Now 20 innings without a run, Phillies will rearrange the batting order

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So was the thought that, after a long cross-country flight home, they would not have to play baseball again until Friday. The batting order will look different when the Phillies return to Citizens Bank Park. Thomson is left with no choice. “Just change the mindset a little bit, you know?” Thomson said. The Phillies began this trip with a seven-run first inning at Coors Field. They scored 12 runs in the next 53 innings. They managed one extra-base hit in the final two games at Oracle Park, a place where they still have not won a series against the San Francisco Giants since 2013. It’s easy to overreact to a 20-inning scoreless streak in April. But underreacting is dangerous, too. “Has it been that long?” Bryce Harper asked. “Oh, wow, I didn’t know that,” Harper said. “Yeah. I mean, on a personal level, I feel great. So, I’m happy about that. But obviously, as a team, that doesn’t really help us. We have to come together as a team and play better and have better at-bats and all those things. I mean, all the things that you guys know and that everybody knows.” Harper reached on an infield single that should have been a fielder’s choice had Giants shortstop Willy Adames remembered someone was running to second base. Harper walked in the third inning, then hit two weak groundouts to the right side. Harper raised his OPS by 324 points during this six-game trip, so that was nice. But he’s not exempt from the malaise that has infected the Phillies’ lineup. Thomson was perturbed afterward. Is there anything common among the team’s failed at-bats? “Pull-side ground balls,” Thomson said. “Ten pull-side ground-ball outs. You have to use the field.” It’s not unusual for the Phillies’ entire lineup to go into launch mode, where every swing is designed with a home run in mind. The fact it’s happening now, so soon into the season, makes it more noticeable. The Phillies have a .658 OPS through 12 games. That is tied for their lowest mark in the first 12 games of a season over the last decade. “You know how contagious hitting is,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto, who will probably miss another game Friday with a badly bruised and swollen foot. “We’re just missing that spark where it takes one two-out knock to get us to score seven instead of zero. We have a good track record of playing really good baseball. Obviously, right now, that’s not what we’re doing. But we know we’re just one good swing away from the whole team taking off.” Inside the clubhouse, there is a sense that everyone else but them is panicking. The Phillies have had stretches like this before; they were even held scoreless for 26 innings in June. There is a certain fatigue that comes with every Phillies slump, and that is a painstaking way to consume baseball for six months. The pessimist says: Great, just like last year’s team that accomplished so much. The optimist says: The Phillies would love to win 96 games like last year’s team and take another shot at October. “You just have to stay the course,” Thomson said. “These guys are going to hit. It’s just a matter of time, and we’re just going through a dry spell. We haven’t really hit all that much the entire season, to be honest. But they’re going to hit at some point. … I trust these guys. They’re going to get it done.” But Thomson determined, even minutes after the loss, that he would alter the course ever so slightly. He likes how Adolis García, who is hitting .250/.306/.432, has swung the bat. There is a good chance García is batting cleanup Friday. Thomson could just swap García and Brandon Marsh, who have been batting sixth and seventh, with Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott, who have been batting fourth and fifth. Bohm was 0-for-4 in Wednesday’s loss with three groundouts to the pull side. Bohm homered Opening Day. He has one extra-base hit since, a jam-shot double down the right-field line that was a key hit in the Phillies’ lone win at Oracle Park. It’s not a great start for a player the Phillies were close to discarding over the offseason. They did not acquire a proven right-handed bat for the middle of the lineup, and instead doubled down on Bohm’s abilities as a cleanup man. Retreating from that only two weeks into the season is a tough look, but probably warranted. The whole thing has felt disjointed, and that is natural when there aren’t runs being scored. The Phillies were proud of that first inning at Coors Field because, for most of it, no one tried to do too much. It was a fleeting feeling. The Phillies have ranked among the National League’s top five offenses in runs scored per game in each of the last four seasons. Why does Harper believe the Phillies can do it again? “We have to be, right?” Harper said. “Like, I mean, that’s what it is. I mean, we have to do it. I don’t have any other answer for you besides that we have to do it. We’ve got to be that team because if we’re not, then we’re not going to be where we want to be at the end.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Matt Gelb is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Philadelphia Phillies. He has covered the team since 2010 while at The Philadelphia Inquirer, including a yearlong pause from baseball as a reporter on the city desk. He is a graduate of Syracuse University and Central Bucks High School West.