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TABLE TALK: The Phillies Are Facing Some Challenges · The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views

0:00
What's going on, everybody. It's Jeff here. I wanted to let you
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know that we recorded this Table Talk Interview show on Monday, July first,
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twenty twenty four. By the time you hear this, some things may have
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changed here or there, but we hope you enjoy the show. Welcome to
0:34
Table Talk here at the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show, the longest running weekly
0:38
Philly sports podcast show in the world. That's right, eleven years strong.
0:43
We have got a great discussion coming your way here on Table Talk the Philadelphia
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Phillies. Boy, I'll tell you what a season it has been for this
0:52
team, for this fan base. We are absolutely loving what the Phillies are
0:56
doing. However, there's some challenges that are in front of this team right
0:59
now. Thank goodness, the All Star break is coming because his team needs
1:03
to kind of get get it self recentered a little bit in certain areas of
1:07
the team, as we know certain guys need to get healthier as well.
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But we got a great discussion here on Table Talk this week about this team.
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What's going to be happening in the future. Let's get to the discussion
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right now. Joining us here on our Table Talk Interview this week to get
1:22
into this Philadelphia Philliates team. You canna read his material over it that balls
1:26
out of here dot com. You know, we love our fan sided sites
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and it's great to have him back on the show. Eric Mortelli, Eric,
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buddy, how you doing, my man? I'm great, Jeff,
1:34
How you doing? I'm doing all right? Like I'm really in a mode
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of, oh my gosh, let's not panic about the Phillies because of what
1:42
this season has been so far, and certainly from a pitching perspective, and
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I really wanted to talk to you first and foremost about this Phillies pitching staff
1:53
what we've been seeing from them. I mean, this team is just getting
1:56
stellar pitching from for their starters. It's generally a beautiful thing that we are
2:00
consistently watching on a week to week basis and throughout this season. Eric,
2:06
you know, we'll see what Michael Mercado can do over these next couple of
2:09
weeks with Tywyn Walker being out, and we're gonna we're gonna get into Tywan
2:13
Walker in a little bit, folks. But I'm wondering, Eric, do
2:16
you think that Zach Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Chris Sanchez and Ranger Swarez do
2:22
you think they're gonna be able to keep up this dominance for the remainder of
2:24
the season. What are your thoughts here with regard to this amazing pitching that
2:28
we've seen thus far this year and can they sustain this? You're right,
2:32
the pitching has been absolutely incredible. It's been basically a strong point for the
2:38
team this season and is a big reason why they have the best record in
2:43
the National League going into the season. It was the rotation of both ten
2:49
We're both projected to be good, right, but what we've seen from the
2:52
starting staff so far has been nothing short of incredible. I mean, you
2:55
look at the bad games that some of these guys have had and it's like,
2:59
well, I think most other teams would take this, yeah, nine
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times out of ten, Right, you know, Ranger had a clunker yesterday,
3:07
kind of it's going to happen, Right, You can't. He's not
3:09
gonna have a sub two era the whole the whole season. But what he's
3:12
been able to do has been incredible. I think we're going to see a
3:15
level of dominance certainly. I think these guys and really the development and pitching
3:21
coaches we have here with Caleb Kotham and Brian Kaplan really getting the most out
3:25
of these guys. You look at what Sanchez was expected to do, right,
3:29
he was really expected to be your four or five guys, maybe even
3:32
going into the bullpen here and there, and right now on paper, he
3:36
has the best numbers out of anyone on the staff. So what, I
3:39
don't know if I want to say sustainable, but I think there's that they're
3:43
a good pitching staff. So I don't know if we're going to see a
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sub three r E ra coming from Sanchez by the time we look at it
3:51
in September, but what we're getting from him is way more than what anyone
3:54
could have expected. Same thing with Ranger, I think. I think what
3:57
we're getting from from Wheeler and Nola are pretty much par for the course.
