‘Humbling’ cage work, intrasquad games: How the Phillies will keep their hitters sharp for the postseason

WASHINGTON — In 2019, when Kevin Long was the hitting coach of the Washington Nationals, he was in an unusual situation. His team had swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series and was gifted a full week off before the World Series.

Not everyone saw it as a gift. Extended layoffs can cause bats to go cold and timing to get skewed. But Long made sure his hitters were diligent in their preparation all season — particularly in their velocity work — and it paid off.

Over the course of that week, players would step up close to the pitching machine. Long would crank it up to 100 mph — but to a hitter only a few feet away, 100 mph was closer to 180 mph. It was “humbling,” in the Phillies’ hitting coaches’ words, but effective.

His hitters told him so. Howie Kendrick, who now works in the Phillies’ front office, recently approached Long about the drill.

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“He said that he felt like when we faced Gerrit Cole [in the World Series], that the 98 mph that he was throwing seemed feasible,” Long said, “and seemed maybe a little bit slower.

“If you have a week off, a lot of times, it just seems like the game speeds up on you. So we’ll try to emulate some of that stuff and see how the guys respond to it.”

Assistant hitting coach Rafael Peña, who worked in the Astros’ minor league system from 2018 to 2023, saw the big league coaches use similar tactics. Peña wasn’t physically with the big league club in 2022, when the Astros had a first-round bye, but he prepared the minor league players headed for the taxi squad.

They did the same type of velocity work all season long, with an emphasis on it throughout the bye week and the playoffs.

“[I know that] Yordan Alvarez did it all the time. Yainer Diaz did too,” Peña said. “A bunch of guys benefited from it. It’s something that is common there, and then when the bye time comes, and playoffs come, your eyes are adjusted to speed.”

The Phillies have been doing this type of work — more challenging variations of batting practice — since spring training. Not much will change during the bye week, but because they won’t be preparing for games, they will ramp up the prep work they do in the cages.

They are banking on that work paying off in October.

“I think preparation [for the playoffs] comes not just from the time on the bye, but also from the season,” Peña said. “If you prepare for the game the right way, with speed, with velocity, with game-like stuff, whenever you are not playing games, but you’re still preparing the same way, I feel like you’re more game-ready.”

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Manager Rob Thomson said the Phillies will have Monday off, a mandatory workout on Tuesday, an intrasquad game on Wednesday, an optional workout on Thursday, and a mandatory workout on Friday.

The intrasquad game will simulate a real game.

“We’re going to have umpires, a full scoreboard, walk-up music,” Thomson said. “How many innings we’re going to have, I’m not sure yet, but I’d think we’d have six or seven or eight innings. I think that’s the only way you can do it, to simulate realistic at-bats and realistic games.”

A few players from triple A will join the Phillies for the bye week. Thomson said it’ll be outfielder Cal Stevenson, catcher Rafael Marchán, infielder Buddy Kennedy, catcher Aramis Garcia, reliever Max Lazar, and reliever Spencer Turnbull. The postseason roster has not been finalized.

Without knowing who their opponent is, it’ll be impossible to come up with a specific game plan, but for now, the Phillies will prepare for everything. That includes lots of work with the off-speed pitching machines, too.

“I mean, we have general ideas of of what we’re going to see,” said assistant hitting coach Dustin Lind. “We’re going to see really good velocity for the next month. We’re going to see really good sliders for the next month. And we can make the adjustments and kind of build out a framework to go off of, but until the final playoff picture gets settled, it’s kind of a guessing game.”

Long isn’t too concerned about that, given the Phillies’ recent schedule.

“The good thing is we just faced the Diamondbacks,” Long said. “We just faced the Brewers. The Mets we’ve seen a lot; the Braves we’ve seen a lot. The Padres would be one that we could face, but that would be if we have the No. 1 seed. But either way, you don’t really hope for a certain team, and you don’t really prepare too much for a certain team, at this point.”

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Long has been with the Phillies since 2022, but Peña and Lind were hired in the offseason. They were brought on with the intention of cutting down chase rate, and have seen some gains in that area. The Phillies sit at 30.2%, slightly lower than last year’s chase rate of 31.3%.

A few veteran players have seen bigger changes from 2023. Trea Turner has dropped his rate from 35.3% to 33.4%. Alec Bohm has dropped his from 30% to 27%. Nick Castellanos has dropped his from 41% — which was among the highest chase rates in the league last year — to 37.8%, still a high figure, but an improvement, nonetheless.

The Phillies are hoping the work they’ve done all season long will translate to the playoffs.

“We’re really not changing what we’ve done,” Peña said. “We’ve been doing this work all year. It’s just a continuation of that work, and we’ll be doing it a little more because we don’t have games to play at night.”

Spencer Turnbull (right lat strain) was scheduled to throw at triple A Lehigh Valley on Friday night. The plan is for Turnbull to join the Phillies next week at Citizens Bank Park. He is stretched out to 30-34 pitches. … Zack Wheeler (16-7, 2.56 ERA) will start against Nationals lefty MacKenzie Gore (10-12, 4.04).