Phillies' brutal start to the season means that jobs are on the line

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They were not snooping, Thomson insisted, and everyone understood it as Dombrowski’s outward show of power while the Phillies flounder. There are heavy questions to consider because the Phillies enter the fifth week of the season with a 9-19 record, having been outscored by a staggering 54 runs. They played the 28th game with an outfield of Felix Reyes, Dylan Moore and Adolis García. They lost to the Atlanta Braves, 6-2, and they mustered one hit (a single) in six innings against Chris Sale. Their right-handed hitters have produced a .505 OPS against left-handed pitchers. That is a number that feels almost impossible. It is 91 points lower than the next-closest team. It would be, as of now, the lowest OPS for that specific split since the live-ball era began in 1920. They are 0-10 against lefty starters (non-openers). “We have to fix that, for sure,” Thomson said. It’s treading into uncomfortable territory because jobs are at stake. Just because another big-market club with expectations, the Boston Red Sox, cleaned house does not make it likelier. (Emulating desperate and dysfunctional organizations is not the best business plan.) But there is a target on the manager, and he’s not oblivious. “Well, I mean, that’s natural, right?” Thomson said when asked about his job security. “It’s normal. And I’ve never worried about that in my entire career. I worked for a guy for 28 years that, as the “Seinfeld” episode will tell you, fires people like it’s a bodily function. And it never bothered me. It didn’t. I don’t have time to think about it. I’m a person who thinks about other people. What can I do to help them? And it’s out of my control. That’s where I’m at.” George Steinbrenner does not run the Phillies, but Dombrowski (and, by extension, principal owner John Middleton) must decide whether the same people and players should be tasked with fixing this team. “I feel like we have the right people here,” Kyle Schwarber said, “and we got the right people to figure it out.” The issues stem well beyond the right-handed hitters, but that is the glaring pressure point right now. The Phillies sought an upgrade during the offseason and were on the verge of signing Bo Bichette and jettisoning Alec Bohm. That indicated everything about how the front office felt, but absent the solution of throwing more money at a free agent, Dombrowski’s group did not unearth any creative alternatives. So a familiar roster with a familiar coaching staff slogging through a nightmarish first month only intensifies the scrutiny. Is it time to think about bigger changes than rearranging the batting order? “Well, I’m sure we’ll talk about it on the plane,” Thomson said. “Maybe it is the lineup. I don’t know. We just have to discuss this and try to figure it out.” Thomson has bemoaned the lineup’s pull-happy approach at various times in the past few weeks. He did again Sunday. Could the hitters benefit from a different voice? Thomson said he remains confident in hitting coach Kevin Long and his assistants’ work. “Because they’re good coaches,” Thomson said. “I mean, Kevin’s one of the best in the game. There’s a couple of Hall of Famers out there that will tell you that. So, yeah, I’m all on board with him.” The club’s three most important hitters — Bryce Harper, Schwarber and Trea Turner — all share strong relationships with Long that predate their time with the Phillies. That matters. The Phillies’ belief in him was so unflinching that they signed him to a three-year contract this offseason as Long, a free agent, entertained robust interest from rival clubs. Schwarber pushed back, saying it’s on the players to make this right. “As a player, you feel responsible for that,” he said. “We’re the ones who are out there going out there. We’re taking at-bats. We’re playing defense. We’re pitching. We’re doing it all. All of our coaches are here to support and put us in the best positions that they can. Even though we haven’t been playing to what we feel like we should be playing at, that hasn’t changed their attitudes towards us. They try to come in on a daily basis to continue to get us better and to continue to put us into great positions to succeed.” Thomson looked at the situation Sunday and saw potholes everywhere. Sale entered the day with a career .537 OPS against lefty hitters. That is the lowest mark by a starting pitcher in recorded major-league history. So the manager wanted to protect Brandon Marsh and rookie Justin Crawford by not exposing them to Sale. Crawford entered Sunday just 4 for his last 36. He was 1-for-16 with four strikeouts against lefty pitchers. Marsh, who has been swinging well, remains far better against righties. Moore had not started a game in center field since 2023. But he bats right-handed. He went 0-for-2 with a walk. He’s yet to collect a hit this season in 11 at-bats. Reyes, who homered in his first career at-bat against Sale, is now 2-for-17 with two singles since. This is the roster. The best example of the current malaise unfolded in the middle innings. The Phillies loaded the bases in the third when Sale lost command. Harper hacked at a 3-0 pitch and fouled it. He took a called strike right down the middle. Then he swung through a 98 mph heater. A missed chance. Then, in the fourth inning, Sale struck out the side on 13 pitches. Only one of them was in the strike zone. All three hitters that inning — Reyes, García and Bohm — were right-handed. None of this should absolve Aaron Nola, who is a mess right now. Ten pitches into the game, Atlanta had pegged him for three runs. It was a six-run deficit by the second inning. Nola has a 6.03 ERA. All of the momentum from a win (finally) the night before evaporated the moment Nola stepped on the mound. “Going down 6-0 really quick,” Nola said, “it’s hard to come back against a really good pitcher on the opposing team when I’m putting them in a position like that.” The house is on fire, and that is going to test Dombrowski, who has said he views 40 games as necessary for a proper evaluation. When the manager is trying to run platoons at three different positions while the original cleanup hitter is mired in a career-worst slump, it makes the whole thing feel like a house of cards. “It’s not like the record is going to change overnight,” Schwarber said. “It’s going to be a continuous grind, and we’re ready for that. We know that there’s a long road ahead. … It’s a little bit of a different circumstance that we put ourselves in. So come into work, bury your head down, know that some numbers might not change right away. But over the course of time, if we keep working the way that we’re working, I feel really confident that we look up at some point and we see some better results.” It remains to be seen whether the bosses share the same optimism. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms