Yesterday's doubleheader loss leaves the Phillies 1.5 games ahead of the third-place Nationals and 6.5 games behind the first-place Braves. Forget first place. Forget the playoffs. Now the question is if this team can finish with a .500 record or not.
In the first game, played before tens of people, the Phils fell 3-1 and featured manager Gabe Kapler making 4 pitching changes in the 5th inning. I guess somebody forgot to tell Kapler he could make pitching changes in the second game, because he left Seranthony Dominguez in for 1.2 innings and 43 pitches. Dominguez walked 3, gave up 2 hits, threw a wild pitch and a passed ball and was wildly ineffective. A 6-3 lead turned into a tie game that was lost in the 10th inning.
Since finishing a sweep of the Marlins on Aug. 5, the Phillies have won just 11 of 33 games. They've fallen 8 games in the standings. When they hit, they can't get people out. When they get people out, they can't hit. And the defense is bad pretty much all of the time.
This team might not be mathematically dead just yet, but the pulse is weak and fading. They don't look anything like the team that entertained us through the first 110 games of the season. What we've seen over the last 4.5 weeks looks more like every season from 2013 to 2017.
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