Baserunning Blunders Haunting Philadelphia Phillies This Season

The Philadelphia Phillies have struggled to open the 2023 MLB season. One of their biggest downfalls may come as a surprise.

Somewhere Davey Lopes is cringing.

Lopes -- one of the best baserunners in the history of Major League Baseball and a former stellar first base coach with the Philadelphia Phillies – was masterful at teaching players how to be smart on the basepaths.

Right now, the Phillies are struggling mightily in this area.

Bryson Stott was caught drifting off first base in the sixth inning and was tagged out to end a Phillies rally on Tuesday.

Stott was the eighth Phillies baserunner to be tagged out for a blunder. That’s obviously way too many.

Instead of having runners at the corners in a 4-3 game, the inning came to an end.

“It was just a good play by Jean (Segura) to come through and throw back across,” Stott said following the 8-4 loss to the Miami Marlins on Tuesday. “And it’s just not a very good play by myself.”

The Phillies’ eight outs on the basepaths are the most in MLB. They made only 36 outs on the bases last season, fewest in MLB.

“You’ve got to control your emotions and try not to do too much,” manager Rob Thomson said. “We’ll clean that up.”

Stott’s out masked another strong offensive performance as he stretched his hitting streak to 11 in a row.

“Aggressive, but not stupid,” Stott said of how to handle himself on the basepaths. “There’s a fine line between that, and a couple of things have been not very smart.”

Without Bryce Harper and Rhys Hoskins, the Phillies must manufacture more runs. But they have to run the bases with a purpose even if it means being a bit more cautious.

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