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TABLE TALK: Good And Bad From The Phillies · The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views

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All right, folks, you're listening to Table Talk here at the Philadelphia Sports
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Table podcast show, the longest running weekly Philly sports podcast show in the world.
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That's right, ten years strong. Just celebrating our ten year anniversary here
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in April, and want to thank everybody for the nice tweets, the emails,
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the correspondence that we have received, all the congrats we've gotten. We've
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really really appreciated that. We appreciate you very very much listening to this podcast
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show. Hope you find it entertaining and I hope you find the content valuable
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in terms of our Philly sports teams that we follow here. And this week
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we're going to be getting into the Philadelphia Phillies here on Table Talk. We've
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got a great guest. Team has been doing some really good things. They've
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also been doing some not good things. It has been up and down.
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We've seen dominance, we've seen just complete utter disaster at times. But it's
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not all bad, it's not all great, just a little bit in between.
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With this team. Right now, we've got a great discussion coming your
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way. We're gonna be getting into it. It is great to have back
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on the podcast. We love having her on She does such great work over
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at Phillies Nation dot com, putting up a lot of great content over on
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that website, and we got to get into this Philadelphia Phillies team with her.
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She is the one and only MS Destiny Legardo Destiny, thank you so
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much for jumping on our table talk interview show this week. Appreciate it.
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How are you doing, I'm doing good, I'm doing okay, I'm doing
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all right. This Phillies team just has me kind of and and Phillies Nation,
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I think kind of like in a bit of a tizzy. I don't
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know if I want to use the word tizzy here. I sound like an
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old man. Well, then again, I am an old man. You
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can see the gray in my goatee here. But look, it's been a
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very very bizarre April for this Phillies team. We've seen, like, we've
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seen games where they've been completely dominant and then the very next day they completely
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stumble out of the gate for like an entire than nine innings. They're just
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all over the place. So how I'm wondering, how would you define this
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twenty twenty three season and how it shaped itself for this Phillies team. Here
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just after a month, what are your thoughts. I mean, in general,
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I know, the playoff run was just four weeks of euphoria and perfect
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baseball until that, you know, Game four of the World Series basically.
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But really, if you were going into the season thinking the regular season was
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just going to be all fun and games, well, I mean just look
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at the last few weeks, and I think the big problem with the Phillies
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and pretty much, you know, any good team really is if you're pitching
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is off. Doesn't matter who you're playing, the Reds, the Rockies,
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whoever, if your pitchers aren't throwing strikes then and you're if you're starting pitchers
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aren't going six seven innings yeah, consistently, then you have problems. So
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I think that was an issue of the first few weeks into the season,
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and then now things are starting to stabilize. Guys are also starting to hit
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for more power. I noticed it seemed like every day the first three weeks
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they would have nine hits and two runs scored and they would lose four to
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two or something like that. Yeah, so I think, really like we're
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getting more you know, extra base hits and home runs, and you know,
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things are starting to work the way they should for this Phillies team.
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I really hope so I help it remains consistent. I mean, I know
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that's what we all want for this team and for these players. And you
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know you mentioned pitching, it's destiny, and I just I don't think whether
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it's myself, for so many others, I don't think we thought the starting
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rotation was going to be such a concern kind of rate off the bat and
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as of recording this here on April twenty fourth, twenty twenty three, Aaron
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Nola he's got He's got an ERA of five point four zero. Zach Wheeler's
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got an ERA of seven or I'm sorry, four point seven three. Nola
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seems to kind of he seems to be searching for something that he hasn't found
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yet this season. It's very bizarre to watch. It's kind of bizarre to
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see the Phillies top dominant pitchers here kind of kind of struggling a bit out
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of the gate. And I'm wondering, do you think that both of these
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top pitchers have struggled out of the gate because they are missing something? Why?
