Brookover: MacPhail, Phillies can finally feel good about offense
Andy MacPhail weighed in on the state of the Phillies' rebuilding plan early last week and it would have been much bigger news if he had been disappointed in the direction the team was headed.
Andy MacPhail weighed in on the state of the Phillies' rebuilding plan early last week and it would have been much bigger news if he had been disappointed in the direction the team was headed.
Instead, the first-year president said, "I'm actually more encouraged today than I ever would have dreamed I would have been after my first month with the Phillies."
Not many people were paying close attention a year ago at this time because: A.) they were angry that Ruben Amaro was still the general manager and B.) the Phillies gave them little reason to pay close attention.
A quick refresher course: The Phillies were 27-50 when they hired MacPhail as their president in waiting on June 29, 2015. Manager Ryne Sandberg had resigned three days earlier and the Phillies were about to lose 12 of their next 14 games.
Congratulations, I'm sorry seemed like the most appropriate greeting for MacPhail. Welcome to baseball hell would have worked, too.
One year later, contention remains off in the distance, a point driven home when the Phillies recently lost 28 of 36 games to go from seven games over .500 to 13 games under. They scored two runs or fewer 17 times in that stretch and were 3-16 against elite teams like the Chicago Cubs, Washington, Toronto, and San Francisco.
And yet, MacPhail's optimism appears justified for a number of reasons, including the way the big-league team has hit the baseball over the last 10 days. Manager Pete Mackanin thinks it has a lot to do with Peter Bourjos, who looked more helpless than a seal surrounded by great white sharks every time he went to home plate until about three weeks ago.
"When Peter Bourjos started hitting, everyone woke up and kind of said, 'Let's go,' " Mackanin said. "That's a fabulous run he's going through."
It continued Sunday at Citizens Bank Park with a first-inning single that led to a three-run home run by Cameron Rupp during a 7-2 victory that allowed the Phillies to take two out of three games from the World Series champion Kansas City Royals.
Bourjos has hit .443 in his last 19 games, and even though he can't keep going at the pace, he has triggered a lumber party the Phillies did not look like they'd ever be qualified to attend for most of the season. Remember, even when this team was seven games over .500 in mid-May, the offense was still hitting .235 and averaging 3.3 runs per game.
"I just knew we had it in us," Mackanin said. "I always felt even during the first two months that we were a better hitting team that we showed and it was kind of an enigma as to why we weren't hitting better. It just took a little time."
Rupp, who has six home runs and 13 extra-base hits in his last 19 games, believes the previous weekend in San Francisco might have been a turning point for the Phillies. They lost two out of three to the Giants, but they beat Madison Bumgarner in the middle game and went down with a fight in an 8-7 loss in the series finale.
"That team just won three World Series in the last five years," Rupp said. "That says something when you go out like that after the way we had been playing. We got back to the way we played in the first two months and that kind of turned us."
The Phillies followed up the Giants series with a three-game sweep in Arizona after being swept by the Diamondbacks at home earlier in the month during an 0-6 homestand.
"I feel like we've come out of it because we've sustained our offense since we finished the road trip and we've carried through since we've come home," Mackanin said. "We've gone through 10 days or so where we've been swinging the bat pretty well."
Cody Asche, who contributed a third-inning home run Sunday, has been part of the offensive resurrection, too. Two weeks ago he was hitting .226 with four RBIs. Now, he's hitting .286 and has nine doubles in his last 12 games.
It's too small of a sample to declare the Phillies' hitting issues resolved, but it's the first sustained sign of life from the offense all season and that is among the reasons for MacPhail to be optimistic about his team's rebuilding project.
There are others. Vince Velasquez, after going on the disabled list last month with a strained right biceps, has returned with two strong starts, including a six-inning, two-run effort Sunday. The Phillies need Aaron Nola to come out of his recent funk and have devised a plan to let him skip a start before returning after the all-star break. It's a good idea and the belief here is that Nola will rebound.
Of course, there are all kinds of good things happening at the minor-league level, which no doubt is the primary reason for MacPhail's optimism. But for the first time this season, the team president can also feel good about the offense at the major-league level. It did not appear for the longest time as if that would ever be possible.
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