re going to shoot for the moon in terms of paydays.”
And it’s moonshot homers, not singles up the middle that pay the most. Arraez, signed by the Twins as a teenager out of Venezuela for $40,000, has never had a multiyear contract. His highest annual salary: $14 million in 2025, hardly a pittance but tied for only 63rd among position players last season.
But his approach at the plate hasn’t changed to amplify his bank account.
“I can’t change,” Arraez said. “If I change, I’ll be in my house watching the guys play baseball.”
Said Gwynn: “There is certainly space in this game, if you’re going to be as skilled as him, to make money that can set you up for the rest of your life. Maybe not in the 30s and 35 million [per year], but you can get in that 10- to 20-[million] range and do pretty well for yourself.
“And I think Luis is unique in that self-awareness. My dad used to say this all the time — and it was part joke but part serious — and that’s ‘know thyself.’ And Luis knows himself very well, and he has chosen to maximize the skill set that God has given him.”
So, Arraez packs up his backpack and moves right along, from hotel room to hotel room, playing the hits like they used to do.
MINNEAPOLIS — Pick a date, almost any date during the season, and the Phillies have ranked near the bottom of the majors in on-base percentage.
It’s a fundamental problem.
“Because everything we’re trying to do up there,” Kyle Schwarber said, at risk of stating the obvious, “is based around that result of trying to find a way on base.”
The numbers never really added up, though. Going into the last week of July, for instance, the Phillies reached base at a .303 clip, tied for last. But they also had the fourth-best hard-hit rate and were near the middle of the pack in barrel rate, which measures how often a hitter makes contact with the optimal combination of exit velocity and launch angle.
Maybe it was bad luck. The Phillies were batting .281 on balls in play. (Major league average is .289.) Or maybe it was self-inflicted. As a team, they swung at the second-highest rate of non-strikes (34%).
Whatever the case, they needed to figure it out.
So, they had a meeting.
Hitting coach Kevin Long, his two assistants, and hitting analysts meet with the players before every series to go over strategy and review scouting reports on opposing pitchers. But this was different, multiple players said over the weekend.
In getting together the last week of July — before the deadline trade for contact-hitting savant Luis Arraez — Long and his staff highlighted things the Phillies were doing well before inviting the players to brainstorm why it wasn’t translating into better on-base results.
Bryce Harper (right) has drawn a walk in seven consecutive games through Sunday and has 21 walks in 15 games in August.Bailey Hillesheim
“I think there was a stigma there of us being last in on-base, and that can wear on a group, right?” Schwarber said. “But the room starts talking, guys start giving their opinions, and then it’s like, all right, how do we work through what we want to work through to get to where we need to be?
“As a group, it was a pretty good conversation, and I feel like we’ve been building on that and doing some really good things.”
In fact, halfway through the month, the Phillies are leading the majors with a .362 on-base percentage in August.
To make sense of the relative traffic jam on the bases, the easiest place to start is here: a 29% rate of swings at non-strikes so far this month, far below their 33.2% season average — and even the 30.4% league average.
But there’s more. The Phillies are walking nearly twice as often, from a 7.8% rate through July 31 to 13.1% this month. Bryce Harper says his dad tells him he’s at his best when he’s walking. With Arraez batting behind him, Harper has drawn 21 walks in 15 games in August. Bryson Stott (15) and Schwarber (13) are also walking at a higher clip.
As a team, the Phillies appear to be staying true to Long’s long-held philosophy of being “selective-aggressive.”
It’s more than that, though, according to Schwarber. Because if the last few years have taught the Phillies’ hitters anything, it’s that chasing pitches out of the strike zone is “the nature of the beast of the game,” Schwarber said. It’s in their DNA. Most of them won’t suddenly stop doing it, even though they don’t mean to.
And besides, every hitter is unique, with different strengths and vulnerabilities. There wasn’t a paint-by-numbers approach to figuring out how the collective group could reach base more frequently.
Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto (left), celebrating after a homer by Brandon Marsh.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
But several players cited something J.T. Realmuto brought up in the meeting that seemed to resonate.
Stay aggressive to your plan.
“There’s going to be times when, yeah, we’ll have a team approach on some guy or whatever it is, but also, everyone’s got their own individual plan, right?” Schwarber said. “So, if you have your plan, that means that you’re going to be aggressive to the things that you want to do.”
In talking it over, the hitters concluded that many of them were often deviating from their plan and letting the pitcher dictate an at-bat.
“I think it just kind of brought out that, look, we’ve kind of got to clean it up a little bit,” Alec Bohm said. “We’re swinging ourselves out of innings, out of at-bats, and the numbers say there’s not a lot of strikes coming over the plate to a lot of us.
“So, let’s at least be looking for something [specific]. And if we’re going to go down, let’s go down with a plan and not just be up there free-swinging. I think that kind of landed with everybody, and I think we’re definitely responding in a good way.”
