'It has felt different': Phillies' rut continues with lopsided loss

PHILADELPHIA -- Not long ago, the Phillies swept the Dodgers at Citizens Bank Park.

Remember it? The Phillies not only stifled Shohei Ohtani and his teammates in the July 9-11 series, but they had Dodgers manager Dave Roberts saying afterward how Philadelphia was “clearly a better team than we are right now.”

The Phils were 61-32 at the time. They were on pace to win 106 games.

Everything was great.

But then, the Phillies lost to the lowly A’s on July 12. Something changed. They have lost nine of 13 games since that Dodgers series, including Monday night’s 14-4 loss to the Yankees at Citizens Bank Park. It got so bad that Yankees fans took over the ballpark, filling the Bank with “M-V-P!” chants for Aaron Judge in the eighth inning.

“This was the first time that I’ve seen an opposing fanbase take over the stadium,” Phillies right fielder Nick Castellanos said.

Ace Zack Wheeler allowed seven hits, seven runs, three walks and three home runs in just five innings. But it wasn’t just Wheeler who had a rare off night. The offense scattered eight hits on Monday and is batting just .225 with a .702 OPS in this 4-9 stretch. Philadelphia hit .260 with a .755 OPS before.

“Every team goes through ups and downs over the course of a season,” Castellanos said. “I don’t know, I feel like the energy in the clubhouse has been different since the Dodgers series. I don’t know the rhyme or reason, but it has felt different. I remember sitting here listening to a few guys say after that first loss against the A’s, ‘What a weird game. It just felt weird.’ And I felt what they were talking about. It still kind of feels like that.”

They need to get that winning feeling back.

But how?

“It’s just continuing to play baseball,” Castellanos said. “What I’ve noticed is like, you can’t be lackadaisical and just wait for it to show up. You definitely can’t press and try to do more because that’s also a recipe for disaster. I think that, honestly, it’s just waking up and attacking each day like, 'This is the game that we have today.' Prepare the best you can and focus on competing as best you can.”

Castellanos is correct. Good teams have stretches like this. Sixteen Phillies teams have made the postseason in franchise history. Fourteen of those 16 clubs had a 4-9 stretch (or worse) at some point: 1915, 1950, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1983, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2022 and 2023.

Only the 1977 and '93 Phillies made the playoffs while avoiding a slump like this.

Fortunately, this year's group got off to a great start. The Phillies were 45-20 (.692) after they split a two-game series against the Mets in London. They are 20-21 (.488) since, but they still have the best record in the Majors and an 8 1/2-game lead over the Braves in the NL East.

“Well, we’ve put ourselves in a good position,” Wheeler said. “We’re up pretty good right now [in the standings]. We’ve just got to figure it out and start playing a little better all around. We’re a really good team and you can’t be good every time out.

"We’ll go through these stretches throughout the season. We don’t like it. The fans don’t like it. Nobody likes it. But it’s part of the game. It’s a long season. We’ll figure it out and we’ll get back to winning series.”

There is confidence in the clubhouse that they will.

“Support them and remind them who they are,” manager Rob Thomson said of what he can do to help the team find its way out of it. “We’re a really talented club that is going through a tough time right now. I truly believe we’re going to come out of it because we’re too talented.”