Will the Phillies remain a legitimate NL East contender as they face tougher teams? | Baseball Bar-B-Cast
Yahoo Sports senior MLB analyst Jordan Shusterman and senior MLB analyst Jake Mintz break down the Phillies recent success and debate whether or not they think the Phillies can keep up that success as they start to face tougher teams. Hear the full conversation on the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
I saw the Phillies the last two days here in New York City, they won both of those games against the New York Metropolitans.
They are the first team to 30 wins, which means they have the best record in baseball.
They're totally rolling even though not everything has gone their way.
And that's a really good message about life.
Jordan.
You have to keep moving forward even if you're getting bad breaks and the Phillies have done that yesterday's game.
Very weird.
Aaron Nola complete game shutout pitching to Garrett Stubbs front of the show.
Garrett Stubbs catching three games in a row for the first time since he was in the minor leagues in 2019.
That is because Jt Relm Muto has a bit of a boo boo and is not going on the IL.
And so Garrett has had to fill in for him.
Bryce Harper scratched 20 minutes before first pitch and so the Phillies had four infielders all playing out of position and yet the Phillies won 4 to 0 against the Mets.
Bizarre, hilarious.
This team is incredibly good.
I don't, I feel like the fan base doesn't really know what to do.
Because the last few years the Phillies have been kind of bad at the gate and then figure things out as the year went on.
And, yeah, I mean, it's, it's adding up a pretty interesting dynamic.
Right.
Because I don't know how far into the season they have to be in first place for it to feel like, oh, like this would be like a choke job if the Braves win the division.
You know, because that seems harsh to say we should we talk about this as a very, very intense division race that could have big ramifications.
But I don't know.
Do you think that that's, I know it's only May, but I don't know.
Do you do, do you kind of see what I'm getting at?
Like, I feel like even fans would have been like, oh, yeah, like we'll win 93 games and have the first wild card again and then we'll, we'll beat the Braves in the next round.
I think Phillies fans are generally aware how easy the schedule has been for the Phillies.
Now.
I know that a lot of the national league is kind of bad right now, which helps this.
But they just have yet to play some of the good teams.
Right.
They haven't seen the Brewers yet.
They haven't seen the Cubs yet.
They haven't seen the Dodgers yet.
They've only played the Braves once, whereas the Braves have seen a lot of those better teams in the national league so far this season.
I still think the Braves are definitely the favorite in the division and I think the Phillies are really good.
Like, I think they are probably a 95 true win team.
However they are playing, it's good that they're racking up wins.
That's a good thing.
Right.
They're banking those.
They've done everything they can with the sche the schedule that they've been presented in the same way that I feel about the Braves rotation that I have worries about them.
They've done every, they were amazing again last night.
They've done everything possible that they could do.
However, over the long haul, I have some doubts.
I just, my skepticism about the Phillies winning.
The division has more to do with how good I think the Braves are than anything about The Phillies.