Connect with us

Published

on

PHILADELPHIA — For 2½ rounds in the 2023 MLB playoffs, the Philadelphia Phillies‘ offense has been an unstoppable machine, scoring 46 runs in eight games.

But that wasn’t always the case.

After an inconsistent regular season, Phillies hitters got together shortly after securing a postseason bid and decided that the arrival of playoff baseball meant they would need to put together better at-bats. And a funny thing happened after they focused on making pitchers work more throughout October: The home runs started to come in bunches.

In two dominating victories over the Arizona Diamondbacks to start the NLCS, the long balls have come often — and early. First there was a three-home run onslaught in the first three innings of the series opener, then another trio of long balls in a 10-0 Game 2 blowout. It’s on the strength of that dominating offense that the Phillies leave for Arizona with a commanding 2-0 lead.

“The focus is there,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said Tuesday. “The intent is there. We’re not chasing as much as we did early in the season. We’re trying to cut down our swings and just put the ball in play. Then you turn around and we’re hitting home runs all over the field and these guys are doing a ton of damage.”

The results have been stunning. The Phillies have hit 19 home runs in their eight playoff games, 15 in their past four and six in the first two games of the NLCS, The plan laid out in hitters’ meetings going into the series was simple: Be ready to hit, and don’t let a good pitch go by you.

“Look for center cut and react to everything,” assistant hitting coach Jason Camilli said after Game 1. “That’s pretty much what the game plan was.”

According to ESPN Stats & Information, their plan has resulted in six home runs hit this postseason coming off the first pitch of an AB, four on the second, three on the third and four more on the fourth. The Phillies aren’t waiting around. And 12 of the 19 have come off fastballs or related hard pitches such as cutters and sinkers.

“Overall, they did an unbelievable job of executing the game plan,” Camilli said.

No one has taken to it more than the heart and soul of the Phillies, leadoff hitter Kyle Schwarber, who belted his 49th and 50th home runs of 2023 in Game 2 off starter Merrill Kelly — one day after he opened Game 1 with a first-pitch blast off Diamondbacks starter Zac Gallen that immediately set the tone at a rocking Citizens Bank Park.

Known by his teammates as Mr. 1-0 because of his propensity to give the Phillies a lead on the first at-bat of the game, Schwarber can ignite the dugout. His at-bats — like those of teammate Bryce Harper, who also went deep in the first inning of the series opener — have everyone in the Phillies dugout watching on the edge of their seat.

“It’s bonkers in there,” backup catcher Garrett Stubbs said. “Some of them look like missiles and some are colossal. He had both on Tuesday. We loved it.”

Schwarber has the reputation of a free swinger — and his 47 regular-season home runs did come with an MLB-high 215 strikeouts — but he says that all-or-nothing approach is not what the Phillies are all about.

“I think that’s something everyone is misconstruing,” Schwarber said. “We’re not just saying swing at everything. We’re trying to get good pitches to hit. That’s all we’re trying to do. We’re not going up there to wildly hack. … I’m looking for a pitch in a spot. If not, I’m going to work an at-bat. I’m not up there automatically swinging.”

Camilli calls it “selective-aggressive,” and the selective part of that equation has been obvious: The Phillies have dropped their chase rate — 26th in MLB during the regular season — five points, from 31% to 26%.

During the two consecutive early power surges that left two of the NL’s best pitchers reeling, the mantra for the Phillies was repeated throughout the clubhouse: Be ready to hit.

It’s not about getting ready in the batter’s box in the allotted time the pitch clock allows — it’s a mindset when you walk up to the plate. Pitchers like to throw early strikes. Hitters need to hit them. It’s as simple as that.

“Those guys that challenge you are fun,” shortstop Trea Turner said. “The best ones throw strikes. At this time of year, you’re going to get strikes. The best starting pitchers in the game have swing and miss stuff in the zone so we happened not to miss those pitches that they’ve left in the middle of the plate.”

Turner took a page out of Schwarber’s book in Game 2, hitting a first inning home run, beginning the eventual rout. Before the night began, he called the team’s hitting philosophy ”old school.”

“It’s less information in a good way,” he explained. “We have all the information. We have everything we need, but we’ve got a lineup of guys that just want to hit and play baseball. I think that’s refreshing as well. Sometimes you can get caught up a lot in the video or the numbers and different things, and I think throughout the season, we’ve kind of learned what we like and what we don’t like.”

“We’re talking in the dugout,” Stubbs said. “It’s the postseason. These guys know how to take playoff at-bats. I can’t believe how good the at-bats have been.”

It starts in the hitter’s meetings where it’s a ”communal” effort, according to Stubbs. Anyone can speak up, and the goal is to come up with a specific plan for the opposing pitcher, seeking out specific tendencies, like they did against Gallen in Game 1.