The Phillies have 37 games left and a one-game lead for a National League wild card. Applying more pressure to opposing pitchers would help ease the burden on theirs. One-quarter of the Phillies’ games have been decided by one run.
Two weeks of getting on base at a higher clip doesn’t erase four months at or near the bottom of the leader board. But Arraez brings a contact-oriented approach and lengthens a lineup that has lacked a cleanup hitter to provide protection to Harper.
Maybe it’s all sustainable. Maybe not. Maybe they’ll look back at a hitters meeting in late July as a turning point.
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“The biggest thing we were able to accomplish in that meeting was highlighting a lot of things that we do well,” Schwarber said. “Those are things that can get your brain going in a different way, and then it’s like, ‘OK, we’re last in on-base. How do we kind of maneuver this?’
“I felt like it was just a really good conversation that we had. There was input from everyone in the room, so I felt like that was a really good way to go about it.”
MINNEAPOLIS — Andrew Painter threw six balls to begin his start here Sunday. Upon finally landing a pitch in the strike zone, he received a derisive cheer.
So much for “Minnesota nice.”
Come to think of it, there was a sizable delegation of traveling Phillies fans in town for the weekend. For five innings, a stray strike from Painter was all there was to provoke their applause.
But a funny thing happened along the way to a series-finale egg-laying. The Phillies rallied from an early five-run deficit to pull ahead in the eighth inning of a 7-5 victory to complete a three-game, two-state sweep of the Twins.
“We’ve been able to come back, and our bats have been good,” interim manager Don Mattingly said after the Phillies inched ahead of the Diamondbacks and back into sole possession of a wild card. “Up and down [the lineup], as long as we stay with it and start getting guys out there, you’ve got a chance to break through.”
For the record, Alec Bohm bashed a three-run homer in the sixth inning to draw the Phillies within 5-4, then dropped a fly ball inside the right-field line for a game-tying single in the eighth.
But it was reserve outfielder Bryan De La Cruz, in only his third at-bat in eight days, who broke the tie by punching a two-run single through the right side.
“I understand that’s my role, and I just have to take advantage of the opportunities that I get, seize the moment, and just keep going,” De La Cruz said through a team interpreter. “I know that maybe I haven’t earned a spot every day here, but that’s what I have to do, just try to come through on the spots that the team needs me to.”
Andrew Painter throws during the first inning against the Minnesota Twins on Sunday.Bailey Hillesheim
Jhoan Duran survived a 33-pitch tightrope walk in the ninth inning of his first appearance in Minnesota since getting traded by the Twins 382 days earlier. But the Phillies jetted home on the fuel of three consecutive wins over 243 miles from the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, to the Twin Cities.
They also took Painter off the hook for a rough start.
Seeking to build off 5⅓ solid innings earlier in the week in St. Louis, Painter loaded the bases with two out in the first inning on back-to-back singles and a walk. He gave up a long, loud foul ball to Brooks Lee and hung a slider on the ensuing pitch for a grand slam.
“That’s where I’m trying to bury it, especially ahead in the count,” Painter said. “I believe it’s 1-2. You have room to play around there, so you’ve got to be able to execute that. That’s got to be a ball down. We’re trying to get chase there. Just left it up.”
Chalk it up as another lesson in a season full of them for the 23-year-old rookie.
Painter hit the next batter, Luke Keaschall, on the bill of his batting helmet with a first-pitch fastball. Not a great look, but considering Painter’s lack of command, in keeping with the rest of the first inning.
Even so, the umpires conferred behind the mound and issued warnings to both teams, a decision that irritated Twins manager Derek Shelton.
“I’m not trying to go up and in with that,” said Painter, who has a 6.43 ERA through 18 games (16 starts). “I’m just trying to rip that through the zone and be really aggressive with the fastball there. It kind of just got away from me a little bit. Just got to be able to bounce back.”
Alec Bohm celebrates after hitting a three-run home run during the sixth inning on Sunday.Bailey Hillesheim
Painter allowed a solo homer to Kody Clemens in the third inning, but otherwise, he froze the scoreboard to enable the Phillies to mount their second-largest comeback of the season. They overcame a six-run deficit on May 15 in Pittsburgh.
“I’m really happy with the way [Painter] responded after that because him getting through five is huge today,” Mattingly said. “He gives up the solo, but hung in there and kept going. That was huge.”
Through five innings, the Phillies not only trailed 5-0 but had three hits. The third time through the order against Twins starter Dean Kremer was different. They loaded the bases on two walks and a single before breaking through on Luis Arraez’s groundout and Bohm’s three-run homer.
It set the stage for the eighth-inning, which began with Bryce Harper’s one-out single and a double by Arraez before Bohm’s game-tying bloop and De La Cruz’s go-ahead single gave the traveling Phillies fans something real to cheer about.
“I’ve got to be better from the jump,” Painter said. “I’ve got to be in zone more. Obviously I put the team in a really tough spot. But really good job by the guys to come back and battle like that.”
