After All-Star snub, Phillies stars have some making up to do in second half

Nick Castellanos will be dancing on his own at the All-Star Game in Seattle next week. No Bryce Harper. No Trea Turner. No Kyle Schwarber. No Aaron Nola. No Zack Wheeler.

None of the guys who were supposed to be The Guys. That’s pretty crazy to consider, especially if you read the menu right to left. It’s also kind of fitting.

In fact, it tells you everything you need to know about where things stand with these Phillies.

They are close. So close that they might already be here. There’s a chance that the narrative will have changed by this time next week.

We’ll look back on the Phillies 3-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday afternoon as the day the night sky officially began to clear.

Harper went 2-for-4 with a double, an RBI, and a run. Nola pitched 7⅓ innings with 12 strikeouts while scattering six baserunners. José Alvarado and Craig Kimbrel took care of the rest.

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The seventh and eighth innings brought the kind of sequence that was and is the path to 95-plus wins.

Harper doubles and later scores to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead. Nola shuts down the Rays in the following half inning with two strikeouts and a groundout. Schwarber leads off the next inning with single. Harper drives him home with a two-out base hit.

It feels so repeatable when it happens like this.

Now, suddenly, they are 45-39, winners of 10 straight on the road, including the first of a three-game series against the second-best team in the majors. That may not sound impressive, but consider a couple of things:

The one exception is 2011, the year they became one of the best teams in MLB history to not win a pennant. Otherwise, here are their records through 84 games for every season in which they were at least somewhat relevant.

2023: 45-39

2022: 45-39

2021: 41-43

2020: N/A

2019: 44-40

2018: 47-37

2012: 37-47

2011: 52-31

2010: 44-40

2009: 46-38

2008: 45-39

Everyone forgets how ordinary those 2008-11 teams were before the All-Star break.

It has become easy to forget what it can mean when Nola is as dominant as he was on Tuesday.

This was just the fourth time in 18 starts this season that he went at least seven innings while allowing two or fewer runs. Last year, he did it in 11 of 32 outings.

Somehow, they only went 6-5 in those games. But look at those six wins. In five of them, they scored four or fewer runs. The ability to win games like that makes a world of difference. They need more of that.

Same goes for Harper. He has now gone 32 consecutive games without hitting a home run, a mind-boggling stretch in which his only extra base hits have been six doubles. Two of those doubles have come in his last six games. So … maybe?

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There’s every reason to think that they will come, starting with the fact that they always end up coming. In the interim, he’s giving them plenty.

They are six games over .500 in the 52 games he has played since returning from elbow surgery. They are 10 games over .500 in his last 58.

Turner is a slightly different story. His last month is pretty close to being within the range of his career norms: .292/.370/.427 for a .798 OPS.

He’s still taking some curiously bad swings, still striking out at a higher-than-usual pace. The power isn’t close to where it was during his peak seasons in 2019-22. But maybe those seasons will be the outliers.

Schwarber? He’s finally fine. Forget about the batting average. The guy hit .188 in 2020 and .218 last season. He gets paid to hit dingers, and he’s been doing that for close to two months now. Thirteen home runs and an .846 OPS since May 16. That’ll do.

The Phillies are where they are because of the real All-Stars of the first three months. That starts with Kimbrel, who has been the best closer in the National League for nearly two months now.

Against the Rays on Tuesday, he struck out two of three batters to record his 10th save since May 9. He has struck out nearly half of the batters faced during that stretch: 39 of 85.

That’s more than double his on-base percentage. In 23 innings, he’s allowed three runs, nine hits, five walks, two home runs

He has been as good as anybody in the majors. That ain’t no hyperbole. Check out where his numbers ranked in the month-and-half leading into Tuesday.

ERA: 1.23 (fourth)

K/9: 15.1 (second)

WHIP: 0.636 (first)

K/BB: 7.40 (second)

Combine that with Kimbrel’s perfect 10-for-10 record in save opportunities, and the only closer who has been more dominant is the Orioles’ Felix Bautista (15 saves, 0.78 ERA, 19.6 K/9).

The Phillies’ other honorable mentions go to Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh, both of whom have spent the majority of the season as better-than-league-average hitters.

All that’s missing is the guys who have always been the stars. They won’t be there for Rob Thomson in Seattle. But he’ll need them in the second half.