Phillies need a change, but only in the way they are playing the game | Bob Brookover

It was a beautiful day for baseball at Citizens Bank Park. It was, at least, until the Phillies actually started playing baseball. A clear blue sky, perfect temperature and low humidity could not act as a perfume for the brand of bad that has become synonymous with the ballclub over the last three-plus weeks.

“There’s no magic potion,” left fielder Jay Bruce declared after the Phillies lost their seventh straight game.

Confirmation of that had been provided by the last-place Miami Marlins over the weekend. They arrived in Philadelphia on Friday with the worst record in the National League and they left with the worst record, too. They did, however, manage to execute a three-game sweep of the Phillies, finishing it off with a 6-4 win Sunday.

This was the series that was supposed to help the Phillies get back on track after they lost five of six games in Atlanta and Washington. Instead, it became a lost weekend that amplified fan discontent. Summer has just begun, but fans at Citizens Bank Park are already spelling the football team’s name and counting the days to the start of training camp. When Roman Quinn’s foul ball landed in the glove of Marlins catcher Bryan Holaday in the bottom of the ninth inning to end the game, the boos targeted at the entire team were as clear as the blue sky.

And, of course, cries for somebody to lose their job over this mess are growing by the day, too. Manager Gabe Kapler is the frontrunner in that department right now, but we strongly recommend that you do not hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

It is not the sentiment in either the front office or the clubhouse.

“First of all, I’m not the one making the decisions around here,” Bruce said. “I’m here to play and I think pointing fingers at anyone wouldn’t be the right thing. This is a long play here and I think we have the team here to get to where everyone who is watching us wants us to get. We just have to stay the course. We have to play better obviously … but we have to continue to come in here every single day and expect a lot of ourselves and we do that. We do that every day.”

That actually is a bone of contention with the fans right now. They are unhappy with shortstop Jean Segura and second baseman Cesar Hernandez for their recent failure to run after putting balls in play and they believe Kapler has allowed them to get away with it. Kapler insists that both players have been duly admonished for their actions, but those reprimands have not come in the form of a benching for either player.

Here’s the thing: If Segura and Hernandez ran out every single ball they hit, the Phillies would still only be hitting .222 and averaging 3.7 runs per game over their last 22 games. Add in the team’s 5.59 ERA during that same stretch and there’s really no mystery to why they’ve gone 6-16 while watching a 3 ½-game lead over the Atlanta Braves in the N.L. East become a 6 ½-game deficit.

Bruce’s perspective is unique because he really just got here. Most of the good this team accomplished in the season’s first two months was without him. He saw it from afar, but he believes it was real.

“We just haven’t been playing well,” he said. “That’s the bottom line. There’s no sense sugarcoating it or trying to figure out exactly what it is or why it is. We just haven’t played well. We’re much better than we’ve played. I’ve only been here 20 days or whatever it is, but I’m not blind. We’re a good team, a very good team.

“Obviously that’s one of the biggest reasons I decided to come over here because of the talent here and the opportunity that was in front of me and I don’t feel that has changed one bit. I really don’t.”

His opinion is one worth listening to. Bruce went to the postseason five times in his first 11 seasons, so he has an idea of what a good team and what a bad team looks like.

Losing Andrew McCutchen to a torn ACL was a significant blow, but it should not be a season destroyer. Firing Kapler, the hitting coach, or the pitching coach is not going to fix what ails the Phillies right now either.

“Go to work,” Kapler said when asked where the Phillies go from here Sunday. “Every single day. We don’t stay the course. We make adjustments, so we’re doing little things better.”

The manager followed with a long list of things he plans to do, but really those are not the answer either. Baseball teams are put together in the offseason and typically they are either good enough to make the playoffs or they are not. Either Jay Bruce is right about the Phillies being good or he is not.

Yes, trade deadline additions can help and general manager Matt Klentak should continue to make phone calls in an attempt to upgrade his roster. But that will not be enough unless the current roster is good enough.

“Honestly, it’s hard to fathom this or imagine this from a fans’ standpoint, but you have to try to divorce yourself from the results as much as possible,” Bruce said. “You can’t chase results. It’s a very, very hard game and a very fleeting game and it’s a game that is predicated off failure. We have to stick to what we know works and that’s coming in here every day and preparing mentally and physically … then rolling it out there and playing good, hard baseball. It’s not always easy and the results aren’t always going to be what you want, but you have to keep pointing north.”

This recent stretch may well have cost the Phillies a chance to win their division. But if they are good enough, and the first two months are an indication that they could be, they will recover from their three-week tailspin and still push for a spot in the postseason. If they are not, a lot of people will pay the consequences once the season is over.

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