MINNEAPOLIS \u2014\u00a0When you think of the Phillies\u2019 offense, the thump usually comes first.<\/p>\n
Kyle Schwarber. Bryce Harper. The hitters who can drive the ball out of any ballpark at any point in a game. Plenty of strikeouts have come with that, too.<\/p>\n
But since the start of August, the Phillies have not looked so one-dimensional.<\/p>\n
That is no coincidence.<\/p>\n
It lines up with the deadline acquisition of National League batting leader Luis Arraez, and it was clear again Saturday evening in a 9-1 win over Arraez\u2019s former team, the Minnesota Twins, at Target Field.<\/p>\n
Before August, the Phillies ranked eighth in the majors in home runs but had the lowest on-base percentage in baseball at .303. Their 7.8 percent walk rate was the third worst in the league, and their 33.8 percent chase rate was the second highest.<\/p>\n
The power was there. The traffic was not.<\/p>\n
That has started to change.<\/p>\n
The Phillies still have the top-end starting pitching needed to carry a postseason run. Cristopher S\u00e1nchez, Zack Wheeler and Jes\u00fas Luzardo give them a dangerous front three. Aaron Nola has been better. Andrew Painter has shown signs of progress.<\/p>\n
But the key at the deadline was getting more runners on base and finding a cleaner path to Jhoan Duran, another former Twin, at the back end of games.<\/p>\n
Those two issues have hurt them in previous postseasons.<\/p>\n
The first one has looked different so far.<\/p>\n
After J.T. Realmuto pushed across a run with a sacrifice fly in the second inning Saturday, the Phillies broke the game open with seven runs in the fifth against Twins starter Connor Prielipp.<\/p>\n
With one on and two out, they strung together six straight baserunners.<\/p>\n
Trea Turner walked. Harper walked. Arraez walked. Alec Bohm followed with his third hit of the day, an RBI single, on his way to a career-high five-hit game. Edmundo Sosa added another run-scoring single. Then Bryson Stott cleared the bases with a three-run homer.<\/p>\n
It was the kind of inning that showed what the Phillies have become capable of when they are not relying on one swing to carry them.<\/p>\n
A MEETING FLIPPED THE SCRIPT<\/strong><\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s fifth inning was not just a burst.<\/p>\n It was the kind of sequence the Phillies had talked about needing.<\/p>\n The hitters recently met as a group to address an issue that had followed them for most of the season. They were not getting many pitches in the strike zone, but they were still helping opposing pitchers get out of innings.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had some conversations, the hitters group had conversations, just about staying within an approach,\u201d Don Mattingly said. \u201cThe at-bats have really changed as far as staying with game plans, up and down the order. I think we\u2019ve seen it with the walks, not that we really talked about walking. We talked about staying within an approach.\u201d<\/p>\n That was the point. Not walking for the sake of walking. Not taking hittable pitches. Just having a clearer plan before stepping in.<\/p>\n \u201cYou still want to be aggressive in the strike zone, but knowing what you want to do,\u201d Mattingly said.<\/p>\n The numbers back it up.<\/p>\n Since the start of August, the Phillies have produced the second-lowest strikeout rate in the majors at 15.9 percent, down from 23.7 percent before the month began. Their .366 on-base percentage leads baseball.<\/p>\n Their chase rate has dropped to 28.4 percent, more than five percentage points lower than it was before August. Their walk rate now leads MLB at 13.4 percent, and that climbed again with six more walks Saturday.<\/p>\n For Bohm, who had the first five-hit game of his career, the meeting was direct.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we definitely responded pretty well,\u201d Bohm said. \u201cIt just kind of brought to everybody\u2019s attention that, look, we gotta clean it up a little bit. We\u2019re swinging ourselves out of innings, out of at-bats.\u201d<\/p>\n Then came the part that explains why the Phillies\u2019 offensive numbers have flipped so sharply.<\/p>\n \u201cYour numbers say there\u2019s not a lot of strikes coming over the plate to a lot of us,\u201d Bohm said. \u201cLet\u2019s at least be looking for something. If we\u2019re gonna go down, let\u2019s go down to the plan and not just be up there swinging.\u201d<\/p>\n The power is still there.<\/p>\n But the Phillies are no longer living only on it.<\/p>\n AND HARP?<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the biggest beneficiaries has been Harper.<\/p>\n He extended his on-base streak to 18 games Saturday, and a lot of that has come with Arraez hitting behind him in the cleanup spot.<\/p>\n Before the Arraez trade, Harper had a 34.6 percent chase rate, one of the highest marks of his career.<\/p>\n Since then, he has drawn 18 walks, the most in baseball, compared with nine hits. His 35.9 percent walk rate leads the league by nearly 13 percentage points. His .510 on-base percentage trails only Stott for the league lead over that span.