The Philadelphia Phillies charged out to a commanding 5-0 lead over the Texas Rangers on Opening Day, looking absolutely unstoppable.
Since then? They’ve been anything but.
The Phillies have dropped three straight games, and the struggles are showing up everywhere. Their bats have gone completely silent since Opening Day – they’re hitting just .189 as a team, which ranks 27th in the league.
The pitching staff isn’t helping matters. Philadelphia has posted the second-highest ERA at 6.57 and allowed the second-most hits with 43, tied with the Chicago White Sox.
But Kyle Schwarber isn’t panicking. The veteran outfielder says this kind of fight-back mentality is exactly what defines this team, pointing to their extra-inning thriller against those same Rangers as proof.
“I think for us we know that we’re that team that can strike back at any time, we showed it there in the second game of the year, where you know it was kind of slow slow slow, and then all of a sudden with two outs in the ninth we put something together…”
“I feel like that has just been our identity here throughout my course being here, is that we’re a team that never really feels like we’re going to be out of it.”
Schwarber’s struggling at the plate too – he’s hitting .125 with just two hits, though one of them left the yard. That’s pretty much the story across Philadelphia’s lineup right now.
Process Over Panic
What matters more to Schwarber is keeping the right mindset despite the rough start.
“I think that’s always going to be the belief in ourselves and the group, and it’s not saying that you go status quo. You get to work, you work to keep getting better, keep working to get to that next day, the next at-bat, the next pitch, next play on defense, whatever it is.”
The beauty of baseball? There’s 158 games left to figure things out.
The Phillies have plenty of time to turn this around, and if Schwarber’s right about this team’s identity, they’ll get their chances. What makes this different from other early-season slumps is how many different areas need fixing – but that also means there’s multiple ways for things to click back into place.
It’s still early enough that these four games could end up being a footnote rather than a trend. The question is whether Philadelphia can find that strike-back ability Schwarber talks about before the struggles start feeling like something more.
