Max Kepler’s big night quells Phillies fans’ ‘love language’: ‘Got to keep believing in 17′
The embattled left fielder has heard plenty of boos lately from the fans. But he broke through with a two-run homer and a double in a bid to remain in the Phillies’ outfield mix.
When Brandon Marsh’s homer touched down in the right-center field bleachers in the eighth inning Tuesday night, the call went out to the Phillies’ bullpen.
Jhoan Duran could sit down.
Sorry, manager Rob Thomson wasn’t using his new closer with a five-run lead in tow and a 12:35 p.m. matinee on deck Wednesday. Duran’s theatrical entrance — the best new show in town — was canceled for the night, and when Max Lazar came out of the bullpen instead, well, a packed house wasn’t happy.
“They were booing me,” Thomson said after Lazar closed out a 5-0 victory over the Orioles. “That’s all right.”
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Lately, the patrons of Citizens Bank Park have saved their boos for Max Kepler. The embattled left fielder is swinging the bat better these last few weeks, but the numbers on the scoreboard — .200 average, .645 OPS entering play Tuesday — speak loudest.
And so they boo, after every ground ball and strikeout.
“I think it’s their love language,” Kepler said.
The fans spoke a decidedly different dialect, then, when Kepler banged a two-run home run to right field in the second inning to open a 3-0 lead against Orioles starter Dean Kremer and led off the fourth with a double.
There were other unlikely stars, too, as the Phillies (65-48) won their third game in a row and increased their NL East lead to 2½ games over the Mets, the widest gap between the teams since June 15.
Marsh, heating up at the plate, preceded Kepler with an RBI double in the second inning before his solo homer in the eighth.
Taijuan Walker, making what could be his penultimate start in place of injured Aaron Nola, tossed six scoreless, walk-free innings. It was “the best stuff I’ve seen out of him in two years,” Thomson said, and the second time since 2023 that he lasted at least six innings and didn’t yield a run.
Bryson Stott, slumping for much of the season, blooped a single in the second inning, then tripled off the top of the right-field wall to drive in Kepler in the fourth.
But given the persistent questions about the outfield’s composition — and the possibility that Kepler might not be part of the answer — Kepler’s first game with multiple extra-base hits since March 31 was the most notable development.
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“Kep’s a gangster,” Marsh said. “He’s a gamer. Any time he’s out there, we know we’ve got a good chance. Got to keep believing in [No.] 17.”
OK, but last week, when the Phillies’ acquired only one hitter — outfielder Harrison Bader — at the trade deadline and given prospect Justin Crawford’s success in triple A, the presumption was that Kepler’s days on the roster were dwindling. The Phillies owe him approximately $3 million through season’s end. They swallowed more money last year when they dumped Whit Merrifield.
But Thomson said he would run platoons in left field (Kepler and Weston Wilson) and center (Marsh and Bader) through the homestand. And he kept his word, even though Bader hit his first Phillies homer Monday night and has good career numbers against Kremer.
Kepler insists he wasn’t stressed about his precarious spot on the roster before the trade deadline. And after balking last month over his playing time, he said he has grown more comfortable with playing only against lefty starters.
“At this point I’ve accepted it,” he said. “It’s a collective thing moving forward. We want to win ballgames, and I’m going to do whatever I have to do to be a part of this puzzle. I think everyone in that so-called platoon is accepting of that and understanding of that.”
It’s unclear, though, whether Thomson will stick with two outfield timeshares. Bader hit lefties and righties well for the Twins before coming over at the deadline and plays stellar defense in center field and left. Marsh, who also plays both center field and left, is finally starting to have better at-bats against lefties.
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In time, maybe Bader or Marsh will emerge as an everyday choice for Thomson. Or maybe the Phillies will finally call up Crawford.
Or maybe Kepler compels Thomson to keep writing his name on the lineup against right-handed starters.
“Well, it depends on how everybody’s hitting, you know?” Thomson said. “Bader is kind of an even split between right- and left-handed, so you get a benefit there. But Kepler’s had some pretty good at-bats of late, so we’ll see.”
Indeed, Kepler’s underlying metrics — hard-hit rate, expected slugging, walk rate, strikeout rate — indicate someone who should be getting better results.
Maybe this was a start.
Kepler barreled a two-strike fastball from Kremer and hit it out to right field in the second inning. In the fourth, he jumped on a first-pitch curveball and pulled a line drive to right field.
“I’ve gone through stretches where I was hoping to see some balls fall and they didn’t,” Kepler said. “I’ve been hitting the ball to the outfield. I’ve been hitting the ball over 100 [mph]. You can call it unlucky. You can call it good positioning on the defense.
“But it’s baseball, and people just have to grind through it. It’s a beautiful thing, but there’s a lot of ugly to it, too, if you allow it to get to you.”
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Have the struggles gotten to Kepler?
“It does get to me,” he said. “I’m an overthinker, so I try and analyze what I did right or wrong in the past and what’s to come in the future and it takes away from the present.
“Being in a new place, a new setting, you want to make a good impression. I still do. That’s not going to fade until the season’s over and the job is done.”