The Phillies are starting to look like their old selves lately. It's easy to begin to wonder if they shouldn't have fired Rob Thomson. But since the Phillies are winning now, it's also hard to say the firing didn't work. At the time, the franchise was under real stress and just underperforming. I personally feel like firing Thomson sent a legit message to the roster. I'm unsure if the players will admit that the firing flipped a mental switch in them as a whole, I'm sure they'd just say it was a matter of time and that they always believed they'd turn it around. But the fact is they weren't winning before the firing, and they're winning now. This is professional baseball. Not some recreational league where feelings should be prioritized or something. This is people's careers now, not just a hobby. I'll always respect Thomson and what he did to help guide the team, but I am more glad that they are winning now. Maybe the roster was just too comfortable with Rob who knows. There's also a lot of baseball left, so we'll see if the Phillies are actually out of their funk in time. I still worry that the Phillies are sort of the best average team if that makes sense. They seem to mostly easily beat bad-average teams, but seemingly always struggle with elite teams. Meh, I guess that's how it goes when you're good. It's never going to be easy to best elite teams in any competition.
Sunday's game was pretty beautiful. Cristopher Sánchez was elite on the mound as he pitched seven scoreless innings! Kyle Schwarber hit TWO more homers to put him at 16 on the year! That's five homers in the last four games for Schwarber! He's currently on a 63 home run pace! He's 44 away from 400 for his career too. He'd need to reach 60 homers this season to reach the impressive milestone.
All in all it was a great win. The Rockies aren't a great team but that just means there was no great excuse for the Phillies to struggle.
Today, the Phillies venture deeper into the northeast as they face the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. One of my favorite stadiums ever!
Logo Src, Logo Src
The Red Sox are perhaps my third or fourth favorite team but I am not about to start covering them LOL. My Phillies and A's are enough. My papou is a Red Sox fan. My dad was an Orioles fan. So the Red Sox and Orioles are two franchises that I definitely appreciate. Some of my favorite memories are of watching the Red Sox play while visiting my papou in Connecticut. Good times.
But anyway, as much as I was praising the Phillies earlier, they are still three games below .500. The Red Sox have struggled a bit to start the season too. In fact they also fired their own manager in Alex Cora not too long ago on April 25th!
So I expect this series to be pretty gritty honestly. Both teams are likely better than their record indicates and are looking to turn their seasons around.
Zack Wheeler takes the mound in the opening game of the series for the Phillies. Wheeler has only been back a short time, but he's been pretty steady as expected since his return. He definitely added a good sense of security to the rotation.
Should be a fun game and series!