4:00
Right We've seen Nolan now for how many years. We know he's going to
4:03
probably finish the season, you know, with a good note around a three
4:08
five ERA. He's going to go out log close to two hundred innings,
4:12
he's going to make his thirty two stars. Wheeler pretty much the same thing,
4:15
probably a lower era. But really we're really blessed with what we have
4:19
with this pitching staff. So even if if we do see a little regression
4:24
from some of these guys, we're still looking at having a top five,
4:27
top three pitching staff in all of Major League Baseball, not even just the
4:30
National League. So to answer your question, I don't know if everything's completely
4:34
sustainable just because of how good it's been, right, And I think now,
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you know, we see that the outing from Nola a couple outings ago.
4:43
He bounced back pretty well the other night, but you see, you
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know, just how people get kind of disappointed after one or two we'll pick
4:49
up, and it's kind of it's crazy because as a Philly sports fan,
4:54
we're not used to this, right, We're not used to being spoiled with
4:57
this. So now it's like, one little hick happened and it's like,
5:00
well, why do we resign Nola to seven years? Or is Ranger finally
5:03
starting to fall off? I don't think so. No. I mean,
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it's the major leagues. You're going to be facing good teams, you're gonna
5:10
be facing good hitters, and eventually, you know, there's gonna be a
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day where you're just not gonna have your feel, You're not gonna have your
5:14
command, and it's gonna happen. But I really do think going forward,
5:17
by the time we look at our pitching staff at the end of the season,
5:20
they're still going to be, you know, a top five, top
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three staff in all of baseball. Yeah, I would agree with you,
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Eric. Look, I mean on any given day, I mean, these
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pitchers are facing new batters time and time again. It is a great position,
5:36
of course that they are in. But you know, as we talked
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about when when you were on the podcast back in March here we said,
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you know, if if Ranger Suarez or even Chris Sanchez can perform well,
5:50
perform well, then that's going to be good for this Phillies team and any
5:55
potential postseason success that they may have. And we're seeing four guys right now
6:00
performing really really well at this point in the season before the All Star breaks.
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So I don't know, I don't think Phillies fans can ask for much
6:06
more in terms of where this pitching staff is at right now. But that
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leads us then, too, one gentleman, and we need to talk about
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Tywin Walker and what the Phillies may actually do perhaps at the trade deadline.
6:19
Look, I mean, there are certainly some options out there for the Phillies
6:23
if they want to go that route. I've seen some articles written on de
6:27
Balls out of here dot com as well as some other sites where saying,
6:30
you know what, if the Phillies do want to do this, here are
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some options. See some other articles. We're saying, you know what,
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No, the Phillies need to stay where they're at right now, continue on
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as they have been. But the reality is Tywan Walker hasn't been able to
6:44
throw his splitter two effectively because of a nasty blister that has been plaguing him.
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As we now know, he's just having a tough season in general.
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So what do you think the Phillies should do, Eric, and what do
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you think they will do with the Tywin Walker situation as this trade deadline approaches.
7:02
It's a really tough question because of the money tied up with him.
7:05
Yeah, you know, you look back last year and in comparison to the
7:10
rest of the rotation, he didn't have problem he numbers wise, he didn't
7:14
have a great year. I mean, he had the fifteen wins, but
7:16
for what he was basically considered a four or five back end starter, he
7:20
got the job done. He would have a blow up inning and then kind
7:25
of cruise the rest of the way. You know, still giving a five
7:28
or six this year doesn't really seem to be that way. It could It
7:31
could be that blister, absolutely, but even coming out of spring training they
7:36
said his velocity was down. You know, he started the season on the
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il, So I think there's there's there's definitely something going on there, and
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I don't know how much of it is injury related and how much of it
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is just he might not be as effective as he once was. Again,
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the tough part here is the money. So what I think the a Phillies
7:53
will try to do is, yeah, around the trade design, maybe try
7:56
to shop him. The only thing is is because of that contract and his
8:00
lack of effectiveness, if you're going to try to get rid of that money
8:03
off the books, you're going to have to package him with probably a pretty
8:07
good process. Now, I don't know how depending on who that is,
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I don't know if that's worthwhile. What I think they should do is I
8:16
really think, you know, finish out this year with him. He can't
8:20
pitch out of the bullpen. He's basically said that that was kind of the
8:22
issue with him last year in the postseason why he didn't get any appearances that
8:26
Thompson base said he can't get loose quick enough to be a reliever. So
8:30
unless you have like a planned piggyback situation, I just I don't see that
8:33
being a formidable option. But I think you have to give him a chance
8:39
to be somewhat effective the fact that we're paying him, you know, eighteen
8:41
million a year. However, the lack of starting pitching depth right now around
8:46
the sport is becoming pretty apparent because how many pitchers have we seen this year
8:50
already go down with not just like minor injuries like a blister type thing,
8:54
but how many have had to get Tommy John surgery. It's becoming an epidemic
8:58
around the league. Might have a team who's desperate for a back end type
9:01
starter who maybe doesn't have as much money tied up where you could try to
9:05
do that. But personally, I think what's going to happen is I think
9:09
they're going to just ride out this year and then kind of see what happens
9:11
in the offseason. The good thing is is they kind of back themselves up,
9:16
and again, I know people are kind of upset the way the off
9:18
season went. Right we didn't really go out and make a big splash.
