With Pete Crow-Armstrong and the Cubs coming into town, fans hoped the Phillies would prove their early struggles were a blip rather than a pattern, as thus far the team has failed to find its identity to start the season.
Coming into the series the offense had only managed to score in three of its last 46 innings, with production coming in fits and starts. Their only real consistency has been inconsistency, with boom or bust production, difficulty manufacturing runs, and an uncanny inability to take advantage with runners in scoring position. Their power has surged on and off with an increasing number of strikeouts in between, and they have been in desperate need of cohesiveness in the form of pitching success timed with offensive outbursts—thus far unable to get both sides going at the same time.
This team has struggled, but are they alone?
While it’s natural for fans to be uncomfortable with the slow start, taking a look around the league serves as a good reminder of just how early the young season is and that the Phillies are far from the only team working through issues. The Yankees and Mets were both recently swept by teams they probably should have handled with relative ease, losing to the Rays and A’s, respectively, and the Astros recently lost eight straight despite being one of the best hitting teams in all of baseball.
As we lament our team’s inability to hit, the Yankees went 20-102 (.195) across three games against Tampa Bay. When you hear that at one point this season, Bobby Witt, Jr. has been stranded on base 29 times out of 30, it puts things into perspective and can help stave off panic—for now.
But just as incredible pitching has been the silver lining keeping the Yankees near or at the top of the AL East, the Phillies have shown they have some light in the darkness as well.
So what is actually going right for the Phillies?
Bryce Harper is batting .326 in the month of April with a 1.122 OPS, barreling the ball for extra base hits and flashes of the power Philadelphia hopes they’ll see more of from their superstar this year. This could be the beginning of the “Not Elite Revenge Tour”, but will he be performing solo or will he bring the team with him?
Rookie Justin Crawford has shown his ability to hang with the big boys and for the most part the Phillies have enjoyed solid starting pitching and bullpen play, though some may be questioning where the pitching is heading after seeing this Cubs series shake out.
And if you have been sleeping on Brandon Marsh, it’s time to wake up. For far too long this all grown up former member of the Phillies Daycare has been underappreciated and frankly, disrespected despite being one of the best hitters in all of baseball since returning from injury in May of 2025. Coming into the clash with the Cubs, Marsh was batting a solid .304 on the season with a 124 wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus). On his debut in the cleanup spot against the Arizona Diamondbacks, after manager Rob Thomson decided to shake up a lineup that was failing to produce, Marsh made an impact in his very first trip to the plate slapping an oppo taco three-run home run. He’s hitting balls hard, and he’s hitting them often.
Even as the team itself has struggled with stranding base runners, Brandon Marsh has been mister dependable with 11 RBI in 15 AB and a .400 average with runners in scoring position. As fans (and the manager) have continued to have tunnel vision over his struggles with left-handed pitching, Marsh has been producing.
As tired as fans may be of being reminded of the fact, it very truly is extremely early into the long 162-game season—too early to know for sure exactly what this team is with any certainty. But you cannot fault Phillies fans for having a heightened sense of dread watching the offense struggle after all that has transpired with the team over the past few seasons.
Cold bats give fans cold feet in Philadelphia.
While an April series between two 7-8 teams that are both failing to live up to expectation in the early going is likely not going to give us the answers we need just yet, fans needed to see something in this Cubs series to give them hope. A sign, a glimmer, a spark. How about just scoring in more than one inning per game as a start?
Game 1: Phillies 13, Cubs 7
Phillies Strike in Six Different Innings to Sink Cubs
A Kyle Schwarber solo shot to kick things off in the first. A Brandon Marsh single and stolen base quickly followed by an RBI from catcher J.T. Realmuto in the second. Another Schwarbomb with Trea Turner on the bags in the third. The Phillies offense had just done something it hadn’t done in weeks—scored a run in multiple innings—three in a row to be exact.
With a 4-0 lead going into the fourth, the Cubs would get on the board with a two-run homer by Dansby Swanson, cutting the Phils lead in half at 4-2 heading into the fifth, giving fans the familiar unsettled feeling after watching the team succumb to late comebacks by the Diamondbacks twice over the weekend.
A five-run fifth inning would allay those fears and break the game open for the Phillies.
Schwarber would walk, followed by back-t-back singles by Bryce Harper and Adolis Garcia, loading the bases with no outs. Brandon Marsh would continue to pad his stats with a double in the gap scoring two, followed by a sac fly by Alec Bohm giving the Phillies some breathing room again with a 7-2 lead. But the Phillies weren’t finished and Bryson Stott would drop one into center scoring Marsh just before crossing home plate himself on an RBI single by J.T. Realmuto.
With a 9-2 lead heading into the 6th, ace Cristopher Sanchez had a nice cushion and seemed fully in control after giving up the home run to Swanson in the fourth, working out of jams with traffic on the base paths multiple times without yielding another run. He would finish the sixth with a solid line and ultimately the win: 6IP 6H 2ER 3BB 8SO
With Sanchez out of the game and minor league call-up reliever Seth Johnson on the bump for the Phillies, the Cubs were able to make the score a little more interesting. Johnson had just joined the team as an injury replacement for Jonathan Bowlan, who had to be added to the 15-day IL with a groin strain. With the Phillies having a significant lead this looked to be a good low leverage way to ease him into action. Unfortunately, his outing did not go well and the Phillies defense had a few miscues that didn’t help his cause. With the score 13-7 in the eighth, Johnson was pulled with one out remaining after giving up four hits, two walks, and three earned runs in 1.2 innings.