“The main thing that we talked about that translated into the game was when there’s runners on be ready to hit because he has that quick slide step,” third baseman Alec Bohm said. “And from what we saw from other teams facing him recently, they weren’t on the fastball. They were late.”

Talk about it, take it into the game, light up the scoreboard. It has worked so far for the Phillies, who won again Tuesday as Mr. 1-0 helped them to the 2-0 series lead.

“As a catcher, I know what the opposing pitcher and catcher are thinking about all day long before a game,” Realmuto said of Schwarber. “Even the night before. They’re worried about that first at-bat. They’re worried about the first pitch. They have anxiety.

“He’s ready to hit.”

Continue Reading

Sports

Pete Rose history on display at Baseball Hall of Fame

Published

on

By

Pete Rose history on display at Baseball Hall of Fame

This weekend, tens of thousands of fans are expected to travel to Cooperstown, New York, as they do annually, to pay homage to new inductees and returning members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, visit the Hall and see an array of artifacts from the greats of the game — including Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader, Pete Rose.

Rose, whose name has never been allowed to appear on a Hall of Fame ballot, died in September at age 83. In May, commissioner Rob Manfred removed Rose and other deceased individuals from MLB’s permanently ineligible list, making Rose newly eligible for election to the Hall.

But Rose’s presence in the Hall’s exhibits didn’t require the action of a commissioner. The legendary “Charlie Hustle” has been there for decades, a constant in the museum’s presentation of the history of the game, with numerous pieces that he donated to the Hall. Rose, of course, is not a Hall of Famer, but fans have long been able to see him and his accomplishments represented in at least a dozen items on display, including bats and a ball, a cap, cleats, a jersey and more connected with his 4,256 hits, record numbers of games played and at-bats and myriad awards. The 17-time All-Star at a record five positions won three World Series titles and proudly referred to himself as the winningest player ever.

MLB banished Rose in 1989 after an investigation it commissioned found Rose, then the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, had bet on the sport and his own team’s games. Two years later, the Hall of Fame’s board decided anyone on MLB’s permanently ineligible list would also be ineligible for election to the Hall. That became known as “the Pete Rose rule.”

For nearly 15 years after baseball banned him, Rose repeatedly denied that he had bet on the sport. Before, and long after, his 2004 admission to having gambled on baseball games — including Reds games — during part of his managerial tenure with Cincinnati, Rose was a fixture in Cooperstown for induction weekends, signing and selling his autographs at a memorabilia store.

Just a block away at the Hall were Sparky Anderson, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez of the 1975 and ’76 “Big Red Machine” championship teams with Rose, and Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt of the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies with whom Rose won a championship, as well as several other teammates from his 24 seasons.

The Hall’s “Whole New Ballgame” exhibit, devoted to the era from 1970 to the present, features a Rose jersey from the 1973 season, when he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award; the ball and a ticket from the 1981 game when he tied Stan Musial’s National League hits record; and a 1978 can of a chocolate-flavored beverage named “Pete,” bearing a Rose action photo.

The section of the Hall that chronicles many of the game’s most hallowed records is titled “One for the Books.” It showcases Rose’s shoes and a scoresheet from his crowning achievement, Sept. 11, 1985, when he broke Ty Cobb’s career hits record. Also displayed is a pair of Rose bats from 1978, when he reached the 3,000-hit milestone and later tied the 1897 National League-record 44-game hitting streak by Wee Willie Keeler, and Rose’s Montreal Expos cap from 1984 when he broke Carl Yastrzemski’s record for games played.

In “Shoebox Treasures,” which examines the baseball cards phenomenon, visitors can see the Rose Topps card from 1975 and two Topps cards — one authentic and one counterfeit — from ’63, when he was named National League Rookie of the Year.

There is also an interactive exhibit on the subject of gambling that includes the Rose saga.

And according to the Hall, its archives contain dozens of holdings pertaining to Rose, from recorded interviews — including with Howard Stern — to correspondence and collectibles, as well as the investigative file from MLB’s 1989 probe of Rose’s gambling led by special counsel John Dowd.

Rose visited the Hall when he was 26 and a fifth-year star for Cincinnati. It was July 24, 1967, and the Reds toured the museum before losing to the Baltimore Orioles 3-0 in the then-annual Hall of Fame exhibition game, in which Rose went 0-for-3.

“This is really great,” Rose said as he looked around the Hall, per the Cincinnati Enquirer. “This is what baseball is all about.”

Rose marveled at the multitude of mementos from Babe Ruth, a member of Cooperstown’s inaugural 1936 class, and at the vast space specifically for the “Bambino” and his larger-than-life exploits on the diamond and beyond.