9:22
Our big splash was re signing Nola, extending Wheeler, you know, getting
9:26
with Meryfield. But some of the antillar are things that we did right,
9:28
getting Spencer Turnbull who worked out really well off until his injury, and Michael
9:33
Mercato, who you kind of mentioned in the beginning. I'm kind of excited
9:37
to see what he has. He has some pretty good stuff. So they
9:41
kind of back themselves up in a good spot where if Walker does falter and
9:46
kind of can't get back to where he is, they do maybe have some
9:48
other options there. And like you said, I mean one through four.
9:54
Really, once you get to the postseason, you don't need five starters,
9:56
So they could kind of do what they did with him last year. It
9:58
might make him angry again, but you know, if you're not performing on
10:03
the biggest stages, you can't do it. But I would trust any of
10:05
the other four guys to make a postseason start at this point. So the
10:09
Walker question, I think it's probably one of the hardest issues that the Phillies
10:11
have to deal with right now. Yeah, absolutely, I think it's interesting
10:15
too. Eric, how you mentioned you know, next year you know,
10:18
what, what could potentially happen with Tywan Walker as we look at even what
10:22
twenty twenty five could be with regard to this pitching staff. And you recently
10:26
wrote a piece over at that Balls out of Here about Andrew Painter, you
10:31
know, making some encouraging progress throughout his recovery here. I mean, he's
10:35
been throwing some bullpen sessions twice a week and it appears that he's on the
10:39
right track and timeline in terms of the recovery process. I know that we're
10:43
still having fun here in twenty twenty four watching this Phillies team. There's high
10:46
expectations, of course, but it's also fun to think about what the twenty
10:52
twenty five rotation might look like with Andrew Painter in it. So I'm wondering,
10:56
you know, what are your thoughts about how Painter is looking and what
10:58
he add next year to this starting rotation, if that's going to be his
11:05
future you know again, you know, talking about the article that you recently
11:07
penned on that Balls out of here dot com. What are your thoughts here?
11:11
So I think everyone is just very excited and I think disappointed that he
11:16
couldn't pitch this year. The hype going into it from last year. We
11:20
really haven't had a prospect as exciting and as young who can make this impact,
11:26
probably since what Dominic Brown maybe probably, Yeah, So we're at a
11:30
point now where it's like everyone wants to see what Painter can do. Having
11:33
a miss this year, it thinks obviously, but you know, we're getting
11:37
enough production from the rest of rotation so it's not as big a deal.
11:39
But you look, that also adds more flexibility for next year because we have
11:43
Wheeler locked up, we have Noel locked up. We just locked up Sanchez
11:48
and Rangers one more year of team control. So now you have that option
11:52
where, okay, you might have Walker there, but if it doesn't pan
11:56
out, you might have you have kind of that fallback option. Now with
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Painter, I don't know what they're going to do because he hasn't really thrown
12:03
a competitive pitch since really spring training of twenty twenty three, so it's been
12:09
a it's been a really long time. He's probably going to be on an
12:13
innings limit coming back, just being as young as he's going to be.
