This week, the Phillies lost in their final game of the season against the New York Mets in an uncompetitive 4-1 contest. With this loss, the Phillies lose the NLDS series 3-1 to the Mets. With this heartbreaking defeat, the question must be asked, what went wrong?

THE OFFENSE

First, let’s address the main problem throughout this series, the offense. Besides the combo of Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos, the offense might as well have stayed home for the whole series. Every other mainstay in the starting lineup failed to bat over .200 the entire series with Alec Bohm, J.T. Realmuto, and Brandon Marsh all batting under .100 to finish the Phillies’ season. The other 6 regular hitters in the lineup combined for a 9 for 78 split which amounts to a whopping .115 average. 

The dismal performance by the offense was epitomized by the struggles of Alec Bohm. Bohm’s struggles culminated in his benching in game two of the series. The Phillies’ lineup could not back up the solid performances of each starter. It may not have been perfect, but each start was more than serviceable in order to win each game of the series. The offense’s struggles were a major let down to Zach Wheeler who pitched 7 one hit innings with nine strikeouts in game one of the series. 

THE BULLPEN

When examining the demise of the Philadelphia Phillies in this series, one cannot gloss over the horrid performance of the bullpen in each game. Every game the bullpen followed solid starting pitching with blowup performances the bullpen gave up 6, 4, 4, 4 runs respectively. These performances caused the Phillies to lose multiple games where they were leading. These struggles were highlighted by all-star Jeff Hoffman. Hoffman’s struggles were a large contributor to the series loss. Hoffman put up one inning of work giving up 3 runs in the final game of the series. His playoff ERA to finish the series was a whopping 40.50. Besides Hoffman, Strahm and Estevez also turned in performances that contributed to the Phillies loss.

THE COACHING

Rob Thompson, manager of the Phillies, should take part of the blame for the series loss to the Mets. Thompson continued to use pitchers in high leverage situations when they had been struggling throughout the playoffs. Jeff Hoffman should not have remained in the game in the fateful game 4 of the series. To his credit, Hoffman did his job and got out of the jam that starter Ranger Suarez left him. However, his pitching in the next inning sealed the Phillies fate for the season after he gave up a single, hit Starling Marte with a pitch, and then walked Tyrone Taylor in 3 straight at bats, loading the bases.

 Additionally, hitting coach Kevin Long has given himself grounds for termination after this series. We all saw the hitters’ struggles at the plate. Each and every one of the Phillies’ hitters went up to the plate attempting to hit home runs. This was most apparent with second baseman Bryson Stott. Stott has never been known as a power hitter throughout his career, however, Stott swung out of his shoes on every pitch he swung at looking like he was attempting to hit the ball out of Citizens Bank Park and into the Delaware River.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Unfortunately for the Phillies, all of the players on the team have contracts that extend past next year, making trades inconceivable. The Phillies may attempt to run back the same lineup next year and hope that hitters get hot at the right time just like they did two years ago. However, there are two things they can do to try and improve next year. 

Firstly, firing hitting coach Kevin Long. Long has shown his inability to help these Phillies hitters put it together time and time again. His analytic heavy approach leads to many home run or bust kind of at bats. 

Secondly, this team needs to make more moves at the trade deadline. Bringing in Austin Hays in order to try and boost the offense was not enough to try and remedy the struggles of the offense. In his time with the Phillies this season, Hays sported a serviceable .256 batting average with a .672 OPS. 

It may seem like all is lost, but Phillies fans need to remember that given the right time this Phillies team can compete as one of the best teams in the entire MLB.