As the Phillies chase a bye in the playoffs, they’re also chasing at the plate more often

NEW YORK — Being unlucky is not a satisfying explanation for any loss, but the Phillies were remarkably unlucky against the Mets on Sunday night. Eight balls came off their bats at 95 mph or harder; only two of those eight dropped for hits. In the second inning, Kyle Schwarber drove a ball to center field for a fly out that would have been a home run in 17 of 30 MLB parks.

They did not suffer the same fate in the six games leading up to Sunday’s 2-1 loss. The Phillies went 2-5 on their road trip through Milwaukee and Queens not because of bad luck, but because of high chase rates.

“Yeah, [we expanded the strike zone] a little bit,” said manager Rob Thomson. “We’re going to expand at times. Just got to rein it in.”

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From Sept. 1-15, the Phillies had the 25th lowest strikeout rate in baseball (21%), despite swinging at 36.5% of the pitches they saw out of the strike zone (the second-highest in baseball). Since then, they’ve chased at a rate of 39.2%, with a strikeout rate of 30.5%.

It’s no secret that this is a team that likes to swing, but the Phillies swing to varying degrees. Schwarber (20.8%) and Brandon Marsh (23.9%) are on the lower end of the chase-rate scale. Nick Castellanos, Johan Rojas, and Edmundo Sosa run higher chase rates.

For the most part, it’s the hitters in the middle of the lineup who determine what the team’s at-bats look like on a given night: J.T. Realmuto, Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, Alec Bohm, and Bryson Stott.

Of that group, Turner, Harper and Stott are chasing the most. Since Sept. 1, Stott is swinging at 43.1% of pitches outside of the zone, followed by Turner at 39.5%, and Harper at 37.8%. Those numbers spiked up during the Phillies’ recent road trip.

Part of this could be due to the caliber of pitching the Phillies saw in Milwaukee — the Brewers rank sixth in team ERA (3.70) and third in saves (51) — but that will only be amplified in the playoffs. The Phillies saw fewer pitches in the zone over this road trip than they did in the weeks before. Until they begin to hold their zone, pitching staffs will continue to expose their chase.

The best way to turn this around is to have a short memory, and stick to the plan, even if you run into bad luck. Since spring training, hitting coach Kevin Long has emphasized that he doesn’t want his hitters to be overly passive. He just wants them to focus their aggression; to swing at pitches in specific zones.

It’s easier said than done. But at the bare minimum, the hitters are aware of their tendencies, and how they’re being pitched to. This season, Long and assistant hitting coaches Dustin Lind and Rafael Peña began to have regular meetings with players about their at-bats. The goal was to prevent hitters from getting mired in a chase-filled slump.

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“For us, we’re going to have to find a way,” Schwarber said. “It felt like the way that we played throughout this weekend, that we had a lot of chances, and we weren’t able to come through with the big hit there.

“Keep going forward, keep preparing, and go from there. You’ve got to be able to not keep thinking about those last at-bats that are going to weigh you down. You’ve got to think about the next one.”

The Phillies returned home on Monday for a three-game set against the Cubs when they will try to wrap up the NL East title, before their final series of the regular season over the weekend against the Nationals in Washington. Thomson felt that the Phillies’ at-bats on Sunday were a step in the right direction. Time will tell if it’s a sign of better swing decisions to come.

“Actually, tonight I thought we had good at-bats,” Thomson said Sunday. “We put a lot of pitches on [Tylor] Megill early. We hit a lot of balls hard. Schwarber hit the ball hard twice. Castellanos three times, Bohm twice. Four walks. They just didn’t land. We had some opportunities. Just didn’t get it done.”