12:16
I think he'll be twenty one by by opening day of next year, and
12:20
he'll be ready I mean, he's coming up on a year. You know,
12:24
it's somewhere between like twelve and eighteen months. So by the time next
12:28
year, next season starts, he'll be over that eighteen month threshold. So
12:31
health wise he should be good to go, barring any setbacks or anything.
12:35
My thing is, do they maybe start him off in Triple A for a
12:39
few starts just to get him kind of back into competitive baseball, back,
12:43
you know, facing professional hitters, and we can see what he does there,
12:46
because it really wouldn't be the end of the world. See what happens
12:48
with Walker, see if he can pitch his way out of it, and
12:52
then kind of approach what you would do with Painter there, because i it
12:54
would be like, just look at what the what Pittsburgh did with toul schemes
12:58
this year, right. Yeah, they started him off for a few starts
13:01
down in the minors, and he's dominating in the majors right now, which
13:05
has been fun to watch. And Painter might not be at false scenes,
13:09
but he's up there. He's still ranked and regarded very highly, even missing
13:13
you know, a full season at this point, so I think there's options
13:18
there, which is good, and that's really where the Phillies that put themselves
13:20
in a good spot because this is a good problem to have, like wondering
13:24
where your top prospect is going to be. It gives some wiggle room,
13:28
right because now it's like, Okay, well, now Walker has to pitch
13:31
himself into a spot. Painter has to, you know, show he's healthy
13:33
and everything in spring training. So it really puts them in a good spot.
13:35
And I think they have room to work with with Painters, and especially
13:39
the fact that he's going to be so young, you don't need to rush
13:43
him, and I think that's really what they don't want to do. You
13:45
don't want to risk any further damage to his arm or any damage to his
13:50
development either. Lots of great wiggle room, like you said. And folks,
13:54
again we're talking Eric Moretelli from that balls out of Here dot com.
13:58
Follow him on the Winter Slash X at Eric Underscore Mortell. He's a great,
14:03
great follow and I mentioned earlier you know, you were on the show
14:07
back in March, and back when we were discussing the beginning of the season.
14:11
We talked Eric about JT. Real Muto and how he's getting older excuse
14:16
me, but certainly not done with being a damn good baseball player in this
14:22
league, and you know, we saw him play some pretty good baseball this
14:24
season leading up to the knee injury and the surgery that he had. And
14:30
I wonder how concerned we should be when he does return to the lineup,
14:33
because a catcher's knees they do not last forever. I don't know. I'm
14:39
just wondering if you've given some thought here to how the surgery may be a
14:43
challenge for him even mentally when he does return. From a sports psychology perspective,
14:48
what are your thoughts here about j troal Muta, what we've seen from
14:50
him, what we should expect when he comes back to the lineup. So,
14:54
I think the point you made about Effetcher's knees is kind of what originally
14:58
was the first thing that popped my head, right because originally they said like
15:01
a four week timetable here, I'm just like, that seems really quick.
15:05
How much you know how much he's moving around back there laterally up and down
15:09
and everything. So I'm like, please do not rush back in four weeks
15:13
take till the All Star break. But now that was obviously prior to the
15:16
Shore and Harper injuries. Which I'm sure we'll get to. But with real
15:20
Newt too, I don't really have any concernable he returned, So with the
15:24
meniscus, it's more of like a cleanup procedure. If it was more structural,
15:28
like at ACL or MCL or something like that, I might have more
15:31
concern with it. But I feel like meniscus just being not that invasive,
15:37
it's something he could bounce back from pretty easily. I mean, he's really
15:39
one of the toughest players we've seen in Philadelphia in a long time. Yeah,
15:43
both physically and mentally. To answer the mental aspect of it, So
15:46
I really don't think we're going to have As long as he's healthy and he's
15:50
made that recovery, I don't think we should have any expectations of a drop
15:54
off. In fact, the one I'm not going to say nice thing,
15:56
but I guess, you know, silver lining to this is the fact that
16:02
he is missing some time now, so going into the rest of the season
16:04
he should be really fresh. The fact that he's basically going to miss a
16:07
month or you know, six weeks time here, and especially if they wait
16:11
till after the All Star break, we'll have that extra time, so we
16:14
really should see a really fresh JT, you know as we enter August,
16:18
September and into the postseason, which is kind of you know, like I
16:21
said, one positive, if you can take a positive from an injury,
16:23
kind of the one positive from that. But yeah, I really don't foresee
16:26
many issues with JT coming back. I mean, he's just we know what
16:30
we're getting from me. He's definitely getting older. But the production we were
16:33
getting from him prior to the prior to the injury was really something. Actually
16:38
it was actually more than I was expecting. So it was a pleasant surprise,
16:42
it really was. I think he was batting, if I'm not mistaken.