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Why do you think it is we've seen these two guys just why they're
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going through some challenges right now. Yeah, And I don't want to make
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an excuse for anybody, really, but I think a problem with both of
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these pictures is that they're still getting adjusted to the pitch clock. And you
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could say, well, they had six weeks, six weeks of spring training
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to really deal with this, but you know, especially with Nola, you
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notice a lot of the times the problem is a beginning and sometimes he just
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needs to step off and throw a few times over to first base to really
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gather self and started executing his pitches. Well, he can't really do that,
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and kind of the same thing with Zach Wheeler. It was a very
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strange outing for both of them this weekend. Wheeler dominated through three innings and
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then he reached the fourth and then he was walking guys and then there's a
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lot of soft contact and it was really funny. The Phillies had a note
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saying that his twenty three swings and misses on Sunday were his career high.
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But after the game he was just extremely frustrated with his outing just because he
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was getting behind guys. He's, you know, like I said before,
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he's dominating, and then something happens and then he can't really really figure out
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what was going on. So I think it's a matter of them really like
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getting used to this pitch clock, and like, I know it does sound
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like an excuse, but I think with the new rules and everything, and
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you know, I do think Zach Wheeler and aaronol are going to be fine
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regardless and they're going to figure it out. But it might take a while
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for us to kind of really see who they are with these new rules.
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So you know, the Rockies were not a very difficult challenge this time around.
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I know Zach Wheeler's next down, he is against the Astros, and
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yeah, he'll have to be up for that. So I think it's just
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a matter of getting them to adjust. And you know, you mentioned Wheeler
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where you mentioned Nola, the velocity is a little bit down and he's getting
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behind guys. So I haven't really looked in to see if like this is
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really a trend, like is the velocity down in the beginning of the season.
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I know he's a little bit of a slow starter, but I think
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it's just a matter of those two like really getting going and adjusting to these
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new rules, and they'll probably be fine. Tayland Walker has been pitching pretty
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well thus far this season. But man, Bailey Falter, I mean,
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he's owing three on the season, four point five zero. Era's got a
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one point one a whip. I have concerned about where his game is going
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to be going, as as he also has been struggling here a bit early
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this sea too. Do you have any concerns with regard to Bailey Falter.
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Honestly, I've kind of been impressed with him. I know it's it's a
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little bit tough with him because Writes crushed him and whenever he starts, there's
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a whole bunch of Writs in the lineup. But with the matter of him,
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it's a matter of, you know, locating that fastball up in the
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zone and then getting that curve ball over. And he seems to be doing
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that well. And you know, he's he's a fifth starter, and he's
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been performing well like a fifth starter. And he'll probably be in the rotation
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for a few months, you know, as the Phillies wait for Andrew Painter
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to get back. But for the time being, I think he's doing pretty
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well. And I give a lot of credit to mattch Strom too. He
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really didn't expect him to be in this spot in the rotation. I think
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you saw in the his Cincinnati outing on the road that sometimes he could really
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lose his command and then it just like kind of spirals out of control.
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I think he's a little bit more valuable to the Phillies in like a one
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or two winning bullpen roll rather than being a starter. But for now he's
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really doing his job, and your credit to him, just because like everybody
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thought he was just going to be this back end reliever and then it turns
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out they need him to be the number five starter, and he's settled in
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pretty well sticking with pitching here Destiny. The bullpen, they they they struggled
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mightily out of the gate this season, and they were pitching poorly to say
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the least, you know, up until even just a you know, a
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couple few weeks ago here. But I do wonder it seems like we are
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seeing some improvements to the bullpen. After a very nice outing against the Rockies
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this past week, I think I think I read something where their ear was
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like a zero, like like a point zero three eight or something something crazy,
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or a point point three eight or something like that. It was crazy
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against the Rockies, so what are your thoughts on where the bullpen was and
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where they are at here, you know, toward the end of April.
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I mean, if you remember last year, and it's probably more true this
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year now that they really built the bullpin based on stuff. And then when
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you have all these guys that have, you know, big stuff, there
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could be some command challenges. So sometimes if all these guys are struggling to
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throw strikes at the same time, then it's going to get really ugly.
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But I think they're really cleaning it up. I mean, Craig Kimbroll I
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didn't really like the way he looked in spring training, especially in the beginning
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of the year, but he's six straight scoreless outings for him and then Soto.
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It's really interesting with him because he had that really bad outing to begin
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the season and another bad outing against the Yankees shortly after. But they've been
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modifying his delivery and he's throwing strikes. It's kind of like Alvarado, you
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get them to throw strikes. It's kind of like, you know, if
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he makes a mistake in the zone, it's like, you know, try
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to hit it instead of him walking guys and wild pitches and all less stuff.
