Grading the Philadelphia Phillies At the Quarter Season Mark

The NL East is a notoriously tough division in baseball and the Philadelphia Phillies find themselves in a decent position with 40 games under their belt.

All anyone can talk about when it comes to the Philadelphia Phillies in the past 24 hours is the Bryce Harper bench-clearing incident during Sunday's 4-0 loss to the Colorado Rockies. 

They currently sit at .500 with a record of 20-20 and are second in the NL East. Philadelphia is also five games back from the division-leading Atlanta Braves. It's been a weird month and a half but it's a bit on-brand for the Phillies. 

So how could we describe the current Phillies season?

One word is currently coming to mind: average. 

Now granted, average is enough to be one of the six teams without a losing record in the NL so that's a silver lining. If they ended the season today, the Phils would get the third wild card. 

But where would we grade them?

Offense: D+

There will be those who will scream "a D+ is just too low" but given some of their statistics, it's right on point. They're tied for 19th in runs scored and home runs, with a walk rate of 7.4%. Only two other teams are worse than them. 

Small miracles? The squad has a batting average of .263 batting average which is sixth in MLB. Slugging? They're slugging .425, 8th in the league. Yet the worst statistic is their on-base percentage of .332. 

And that is the key issue with the offense: the Phillies are atrocious when it comes to runners in scoring position.

They cannot seem to follow through when they have men on base. Their RISP is an abysmal .244 and they've only managed to hit five dingers in that situation. That's tied for the lowest in baseball. They've had one three-run homer this season and no grand slams in 40 games. 

Now for an individual grade, Mr. Harper is going to earn himself an A in his 10 games back. After coming back from Tommy John surgery at, what might be considered a miraculous rate, he's .333/.409/.564 with 2 HRs, 11 runs, and five RBIs. Nick Castellanos can get a B for his efforts. The slump he found himself in looks to be over. The 31-year-old right fielder is batting .316/.365/.503 with 5 HRs, a team-leading 30 runs, and 25 RBIs.

But overall, it's not an offense that is inspiring confidence in both fans and more importantly, helping out their pitching.

Starting Rotation and Bullpen: C

This grade is evenly applied to both parts of the Phillies' pitching. The starters are sitting solidly eighth in the league when it comes to the strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.42) and their 1.06HR/9 also is solid. 

But the starting rotation is just looking ROUGH. Zack Wheeler has an ERA of 3.80. The other ace Aaron Nola? An ERA of 4.53. Both Taijuan Walker and Bailey Falter have one of 5.75. Adding back in Ranger Suarez and there might be less concern as we move past the first month and a half. 

For right now though, Wheeler is going through a stretch of bad starts. Nola is having issues with the big innings and also maybe a bit of the pitch clock. Falters is faltering and Walker just couldn't find the plate even if it was the size of Mars. 

Looking at the bullpen, it's been up and down for the entire first quarter of games. One or two bad starts can mean a bloated ERA and for Philadelphia, theirs is at 4.50. That's the sixth-highest in the league. 

They're struggling to get out of jams that otherwise would be a cakewalk. That's causing the relievers to have a strand rate of almost 68 percent and that's also among the worst in baseball. 

Jose Alvarado is shining as the best reliever in baseball with an ERA of 0.63 and an FIP of 0.86 but he's on the IL. Not ideal.  

Again, it's early days and there's going to be a bit of give with relievers who aren't veterans. This will likely trend up through the season but for now, oof. 

Defense: D+

Thankfully, the Phillies have one of the best catchers in baseball in J.T. Realmuto. That's a downright fact. He's more than capable of throwing runners out, currently tied for third with 12. Yet the injury bug has hit him and he has a sprained right pinkie from the Colorado series Friday night. He missed the game on May 13th. The future? Time will tell.

Alec Bohm is having something of a transformation. The offseason work and spring training are starting to show. He's got a +1 DRS, tied for ninth-best. But Bryson Scott at second hasn't been as strong as the Phillies need it to be. 

The glaring issue has been left field. Kyle Schwarber is looking sluggish and missing important opportunities. He's sitting at -7 DRS, which is dead last in baseball.

Overall, the Phillies are .500 and that's good. But they've got work to do through the next 3/4 of the season. 

More From SI's Inside The Phillies:

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2. How Mike Trout Will Join the Phillies
3. Could Bryce Harper's Favorite MLB Player Join the Philadelphia Phillies in 2023?
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5. Bryce Harper-Obsessed Japanese Baseball Star Wants to Play for Phillies
6. Six Philadelphia Phillies Declare Free Agency
7. Rumored Phillies Free Agent Target Just Opted Out of Contract
8. Jimmy Rollins Describes Disrespectful Treatment by Ryne Sandberg
9. Phillies Release 2023 Regular Season Schedule
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