A CITIZEN'S BLOG

The Phillies homestand came to an end, having wildly exceeded my predictions. I had figured the team would go 9-5 and make up a little ground in the NL East race and instead it went 12-1 and vaulted into second place behind the equally hot Washington Nationals.

For the month of June (which basically covers the homestand), the Phillies hit .313, with a .375 OBP and a .575 SLG. Impressive totals for a team that ranked near-last in pretty much every major statistical category going into this. The Phillies vaulted from being one of the worst teams in slugging percentage to #5. Of particular interest to me is the fact that the team had a .228 ISO during the homestand, bringing their NL rank in ISO up to tenth. The rise in ISO was triggered by the Phillies big bats:

June ISO:
Burrell: .419
Abreu: .333
Utley: .300
Thome: .294

One of the Phillies credited good pitching for the Phillies resurgence, but that's hard to see how:

ERA: 4.58
HR/9: 1.67
WHIP: 1.31

There were some good individual pitching performances, but it is hard to see how anyone can really argue that the Phillies keyed off their pitching: simply put, the Phillies (largely Pat Burrell, Chase Utley and Bobby Abreu) slugged their way back into contention.

At the moment the Phillies are running three games ahead of their pythagorean win-loss record: not bad. The Nationals are +5 in that category. The race for the NL East is very even. Not much seperates these five teams now, and any one of them can still win the division. The 12-1 homestand got the Phillies to the front of the race. Now they need to stay there and that won't be easy.

This team needs to take what they did at Citizens and take it on the road. I think they can: they have road series against the Mariners & A's, two very beatable teams right now. Maybe, when the Phillies return to Citizens on June 21 to take on the Mets, they can be in first place. But they've still got a ways to go.

More tomorrow. This week we'll be taking a look at the Phillies defense.