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And base runners, so I think the bullpins really starting to clean it
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up. The Mingaz looks a little bit better. He had a couple of
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rough outing, so I think really with this bullpen, it also works well
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that the starters are going six and seven inning, so once they have like
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a two run or three run lead late in the game, you could turn
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it over to Soto and Alvarado and Dominguez. They also have rocked and pitching
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well. So yeah, when you have multiple options like that and they're all
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going, it's it's a winning formula for the Phillies. It really seems like
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it was that World Series hangover, Destiny. It really seems like they had
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that World Series hangover, and I think I think they're moving on from it
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at this point. I think that's it's really good to see because you know,
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as I mentioned earlier, like not everything is terrible with this Phillies team.
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Not everything is terrible at all. We've seen a few pleasant and consistent
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surprises throughout April here, So I'm wondering, in your opinion, you know,
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what has been the biggest surprise of the season thus far for you?
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When you take a look at everything, you know it could be could be
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a certain outfielder, it could be a certain third base, could be you
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know, a certain batter in the lineup. But you know, when we're
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talking about these big surprises, you know guys that have just kind of you
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know, made our eyes like light up, like, oh my gosh,
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this is pretty amazing. You know, in your opinion, what is that
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biggest surprise of the season so far? I think the biggest pleasant surprise so
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far is at Marsh. Stott and Boom are all fantastic and I know they're
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they're going to go through their their struggles. It's it's inevitable. But Stott
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really building off of last year, we knew him as a guy that was
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always going to give you a really good at bat no matter what, even
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if he was struggling, Yeah, he was going to make the picture work.
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And then Thompson trusting him enough to put him in the lead off spot
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and I think that stock turner one two really works for them. And then
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Boom just kind of continuing to gain confidence and starting to drive the ball out
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of the ballpark and really coming in on his own. Just you know,
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I've probably said this before even on this podcast, that some guys come into
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the league at twenty twenty two, and they're just studs automatically. And you
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know, Boom like got off to a really hot star in twenty twenty,
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but that was a two month season. But sometimes it just takes time for
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a guy to grow into his body and learn how to be a big leaguer.
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And I think last year was kind of a big year for Boom and
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then this year he's kind of building up on that. And then Mark's just
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like slugging, like being the best slugger in baseball right now. I don't
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think he's going to have a twelve hundred ops, like, you know,
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it's gonna be insane, Like would if it holds like he's going to be
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the most valuable player and we're talking about a superstar. But I wouldn't put
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those expectations on him right now. But the way he's swinging, he's hitting
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off the left handers, he's really you know, all this really started last
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year when he started working with Kevin Long and they made some really drastic adjustments
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to his swing, and of course all that takes time, but they're really
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starting to see the results of all that. And I think we went into
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this season saying, well, if marsh could play really good defense in center
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field and if he could be an average to a slightly above average hitter,
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then the results are pretty good. But I think he's starting to become a
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little bit more than that, and that's something that's super exciting, just because
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having a center fielder that could feel that well and hit that well is really
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rare, especially having a guy that young. And you know, as people
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that have watched the Phillies for years, it's it's hard to find a really,
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really good center fielder. So yeah, that's all just really positive.
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And you know, guys like Schwarber, JT. They've been off to a
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slow start, so it's good to see the younger guys really kind of pick
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them up and kind of mature collectively together, they're taking a step forward,
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and that's what we were hoping to see. We were hoping to see that
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development, and we certainly have been. And like I think, for me,
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we have been seeing a resurgence in Nick castide in terms of a surprise.
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And maybe I shouldn't be surprised because it is Nick Castianos, and perhaps
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twenty twenty two was just an anomaly. But man, I love the resurgence
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we've seen in him. As of recording this he's batting three oh seven.
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He does have an ops of eight sixty six. Seems to be really enjoying
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playing the game of baseball destiny this year unlike last year. So I'm wondering,
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like, what have you been seeing with Nick Castianos, you know,
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his game and what he'll end up meaning to this team this year overall?
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Yeah, I see a guy that's a lot more comfortable in his surroundings.