Dayton (Ohio) Daily News columnist Si Burick, who eventually would be selected to the Hall’s writers wing, recounted a moment from the visit in his column the next day:

When a fellow suggested to an awestruck Rose that he, too, might some day grace the Hall of Fame, if he continued at his present pace, the irrepressible Cincinnatian had a typical answer. Peter pointed to a cubicle filled with Ruth gadgets, and suggested, “There’s my chance to get in — with my bowling ball.”

Ruth’s bowling ball was on display and Rose was a winner four months earlier during spring training at a “Base-Bowl” event in a Tampa bowling alley that paired MLB and Professional Bowlers Association stars. Rose and Dick Weber edged Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals and Wayne Zahn. Of the four, only Rose isn’t enshrined in either the baseball or PBA Hall of Fame.

“I got all the records, so you can throw me into the sea, but the records are still going to come to the top,” Rose said in a 2019 interview for ESPN’s “Backstory” program. “You can walk into the Hall of Fame, you see my name in things everywhere, which is fine. It’s good for me. It’s good for the Hall of Fame. The greatest thing for baseball is the history of baseball.”

With Rose now eligible for election, his Hall candidacy is to be considered by the Historical Overview Committee, which develops a ballot of eight names for the Classic Era Committee that is next scheduled to meet in December 2027. That era committee handles candidates whose greatest impact was prior to 1980, including Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues stars. Its 16 members, comprising Hall of Famers, executives and veteran media members, are charged with weighing the eight candidates’ résumés, integrity, sportsmanship and character — 12 votes are needed for election.

The long-running debates over Rose surely will continue well past 2027. Regardless of whether he’s added to the Plaques Gallery signifying membership in the Hall — there will be 351 plaques as of Sunday, including the day’s five new inductees — there’s no disputing that Rose will continue to have places in the building.

ESPN senior writer Don Van Natta Jr. contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Sports

Orioles place closer Bautista (shoulder) on IL

Published

on

By

Orioles place closer Bautista (shoulder) on IL

CLEVELAND — Baltimore Orioles closer Felix Bautista, who is tied for sixth in the American League with 19 saves, was placed on the 15-day injured list Thursday with right shoulder discomfort.

Interim manager Tony Mansolino said the right-hander felt uncomfortable while stretching in the bullpen Wednesday during a 3-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians. Bautista will undergo an MRI when the Orioles return home Friday.

“The (dugout) phone rang in the seventh inning last night and I thought, ‘That is not good,'” Mansolino said. “Then I heard it get slammed down and knew it wasn’t good.

“Félix had started his process of getting loose and that’s when it flared up.”

Bautista did not pitch in the first three games of the series in Cleveland, last seeing action on Sunday at Tampa Bay when he earned his 19th save in 20 opportunities. He missed the entire 2024 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

The 30-year-old Dominican has a 1-1 record and 2.60 ERA in 35 appearances, limiting opponents to a .134 batting average over 34 2/3 innings. Bautista has struck out 50 and walked 23.

“We just have to hope it’s not too serious,” Mansolino said.

The Orioles will use a closer-by-committee in the short term with righty setup men Seranthony Dominguez and Yennier Cano at the front of the line.

“We’re going to have to bump up their roles,” Mansolino said. “We’ll figure it out.”

Bautista will not enter free agency until 2028, but is eligible for arbitration following this season. The 6-foot-8, 285-pounder is in the final year of a two-year, $2 million contract.

With the Orioles out of wild-card contention, they are expected to be active sellers before the July 31 trade deadline.

Continue Reading

Sports

Two-time Gold Glove recipient Ahmed retiring

Published

on

By

Two-time Gold Glove recipient Ahmed retiring

Two-time Gold Glove winner Nick Ahmed announced his retirement from professional baseball on Thursday.

Ahmed, 35, spent 10 seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks, then split the 2024 campaign with the San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres before playing in five games this season with the Texas Rangers. He was selected by the Atlanta Braves in the second round of the 2011 MLB draft out of UConn.

“For as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted to do was play baseball,” Ahmed wrote on social media. “I got to live out my childhood dream and play for a very long time! After 15 professional seasons and over a decade in the big leagues I am officially hanging up my spikes and retiring from playing.”

“To all of the organizations I got to play for… Atlanta, thank you for drafting me! Arizona… calling me up to the big leagues, and believing in me for 10 seasons! SF, LA, SD and TEX… thank you for giving me chances to continue doing what I loved!”

A Gold Glove winner in 2018 and 2019 while playing at shortstop, Ahmed batted .233 with 72 homers and 339 RBIs in 964 career games.

“I will always love the game of baseball,” he added. “I am excited for my next chapter and the [opportunity] to give the best of me to this game that we all love!”

Continue Reading

Trending