The Phillies, again, need to answer Jake Arrieta’s challenge | Matt Breen

It had been less than 12 hours since Bryce Harper agreed to join the Phillies when Jake Arrieta began to think about the stretch of baseball that the Phillies found themselves in this week.

A day earlier, Arrieta had swept his kitchen floor in a Speedo to celebrate that Harper would be soon boarding John Middleton’s private jet. It was easy then to dream about the good times. But Arrieta, one of only two Phillies players to have a World Series ring, was quick to realize that it would not always be this good.

“Are we going to have hiccups? Are we going to have lulls in the season? Yes, just like every team does,” Arrieta said in March. “But the best ones figure out how to shorten that window of struggles. That’s what we’re going to be able to do even better than we have in the past with the experienced talent that we have in here.”

The Phillies, after an exciting start to the Harper Era, have had hiccups. They were mired this week in a lull after losing three of four to the Rockies and looking listless in a series-opening loss to the Mets. That is when Arrieta, the one who foresaw the team’s difficult stretch, labeled the Phillies as flat. He critiqued the pitching, the defense, and even Harper. The Phillies, Arrieta said, were not ready to play after the game was delayed because of rain.

Arrieta, with his words, was trying to shorten that window of struggles.

“I said what needed to be said,” Arrieta said. “It was the truth.”

When the Phillies signed Arrieta in March 2018, they knew they were bringing a powerful voice to their young clubhouse just as much as they were adding a pitcher to pair with Aaron Nola at the top of their rotation. After his 11th start with the Phillies, Arrieta blasted the team’s defense and ripped how they applied their infield shifts. The Phillies, Arrieta said, needed “some accountability all the way around, everybody top to bottom.” The Phillies did not have to wait long to hear that voice.

“It’s just part of the job description,” Arrieta said. “I’ve always taken pride in helping lead whatever team that I’m on. Sometimes as a leader, you might have to say or do things that might be uncomfortable but you do what’s best for the group, and that’s what I’ve continued to do throughout my career.”

The Phillies responded last summer to Arrieta’s challenge by modifying the way they shifted their infielders when certain pitchers were on the mound. If a pitcher was not comfortable throwing with an unusual defensive alignment, the Phillies would back off. The pitchers were happy, and the Phillies spent most of the summer in first place.

It will take time to see how the Phillies respond to this year’s challenge. They looked just as flat the next night in a 9-0 loss but then won an emotional game capped by Rhys Hoskins’ slow trot around the bases. Just as it seemed that Arrieta’s words had broken through, the Phillies scored just one run Thursday night in a loss to the Marlins. Again, they looked flat.

The window of struggles that Arrieta imagined on a day when everyone else was celebrating will need more than just a few choice words to close. The Phillies lost five players — David Robertson, Jean Segura, Odubel Herrera, Scott Kingery, and Roman Quinn — to injuries in a 10-day span. Nick Pivetta was sent to triple A, the bullpen has shown cracks, and the heart of the lineup has looked rather flat, to borrow Arrieta’s description.

But if the Phillies snap this slump — which they should with the talent they assembled this winter — it will be possible again to imagine the good times that were so easy to dream about when Arrieta was sweeping his kitchen floor. And remember that it was the pitcher who saw the rough times coming who gave the Phillies a push they needed.

“It just comes from experience,” Arrieta said, “being a part of so many different groups, learning just from the experience and how to handle a group of 25 guys whether it’s primarily veterans or a group of rookies or a solid mix like we have now. You speak from the heart, you speak honestly, and I think when you do things like that, your teammates respect that.”