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And I don't know, I kind of saw last year a guy like Schwerber
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who immediately came in and he's a guy that's been in these big markets and
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knows what it is and he immediately thrived. But Castianos is a guy that
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needed time. And when you add in his struggles and then the family stuff
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and of radio station leaking, yeah yeah, a rabid fan base too,
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yeah yeah, all these things that he's not used to. He's a He's
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a guy that needs to be comfortable in his surroundings to succeed. And I
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think that started to change last year in the playoffs when the team started having
15:18
more success and he started to build off on that. Even though like the
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results necessarily weren't there for him. So I think with a few swing adjustments
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and just learning from his struggles last year too, I think have been huge
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for him. Now I don't really know what kind of a hitter he is
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because I was looking this up. So like before the Chicago series he had
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nine walks in twenty four strikeouts and seventy plate appearance and nine doubles in between
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that, and then after he's only walked once and he struck out three times
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and twenty eight plate appearance, and I guess in that time he's also hitting
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more singles and he did get a couple of home runs in that series.
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So it's like the results have been a lot better than what they were last
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year. I know last year he did get off to a very good start.
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Yeah, but I still don't know the kind of hitter that Nick Costianos
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wants to be, if that makes any sense. I don't think he wants
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to walk all the time and be passive, but he also doesn't want to
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be that guy that's swinging out sliders away and trying, I guess, trying
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to bury every ball out of the ballpark. Because his power mostly comes from,
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you know, in the gaps and then occasionally hitting it out of the
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yard. So I'm curious to see, like what these numbers look like and
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how it all evens out in the end, just because it's just been it's
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been a very good start, but it's also been kind of strange, if
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that makes any sense. Yeah. So yeah, it's just a storyline that
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I like to follow. Yeah, it absolutely is. And folks, again,
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talking to Destiny Legardo from Phillies Nation dot com. Make sure you are
16:51
following her on Twitter at Destiny Underscore Legardo. She is a great, great
16:55
follow And to close us out here, Destiny, it seems that we're going
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to be seeing Bryce Harper sooner rather than later. It could be back perhaps
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mid May from what has been reported. There's still some ambiguity as to when
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that return date is going to be. It's been great to see videos of
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him just batting batting practice, and I just can't wait to see him back
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on this field or in the batter's box. And you recently wrote a piece
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on Philly's Nation about three lineup combinations that we might see when Bryce Harper does
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return, and I thought they were all very interesting. So I'm wondering which
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of those lineups do you like the most that you wrote about, like which
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ones do you like the most, and which do you think is maybe the
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likeliest lineup to happen and the outcome as well. Yeah, I don't know.
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I asked Rob Thompson about this and I got the answer, Oh,
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we haven't really thought about that. Yeah, that's all either. They're definitely
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thinking about what Bryce Harper is going to look like exactly in this lineup.
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But I kind of asked it in the sense that is this one two of
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stat and Turner make it a little bit more likely that Harper could just slot
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into number three just because he doesn't want to stack lefties. It's m he
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really likes the right left or left right, just like splitting up those guys.
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So M I would say one of the lineups I did have was Stot
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one, Turner two, Harper three, Costianos four, Schwarber five, mut
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six, March seventh, bowmth, I know, bowmth and Munoso to nine.
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That's just simply him being slotted into number three and then everybody pretty much
18:36
flung down a notch. But that would be the safe choice if you don't
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really want to think too hard about it, right. I feel like every
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time I think of a lineup with Harper, Marsh kind of gets the short
18:48
end of the stick because they're not going to drop Shoreber all the way down,
18:52
right. So even though like your number three, yeah, your number
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three, I thought it was really interesting where you had had Bryson batting third,
19:00
Alec Bom number batting clean up, yeah, JT real Muto batting eighth.
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Yeah. Like, I think that's a positive to Harper coming back.
