The Phillies’ new pitching mantra isn’t family-friendly, but it’s working

On May 12, in the bottom of the eighth inning, Andrew Bellatti stepped onto the mound in Dodger Stadium. José Alvarado had just blown a four-run lead in the span of seven Dodgers at-bats, and Bellatti was tasked with getting two scoreless outs to stop the bleeding.

It was not an easy task. The right-handed reliever was about to face the top of the Dodgers lineup — Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman — with runners on first and third. These guys were All-Stars, MVPs, Silver Sluggers. Bellatti was a 30-year-old journeyman with less than 50 innings worth of big league experience.

But as he walked onto that mound, he remembered something — “PHAH” — and he knew he’d be OK. In fact, he’d be more than OK. The first batter was Hanser Alberto, pinch-hitting for Gavin Lux. He reached base on a fielder’s choice on an attempted squeeze play as Rhys Hoskins threw out the runner at home plate. One out down.

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Betts was up next and drew a walk. Freeman came up to the plate after Betts. He popped out to third baseman Alec Bohm in foul territory, and the inning was over. The bleeding was stopped. The Phillies went on to win that game, 9-7.

“It was one of the most intense situations of my career,” Bellatti said. “I know they’re good hitters. Everybody knows they’re good hitters. But I got out of it unscathed because I went into that outing with a PHAH mentality. I wasn’t concerned with how good the hitters were. I was just concerned with getting after it.”

Since that outing in Los Angeles, Bellatti has been used in more high-leverage situations, and has quickly become one of the Phillies’ most trusted relievers. He received a handful of minor league offers last winter but decided to go with the Phillies because pitching coach Caleb Cotham preached a mentality he hadn’t heard from other teams. A mentality that Bellatti always felt he had but never had been able to find in a major league organization.

Cotham sums it up in an acronym: “PHAH.” It stands for “Ph — All Hitters.”

“It’s like [bleep] all hitters, but we switched [the first letters] to ph — all hitters, for the Phillies,” Bellatti said. “Do you get it? It’s like this FU mentality out on the mound. That’s about as clean as I can put it.”

Cotham says that “PHAH” is the glue of his pitching philosophy. He’s been preaching it since he joined the Phillies in 2020. He picked it up at Vanderbilt, where Cotham pitched from 2007-09. He remembers that a Vandy pitcher a few years later, Walker Buehler, had “FAH” — a different variation of “PHAH,” if you will — written on his glove. It was something that Cotham’s pitching coach, Derek Johnson, would repeat to his team.

“It’s a mantra of how we attack hitters,” Cotham said. “You’re not competing against yourself. You’re competing against the hitter. I think most of the time, we’re competing against ourselves. We’re fighting our mechanics; we’re not fighting the hitter. Usually, that doesn’t work out in our favor.

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“I don’t have to make the perfect pitch. I don’t have to be perfect. My delivery doesn’t have to be perfect. But I’m going to be perfect in the sense that I’m going to be attacking hitters.”

Clearly, Cotham’s ethos is resonating. The Phillies’ bullpen has posted a 0.68 ERA with 33 strikeouts in its last eight games. The Phillies’ rotation has a 3.83 ERA, which is good for 10th-best in baseball, and fourth-best in the National League.

After Vanderbilt, Cotham was drafted by the Yankees in 2009. He pitched seven seasons in the minor leagues. He did reach the big leagues, but only for 34 innings. He finished his MLB career with a 7.15 ERA through 35 games.

Cotham always felt he was missing that attacking mindset, so when he decided to transition into player development, he made it a point of emphasis.

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“In my personal experience, when I got hurt, things went sideways for me,” Cotham said. “I had this mindset of, ‘Oh my knee doesn’t feel good. My arm doesn’t feel good; my pitch isn’t this, it isn’t that.’ The glue that makes everything work, at least in my experience, is getting back to — when I’m out there, I am who I am, and I’m going to get after it. I’m going to get after you.”

Cotham doesn’t just mention that mentality in his pitcher’s meetings. He has “PHAH” written — in Phillies type — on the scouting reports given to every pitcher before every series. Sometimes, Cotham even wears a T-shirt with the acronym (some Phillies pitchers do, too).

“When it comes down to it, it’s going in there and knowing that you’re the best,” reliever Corey Knebel said. “You’re better than any hitter, no matter who it is you’re facing. Go eat faces. ‘PHAH.’ I don’t know if I can say what it stands for. But if you say ‘PHAH,’ every pitcher here knows what you’re talking about.”

Starter Kyle Gibson was familiar with the expression when he arrived in Philadelphia last year, but, like Cotham, he knew it as “FAH.” When Gibson was pitching at Missouri, he remembers seeing a black-and-gold sign right behind the bullpen mound where they all threw.

“It said ‘FAH,’” Gibson said. “I’m pretty sure Max Scherzer and Tony Vitello, the pitching coach at the time, put it up there. I think it’s something that’s been in baseball for a few years, but this is the first time I’ve seen it used on the major league side.

“I think it’s really helpful with the younger guys, but it’s helpful for us, too. When you’re facing a Mike Trout, or any of the elite hitters in the game, sometimes you just have to remind yourself that you’re not here to tiptoe around. You’re the guy with the ball. You’ve got to throw strikes and attack hitters.”

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Cotham added: “For us here, in Philly, ‘PHAH’ is our north star. It helps us realign. Most guys, when they’re going really good, say, ‘I’m not thinking anything, all I’m doing is attacking.’ If nothing else, ‘PHAH’ is reminder of what the most important thing is. It’s not to be perfect. It’s to attack hitters.”