The bullpen, Aaron Nola, and (maybe) Kyle Schwarber: Reasons for the Phillies to fret

The leadoff hitter is still hitting a preposterous .190.

The co-ace is still Mr. One Big Inning.

The back end of the bullpen is still a murky, foggy question mark.

Anyone who’s followed the Phillies and Philadelphia sports over the past, say, century, is predisposed to pessimism. You always wait for the other shoe to drop. Hope does not spring, eternal or otherwise.

Which is why the next 16 games hold so much anxiety for so many. The Phillies began a three-game series at San Diego on Monday night, host the Marlins and Braves for seven games beginning Friday, then head to St. Louis and Atlanta for six more starting next Friday.

» READ MORE: Phillies thoughts: Optimal lineup hinges on Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber’s bizarre season, and more

The good news: Trea Turner’s turned back into Captain America, Bryce Harper’s repaired elbow is strong enough to crank homers again, and ace Zack Wheeler has delivered 10 straight quality starts.

The bad news: Kyle Schwarber remains on track to record his worst full season in five years, co-ace Aaron Nola is giving the team a chance to win only about half the time, and the bullpen’s cornerstones, closer Craig Kimbrel and setup men Jose Alvarado and Serathony Domínguez, are either aged or injured. They’re not just leaking oil, they’re burning it.

Going into their game on Monday night, the Phillies were only two games ahead of the Cubs for the first wild-card slot, and holding the top wild-card seed conveys home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Given the intensity of Red Octobers, that might mean more in Philadelphia than in any other site in major league history.

That said, 13 of the next 16 games are completely losable (the Cards are the National League’s second-worst team, and, worse, they’ve quit). But the Marlins are in the wild-card hunt, the Braves are playing for home-field advantage through the World Series, and the Padres don’t stink. They might be 5½ games out of the wild-card race, but they entered Monday with a plus-62 run differential. They have an average offense but have a pitching staff that ranks fourth in the majors with a 3.79 ERA. They gave up just four runs to the Giants in the last three games of their four-game set, all of which the Padres won.

Over the next 2½ weeks the performances of Schwarber, Nola, and the back end of the bullpen likely will predict whether the Phillies return to the World Series.

In 2021, Nola gave the Phillies a reasonable chance to win in 22 of 32 starts. In 2022, He went 22-for-32.

He’s just 16-for-28 in 2023. He’s incredibly durable but increasingly less dependable and effective. The reason is obvious: He’d never pitched as much as he did in 2022. Including the postseason, Nola logged 230⅔ innings. Also, he’d never pitched in the playoffs. Finally, he turned 30 in June. Nola’s a stud, but Father Time is undefeated.

» READ MORE: Phillies’ Trea Turner reveals the secret behind his season-turning hot streak. He got a grip.

There’s an answer here. Ranger Suárez returned to the rotation Sunday. Looked good. So, skip Nola’s next turn Friday. Maybe skip him twice.

It’s not a punishment. It’s management. He and Kimbrel can sit in the clubhouse and play canasta.

Kimbrel’s loss of control cost him the closer’s job with the Dodgers late in 2022. Since the start of August, in his last 12 outings, Kimbrel is 1-3, has blown two of six save chances, and often not only seems unable to hit the presented target, but has trouble coming within 6 inches of it.

He’s 35. He’s pitched in 60 games already, and he’s on track to pitch in 71 games, which would be the second-most of his career; he pitched in 79 games when he was 23. He deserved his All-Star appearance, but the workload has been overwhelming.

» READ MORE: How the Phillies might dole out playing time in an overcrowded outfield in September

He looked strong when he saved Sunday’s game in Milwaukee, but that was on three days’ rest. That was not coincidental. He looked shaky again in the eighth inning of Monday’s win in San Diego, walking two, giving up three stolen bases by ignoring runners, and needing 26 pitches to escape it all.

The Phillies won’t sit him for a week, but they should. It’s become obvious that, if they, they use him more than once a week, it would be irresponsible. It’s about October, not September.

Schwarber presents the most vexing conundrum in recent Phillies history. He’s hit 85 home runs in 290 regular-season games as a Phillie, the most of any National League player over that time. He’s also hit .205, fourth-worst among the 64 players who’ve hit at least 40 homers in that span, with a .330 on-base percentage, which is 35th. His OPS is .815, which ranks 25th.

The problem is, on this team, Schwarber apparently can only hit leadoff. Turner is the more logical leadoff hitter, but since moving back to the leadoff spot June 2 his average is .210 (whoopee!) and his OPS is .866 in 79 games, in which the team is 49-30. In his 56 games before that, Schwarber’s average was .160 and his OPS was .699, and the Phillies were 25-31.

Schwarber was effective hitting third in the lineup for 20 games this season, but Harper hits third, so that’s not an option for Schwarber on this team.

Of course, every time I start to worry about this he reaches base five times in one game, as he did Monday.

Does this mean that if Schwarber slumps in the next two weeks, or in October, the Phillies’ offense is sunk? Not necessarily.

Schwarber went 1-for-20 to start the 2022 playoffs, and the Phillies won five of those six games. Of course, in two of those wins Nola pitched a combined 12⅔ innings and gave up one run.

It took Nola 25 starts to deliver back-to-back starts at that level this season, and then he fell apart Saturday night.

The back end of the ‘pen needs to settle in.

Gregory Soto has given up eight earned runs in his last 11 outings. He’s on pace to break his career high of 64 games pitched, set last season, which exceeded his 2021 total of 62, but he’s 28. Alvarado has given up five runs in his last three outings, has battled an elbow issue all year, and has been anything but dominant; he walked two in the ninth Monday but hung on.

Domínguez blew a save last week, but he’s regained the form he lost after a stint on the IL with an oblique strain; he hasn’t surrendered a run in six outings.

These guys need to carry the staff — strong holds, shut-down late innings, maybe a converted save opportunity or two, like Alvarado on Monday — over the next couple of weeks.

» READ MORE: Bryce Harper, $330 million bargain? Sizing up his first five years with the Phillies, and what’s ahead.