The Fightins: Phillies storm back to beat the Nationals 6-3 in South Philly
The Phillies walked out of the trade deadline with a shiny new bat in Luis Arraez and a couple of bullpen arms in Brooks Raley and Caleb Kilian.
That’s fine, good even, but the lineup also needed right-handed hitting and a fifth starter. That was the giant, glaring hole in the impossible-to-ignore deadline haul. The Phillies needed a starting pitcher and they didn’t get one, and on the very first night after the deadline slammed shut, the baseball gods made sure to rub our faces in it.
Aaron Nola
With zero rotation reinforcements coming, the Phillies are walking a tightrope with no net, which means they NEED Aaron Nola and Andrew Painter to actually be functional big-league starters, because there is quite literally nothing behind them. So of course, on the night the deadline passed, Nola stepped up against the Nationals and immediately did the thing he does, which is give up home runs.
Two bombs in the first two innings. The offense sat there dead with three hits through six. Same old song. Nola technically squeezed out a quality start with six innings, but the man is carrying a 5.55 ERA and has now surrendered 28 home runs, tied for the most in all of baseball.
That’s your No. 4 starter. That’s the guy you’re leaning on in a pennant race because the front office couldn’t get a deal done for anybody better. Terrifying, honestly.
Derek Hill Saves The Phillies
Because baseball loves to mess with our emotions, the whole thing flipped in a heartbeat. Washington’s bullpen completely fell apart in the seventh, loading the bases on a hit batter and two walks, and up walked Derek Hill with the Phils down three.
Derek Hill absolutely obliterated a grand slam off lefty Tom Cosgrove to flip a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 lead, and Citizens Bank Park lost its mind.
Derek Hill – SLAMMIN’
He wasn’t done, either. Hill made a tumbling, on-the-run catch in left-center in the eighth to protect the lead, and Harper tacked on a two-run shot to make it 6-3.
Bryce Harper RING IT
Kerkering and Duran slammed the door for the final six outs, and just like that the Phillies had their third win in a row. From a lifeless three-hit night against a bad Nationals team to a curtain-call comeback.
Baseball, man.
Derek Hill Is Officially Him
I need everyone to understand what Derek Hill has done since showing up in Philadelphia, because it’s genuinely absurd. This is a guy who hit 18 home runs total across six teams in his entire career before he got here.
He now has FIVE in 32 games as a Phillie. Before Monday’s slam, he hit ninth-inning homers in back-to-back comeback wins in Washington in June and robbed a homer with a ridiculous catch against the Mets on the same trip. The man is a walking highlight reel, and the crowd of 41,115 gave him a well-earned curtain call.
Whatever the Phillies gave up to grab him from the White Sox in June, it was worth it ten times over. That trade is a masterpiece.
Now Back to the Elephant in the Room
As fun as the win was, and as much as Arraez is going to juice this lineup, let’s not gloss over the truth. There is real, legitimate concern about whether this rotation has enough to hold onto a Wild Card spot for two more months. You know it’s serious when even the guy who BUILT the roster admits he’s worried about the depth behind the big three.
Dombrowski says he chased starting pitching. He says the prices were too high, or the Phillies didn’t match up with what sellers wanted.
Cool story.
At least 15 starters got moved before the deadline and the Phillies came away with exactly none of them. I don’t care about the excuses. When your fifth-starter spot lost 12 straight games and your depth chart behind three guys is a black hole, you find a way to add an arm, ANY arm, and this front office didn’t do it. That’s a swing and a miss on the single most important need, and no amount of Arraez singles changes that.
So the master plan is to run Painter out there at No. 5 after his one decent start in Baltimore, cross our fingers that Nola stops serving up meatballs, and pray that Wheeler, Sanchez, and Luzardo all stay healthy.
That’s it. That’s the depth chart.
If ONE of those top three so much as sneezes, this season could unravel fast, because there is nothing, and I mean nothing, behind them.
Jesus Luzardo on Tuesday
Luzardo goes Tuesday against Washington, and I’ll be watching closely after he handed a 6-0 lead back to the Marlins last week.
His splits are wild: a 5.53 ERA in 10 starts at home versus a 2.01 ERA in 12 on the road.
The Phillies need the road Luzardo to finally show up at Citizens Bank Park, because they can’t afford another home clunker from a guy who’s supposed to be part of the untouchable trio.
The New Look Debuts Tuesday
The Arraez era kicks off Tuesday with a full infield makeover. Arraez at second, Harper to right field, Stott from second to third, Bohm from third to first.
That’s a lot of shuffling, but it gets the league’s leading hitter and his .324 average into the lineup, and honestly, more contact and more baserunners is exactly what this feast-or-famine offense has needed all year. Let’s see it work.
Arraez is a real upgrade, Raley and Kilian help the pen, and the team’s rolling with three straight wins into a soft August schedule. That’s a good deadline in a vacuum but the rotation? Untouched, and tat’s the one that could sink everything.
Dombrowski gambled that Painter’s development, Nola’s non-existent turnaround, and the perfect health of his top three would be enough. If he’s right, nobody remembers this. If he’s wrong, the failure to add a starter is going to be the exact thing we’re all screaming about come October.
Big win in the Dog Days of Summer, but keep your eyes on that rotation, because the Phillies just chose to walk a two-month tightrope with no safety net, and one bad break away from the top three turns this whole thing into a disaster.
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