16:45
I think it was like two sixty one or something like that. And
16:48
he's got a career I think it's like two seventy two or something if I'm
16:51
remembering correctly. You know, not too bad, not too bad at all
16:53
for where he is in terms of his career in some certain spots, in
16:57
certain games coming through in the TA needed him from a batter's box perspective.
17:03
But you know, as we look at the offense too moving forward here,
17:06
Eric, I mean it's gonna stink. Of course, not having Bryce Harper
17:08
and Kysh Swarber are around for the time being as there on the ten day
17:12
IL. I mean, this offense is going to need to come through.
17:15
Certain players are going to need to really step up to the plate. No
17:18
pun intended, but I don't know. I'm kind of skeptical and feeling skeptical.
17:23
We're at that point in the season where it's like, all right,
17:26
injuries starting to happen. What's going to happen mentally with this team, What's
17:29
going to happen even physically with some other players as well? What players,
17:33
in your opinion, really need to step it up while Harper and Schwarber are
17:37
healing up from their injuries. What are your thoughts here? So that was
17:41
maybe one of the more concerning nights we've had this season. It was a
17:45
bad loss. You lose Schwarber and Harper in the same game. I'm losing
17:48
sleep waiting to hear the Harper update the next day. It was you know,
17:53
in terms of the season, that was really probably the biggest sense of
17:56
like tribulations we've had to go through. But there's definitely a handful of guys
18:02
and we've had kind of the and the team has talked about it right this
18:03
like next man up mentality and everything, and so far it's it's been working
18:07
right, guys have been kind of coming through. But now we're missing three
18:11
huge pieces in this lineup right in Shorber, Harper Andromuso. So you definitely
18:17
start needing these other guys to start stepping up. And there's ancillary guys,
18:21
you know, I know, like Meryfield and Pache have been getting a lot
18:23
of a lot of heat. They're not really being productive, But those aren't
18:26
really the guys that you're we're going to be relying on here. The two
18:30
guys to me that really stand out here are Brighton Scott, who right now
18:34
has a six nine to five ops, which for him is low. He
18:38
hasn't really got on a gate the way I think anyone really thought. My
18:42
level of concern with him is low though, because he is such a professional
18:45
hitter, so I really think he will be able to bounce back. And
18:48
it looks like he's been kind of coming around a little bit. He may
18:51
even be stepping up in that leadoff spot a little bit. And I think
18:53
the other one's kind of an obvious one. I think Nick Castianos, we're
18:57
losing the power from H and Harper and Real Muto. So you got to
19:02
make up for it somewhere, right, Boone's been doing his job. Casianos
19:06
has been just wildly inconsistent all year. He started out very very slowly,
19:11
looked like he was sticking it back up, kind of went back into other
19:14
funks. He's just been kind of all over the place. Now seeing him
19:17
go four for five yesterday was was really encouraging. So we I think those
19:22
two guys, you need to get it from your guys who are kind of
19:26
your everyday players, right, your role players like Edmundo Sosa, who is
19:30
filled in pretty admirably. He's just not an everyday player. And I love
19:34
Sosa. He's great in the role that he's supposed to be in. But
19:38
you can see he's getting exposed. He had two a batch yesterday and kind
19:41
of big situations and just completely you know, not uncompetitive in those EVAs.