<\/p>\n Harper said in the offseason that he wanted more protection in the lineup, and that he wanted to chase less.<\/p>\n After the deadline, both have started to show up.<\/p>\n Arraez has helped provide that protection, but his impact has gone beyond where he hits in the order.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve definitely learned a lot from watching him every day,\u201d Bohm said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the best bat-to-ball skills that any of us have ever seen. Obviously bringing a guy like that in was going to not only make the lineup better, but hitters watching other good hitters; there\u2019s something to be said for that.\u201d<\/p>\n And with Stott\u2019s emergence since June, the Phillies\u2019 lineup suddenly has more ways to create offense than it did earlier in the season.<\/p>\n ZEUS AGAIN<\/strong><\/p>\n It has been an incredible year for Luzardo.<\/p>\n Especially with the context.<\/p>\n He has had six starts this season in which he allowed five or more earned runs. Three times, he allowed five. Twice, he allowed six. Once, he allowed eight.<\/p>\n Outside of those outings, there have not been many pitchers in the game who have been more dominant.<\/p>\n That has been especially true over his last 12 starts.<\/p>\n Luzardo allowed one run over 6 2\/3 innings Saturday, struck out nine and lowered his season ERA to 3.23. Since June 10, he owns a National League-best 1.98 ERA with a league-leading 105 strikeouts in 77 1\/3 innings. His .183 opponents\u2019 batting average over that span is the fourth lowest in baseball.<\/p>\n He had traffic on the bases, but never let the game speed up.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought in the first, obviously, they get the leadoff double, and then he gets the three strikeouts, just making pitches,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cHe just kept making pitches. He didn\u2019t really speed up tonight. That was a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Luzardo has also given the Phillies something they have needed lately: length.<\/p>\n \u201cWe, as a starting staff, take a lot of pride in going deep into games, especially lately,\u201d Luzardo said. \u201cThe bullpen\u2019s been struggling in terms of being used a lot, and we want to alleviate that load off of them.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Phillies\u2019 No. 3 starter, that says a lot about what this rotation can look like in October.<\/p>\n In a three-game or five-game series, S\u00e1nchez, Wheeler and Luzardo give the Phillies a serious front. And for a team that now does not have to rely solely on the long ball, that gives them a different feel as they chase their fifth straight playoff appearance.<\/p>\n HOT STOTT<\/strong><\/p>\n Stott\u2019s value has shown up on both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n According to the Phillies, Stott leads the club in fWAR since June 4 at 2.7, tied for second among all MLB players over that span behind only Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong.<\/p>\n He showed why again Saturday.<\/p>\n His three-run homer came off a lefty. Stott leads the Phillies with a .318 average against left-handed pitching, nearly 100 points higher than where he finished against lefties in both 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n It was his second homer against a lefty this season. It also came with runners in scoring position, where Stott is now hitting .344, the 12th-best mark in baseball.<\/p>\n That is part of a larger turnaround.<\/p>\n Stott finished April with a .576 OPS. After Saturday, that number had climbed to .763.<\/p>\n Mattingly pointed to a more compact swing path and a better feel for the zone.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest change he\u2019s made over the course of the season is really just staying a little lower with the ball in the gaps,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cHe started taking his walks, too, and I think that\u2019s important for him. He\u2019s a guy who\u2019s got a good eye.\u201d<\/p>\n Stott said the left-on-left improvement has come with more comfort and more opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I have walked a lot against lefties, which has built that comfortability aspect,\u201d Stott said. \u201cOnce it\u2019s a lefty, you just gotta change your windows.\u201d<\/p>\n His game has become more complete. He is giving the Phillies contact, defense, speed, better production against lefties and more impact in scoring spots.<\/p>\n That kind of depth is what makes this version of the lineup look different.<\/p>\n The Phillies can still thump.<\/p>\n They just do not have to wait around for it anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS \u2014\u00a0When you think of the Phillies\u2019 offense, the thump usually comes first. Kyle Schwarber. Bryce Harper. 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