The Phillies are a top-heavy team in both phases of the game. Dombrowski’s biggest failure over the last three-plus years has been his inability to address either.
The goal now is to avoid infamy. It is to preserve legacy. It is to summon the last shred of political capital they earned in 2022 and escape from Game 162 with a reason to believe.
They will determine the final words that end up written about these last 10 days. Were they a harbinger? Or were they a rallying point? They will decide.
Rarely will you see a quarterback make a more consequential series of throws than the ones Hurts made late on a muggy afternoon in Week 2. Even rarer will you see it in circumstances this grim.
Rarely is it the case that results are completely detached from reality. In this case, though, the reality isn’t necessarily that Lemon’s debut is representative of who he is as a player.
The Phillies shouldn't want to face a Chris Sale-led Braves in a three-game series, while Alex McFarlane is emerging as a pivotal player at the end of the Phillies' bullpen.
Despite Sunday’s misfortune, the Phillies have little choice but to operate as if McFarlane will be the man who will fill the vacuum in the postseason.
Wheeler has struggled to locate his pitches, while Stott is powering the bottom-third of the lineup. Can the Phillies avoid overworking high-leverage bullpen arm Jonathan Bowlan?