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Even now without Harper and without Hoskins, without Haul, this is a pretty
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deep lineup and then when you add him, it's just like wow, yeah,
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and then you can only imagine if Hoskins was healthy, it would just
19:25
kind of be insane. But I am I wrote this out like thinking that
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I wouldn't like it. But I did have a lineup that had Harper batting
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cleanup, and this is something that he did mostly during the postseason just to
19:37
get him away from Shoreber, and everybody hated it. Yeah, but yeah,
19:42
the lineup is Turner, Stot Bom, Harper, Costiano's, Shoreber,
19:48
JT. Marsh, and Sosa. And I was kind of intrigued of the
19:52
idea of putting Harper back in the cleanup spot, just because I think there's
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an expectation that when he comes back, he's going to float, and that
20:00
was the expectation last year when he came back from the thumb. I think
20:03
it's going to take time for Harper to really get going again, especially because
20:07
he's not going out on a rehab a sign. Yeah, and you know
20:12
this week they're they're bringing in minor leaguers to pitch to Harper. One of
20:18
the guys that they brought in was Jeff Hoffman, who used to pitch in
20:21
the majors. He might be an option the bullpen in a few weeks if
20:25
there's a lot of injuries. But the point is is that he throws ninety
20:27
nine and has a really good slider, and Harper just didn't really look good
20:30
against him. So it's going to take time for him to you know,
20:34
he needs to see a lot of big league pitching. I know they're doing
20:37
a lot of work in the cages and whatnot, but the point is is
20:41
that it's going to take time for him to get used to it again.
20:44
So I like the idea of just not having him squarely in the three hole
20:48
and really challenging ALC Boom because a lot of the complaints that people have is
20:52
why is Boom hitting so low? And if you notice a lot of the
20:56
other lineups I had, Boom like hitting pretty or I don't know. I
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guess like the thought of that lineup is that it challenges Bowman kind of sees
21:06
like what he could do if he hits in front of Harper. Right,
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Um JT's hitting seven. So it's not you know, you don't have a
21:12
veteran hitting eighth. As I said, Brandon Marsh kind of gets to short
21:18
end sticking all of these just because you know, Harper's a lefty in Shorb's
21:22
are lefty and they're not They're not going to have a shorebird hit so low
21:25
in the lineup. But I guess the way to put it as I'm kind
21:29
of intrigued with having the having Harper in the cleanup spot so and I really
21:33
don't know what Thompson is going to do. I think I said this in
21:37
the article that it would just be so much easier if Harper felt comfortable hitting
21:41
in the number two spots right right, But that's just something that you have
21:45
to work around, like the comfort of how certain hitters like the hit in
21:49
certain spots. So yeah, it'll be it'll be fun to see how this
21:53
all plays out. And it's happening a lot sooner than any of us thought.
21:56
I can't wait. Yeah, absolutely, I can't. It's going to
22:00
be fantastic when he does come back in the lineup again. Folks. You
22:03
know he's not going to be quote Bryce Harper, that we know right off
22:07
the bat. But I would love to talk to you about this more in
22:11
the future, Destiny, if you do not mind, I would love to
22:15
have you back on the podcast. If you want to join us down the
22:19
road, I'd love to have you. Yeah, problem, I'll be back.
22:22
All right, sounds good again, folks, Destiny, Legardo, Philliesnation
22:26
dot Com at Destiny Underscore. Legardo, it was great talking to you.
22:32
Let's talk again. Like I said, let's talk down the road. I'd
22:33
absolutely enjoy it. Awesome, Thank you always great talking to Destiny. And
22:38
look, I think this Phillies team is really coming around here, folks.
22:41
I mean that that World Series hangover was absolutely a killer. It was real,
22:48
it happened. But I think this team is starting to get their footing.
22:53
They're they're they're creating the foundation for what this season I think is going
22:57
to be it's gonna be really tough for them to win this division. I
23:03
think our good friend the show, John Stalness has actually been saying that as
23:07
well. It's gonna be very difficult for them to win this division given the
23:11
whole that they put themselves in early this season. Could it happen, Absolutely,
23:14
could still happen, but this is a this is a really competitive division.
23:18
And on our Opposition Territory show this week, we're gonna be getting into
23:22
some Miami Marlin's talk as well. I think that team is an interesting team
23:26
to continue to follow in the NL, so gonna be very interesting as always.
23:30
If you are new to following us here at the PSD podcast show,
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you can follow us on Instagram, search us out Philadelphia Sports Table, and
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Give them a listen. That's gonna do it for us, folks. Take
24:00
We'll catch you next time.