19:47
So I think it's while we want to see these these role guys pick it
19:51
up. I don't know if they're the ones we can say, Okay,
19:52
hey, we need you to carry us through the month of July. I
19:56
think we need to look at guys like Bryson Scott, Nick Casianos and Brandon
20:00
marsh has been good for parts, but he's a lot of consistent and it's
20:07
he can't hit lefties right now. And I know there's a lot of debate
20:11
going back and forth. How's he going to him if he doesn't play?
20:14
But at the same time, his numbers against lefties are invisible. So he's
20:18
a guy where I don't know necessarily say he had to step up, but
20:21
in certain cases he should like the fact that he was. He had to
20:22
hit cleanup. It's really mainly to break up the righties, I think.
20:26
But he's another guy who we're going to use some consistency from when he is
20:32
in the lineup. But I think the two big guys that we got to
20:33
see it from who are going to be in the lineup pretty much every day
20:36
right to Scott Nick Casi I think I should say I hope Nick castianis is
20:41
able to take that four or five from the plate yesterday and really use that
20:45
to his advantage. Just quit chasing pitches. Like you said, My gosh,
20:48
just all over the place in terms of what he's what he's swinging at
20:52
this entire season, it's been absolutely perplexing hopefully yes, he gets it together.
20:57
And as we as we close out our discussion here, Eric, and
21:02
before I let you go, you know, the All Star break is going
21:04
to be coming at a good time, as we're just talking about with regard
21:07
to the injuries, and I think it's going to give certain guys just some
21:10
rest who actually truly deserve it. And as we look to this second half
21:14
of the season here, we've had a fantastic, a fun and exhilarating Phillies
21:21
season thus far. What should the theme of the second half of the season
21:26
be for this Phillies team if they want to truly see success in the postseason?
21:30
What do you think that theme should be here in the second half of
21:33
the season. So, I think there's kind of two things that I kind
21:36
of have in mind here. One of them is kind of that next man
21:38
up mentality that they've been talking about. Right, hopefully this is the end
21:44
of our injury bug. Right, we had some big ones come up,
21:47
but you can't guarantee anything in one hundred and sixty two game season. So
21:51
having those other guys be able to step up and have that continue throughout the
21:56
season, not even from an injury standpoint, but say for exams sample.
22:00
You know, Trey Turner goes into a slump, Bryce Tarfer goes into a
22:03
slump, You're gonna need to fill in that production somewhere. There's got to
22:06
be someone else who steps up. I think the other thing that's going to
22:08
be huge here is not letting up off the gas. You have an eight
22:12
game lead over the Braves right now. You don't want to let them get
22:17
close. They're they're a good team. I know they've been bitten by the
22:19
injury bug too, but you don't want to let up. You don't want
22:22
to get complacent. I don't really think this team will. This team seems
22:26
like they are really really hungry, getting so close in twenty twenty two and
22:30
getting close again last year the disappointing NLCS exit. So I think those are
22:34
kind of the themes you got to look at here, right, you pick
22:37
each other up, and don't get complacent, don't rest on your laurels.
22:40
You might, you know, win one hundred games, you know, with
22:44
a few games still to play, but you really see sometimes when teams let
22:47
off the gas and give guys rest and kind of are like, all right,
22:49
we have our spot in the postseason. Let's kind of let up a
22:52
little bit here to you know, avoid injuries and things like that. I
22:56
think you just got you got to keep pushing the gas. You cannot let
22:59
up and go in the first season with is much momentum is humanly possible.
23:03
Absolutely again, folks. Eric Moritelli from that Ballsada here dot com over Fansided
23:08
follow him on the Twitter slash x at Eric's underscore Moritelli, Buddy, it
23:14
was great talking to you. Always enjoy our conversations about this Philadelphia Phillies team.
23:18
Come back and join us down the road. I'd love to have you
23:19
back on my friend. Thanks chef. Always a good time to join.
23:23
That's gonna do it for us here on Table Talk this week. Please share
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23:32
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