Orion Kerkering would secure the final out for the Phillies in the eighth and come back in to close out the 9th striking out three and allowing no further damage by the Cubs as the Phillies would take the series opener in a more dominant fashion than the scoreboard would portray.
Of course, the question now becomes, can they sustain the production as the series progresses, or will their feast or famine ways continue?
Game 2: Phillies 4, Cubs 10
Cubs Bite Back Routing Phillies in Game 2
Once again, the glimmer of hope brought on by an offensive boom in one game was dashed by the bust side of a team that has not found a way to produce consistently throughout a series so far this season. You can almost set your watch by the fact that an offensive explosion on a Monday means a struggle will follow on Tuesday.
And so it was on Tuesday night as the Cubs routed the Phillies 10-4, with the Phillies once again blowing a lead in the process.
Edmundo Sosa looked to be the early hero of Game 2, clocking in at third base in place of a resting Alec Bohm. His towering three-run home run in the second inning soared into Ashburn Alley taking the cheering crowd’s fear of another slow offensive evening with it.
Unfortunately, the celebration was short-lived as the Cubs began mounting their comeback, swiftly getting two back in the third. As the Phillies once again struggled to score in multiple innings, the Cubs added a run in the fifth tying the game at 3-3.
On the mound, Aaron Nola would continue to battle getting out of a jam with runners on the corners to end the fifth, striking out his 1900th career batter in the process. He struggled all night with hard hit balls in the gap, finishing with eight hits and three runs through five innings, but managed to keep the Phillies in the game.
Tim Mayza would take over in the sixth, part of a bullpen unit that had been mostly solid coming into this outing, with Mayza being one of the bright spots with a 0.00 ERA, 10 SO, 0 HR allowed and only 1BB in 8.2 innings. Today would not be Tim’s day and with the game tied, the wheels were about to come off for the Phillies.
A walk, a hit batter, and a botched play between Mayza and Stott would load the bases. The boos rained down and the dread immediately settled in throughout the ballpark. We’d been here before way too many times recently—everyone sensed what was coming.
Hoerner essentially put everyone out of their misery by not leaving the crowd in suspense. He smacked a hard hit ball right through the middle of the field scoring two. The Cubs would take the lead and keep pouring it on, adding two more on an RBI-single by Alex Bregman, taking a 7-3 lead.
To their credit, the Phillies did attempt a last minute fight. In the bottom of the eighth they would get one run back when Trea Turner hit a bloop into center bringing home Edmundo Sosa who had doubled earlier in the inning. And the Phillies weren’t done. They would load the bases with two outs with the tying run heading to the plate. With a left-handed reliever on the mound, Alec Bohm would come in to pinch hit for Brandon Marsh as manager Rob Thomson opted for analytics over the eye test even with Bohm batting .170 on the season and Marsh’s clutch hitting with runners in scoring position of late.
When Thomson was asked after the game if he given any thought to Marsh hitting in that spot based on his recent success despite his struggles with lefties Thomson said:
“No, not really…Thielbar is pretty tough on lefties so I just went for the match up. Bohm the last couple of days has been swinging the bat better.”
Bohm did not, in fact, swing the bat well.
Called strike. Swinging strike. Foul. Swinging strike. Four pitch out, bases left loaded, heading into the ninth still down three run. Surely it could not get worse.
It got worse.
In the ninth, catcher Carson Kelly would send a Tanner Banks changeup just over Monty’s Angle in left center as fans began to stream out of the ballpark. There was no fight left in the fans and no fight left in the Fightin Phils, who would go down easily in the bottom of the ninth falling 10-4.
Game 3: Phillies 2, Cubs 11
Cubs Roll Past Phillies to Series Win
Would it be two straight wins or three straight series losses? The question hung heavy in the air on a hot Wednesday night in south Philadelphia.
A lead off home run by Trea Turner would get things going on a positive note, but the good times would end there for Philadelphia fans. It would be a death by a thousand cuts kind of night as Chicago would put together a 15 hit, 11 run evening, tagging started Jesus Luzardo for eight before his exit in the fifth inning.
Bryce Harper would bookend a brutal night with a homer in the ninth, the only other offense since the lead off homer by Trea.
The spark everyone had hoped to see in this series seemed to ignite in the first game of the series only to be quickly snuffed out in the next two leaving fans wondering where the team goes from here.
What’s Next?
The 8-10 Phillies now get set to face the 12-7 division rival Atlanta Braves, who despite another injury plagued start to the season have found early success, sitting on top of the NL East to start this three game set in Philadelphia.
While the division cannot be won in April it can certainly be lost, and these three games will be of crucial importance as the Phillies try to avoid falling further behind in the division standings.
For the last three season this Phillies team has felt like it has been standing on a knife’s edge.
If they teeter off one side, we face a rapid decline of the aging core that the local sports media has been heralding after every “run it back” offseason. But if feels like at any moment they have the ability to teeter off the other side and become a team that is one lucky bounce/one broken bat bloop RBI/one correct ABS challenge away from going on a run and bringing it all together.
This will certainly be on the minds of all fans who have to be asking themselves—is it time to panic yet and if not now, when?
