Three reasons to hope and fear as the Phillies open up the second half

Forget about the National League East. The Phillies are going to have to do it the hard way again. Twelve games behind the Braves in the division, they open up the second-half schedule on Friday with an NL Championship Series rematch against San Diego.

The goal now is to give themselves a chance. Complicating matters is the emergence of three unforeseen competitors in the wild-card race. Pitching is the reason to believe in the Marlins (53-39) and Diamondbacks (52-39) and doubt the Reds (50-41). It’s also the reason the Brewers (49-42) are always good for a second-half fade.

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With two teams from the NL East (Braves, Marlins), two from the NL West (Dodgers, Diamondbacks), and one from the NL Central (Reds or Brewers), that would leave the Phillies, Giants (49-41), and one other team (Reds or Brewers) fighting for the last spot.

Three reasons to hope, three reasons to fear.

At some point in the next few months, everybody is going to forget all of the hand-wringing about Harper. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens within a couple of weeks. That’s how fast things tend to turn for BH3.

Remember what everyone was saying about Harper before last year’s playoffs? Of course you don’t, because the guy spent the month of October knocking the rubber out of the rawhide: six home runs, 13 extra-base hits, a 1.160 OPS in 71 plate appearances. Same ol’ Bryce, right?

That wasn’t the case at the end of September. After a two-month absence because of thumb surgery, Harper hit just three home runs and 10 extra-base hits with a .676 OPS in his last 151 plate appearances of the regular season. The Phillies went just 16-19 in the 35 games he played down the stretch. Then, he flipped the switch.

The same thing will happen this season. Remember, Harper is barely eight months removed from Tommy John surgery. His offseason routine was postponed by several months. It’s no surprise his power is lagging too. It will come.

In fact, it may already be coming. Harper was on a sneaky little tear heading into the All-Star break with four extra-base hits in his last 26 at-bats. That’s the same number of extra-base hits he’d had in his previous 109 at-bats. He still hasn’t homered in a long, long time: 36 games, dating back to May 25. But if the doubles are coming, it won’t be long before they are followed by a bunch of the ones that make it over the fence. A hot Harper is the only thing this offense is missing right now. If it’s accompanied by a hot Trea Turner, look out.

A much bigger concern than Harper is the eighth inning. Nobody should count on Alvarado coming to the rescue. Even before he returned to the injured list, he wasn’t the same guy he’d been. The 2.31 ERA looks good, but it was a fourth of that before his first stint on the IL. More concerning was the walk rate. Before he hit the IL, he hadn’t walked a batter in 14-plus innings. After he came back, he walked nine in 11⅔.

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The Phillies’ best hope is that Seranthony Domínguez returns from an oblique injury in his side and is the pitcher he was for a 22-game stretch from mid-April to early June (0.47 ERA, 5 walks, 22 strikeouts in 19 innings). That would give the Phillies some real hope of regularly shutting down the seventh and eighth innings. Pay no attention to Gregory Soto’s overall numbers. Of the 16 earned runs he allowed, a whopping 13 came in just four outings totaling 2⅓ innings. He put up zeroes in 31 of his 38 outings.

Wheeler, in particular. His 4.05 ERA is a far cry from what we’ve come to expect. But he is doing the things that you expect good pitchers to do: miss bats, limit walks, keep the ball in the ballpark. Look at his Fielding Independent Percentage, a metric that attempts to quantify in ERA-like terms the outcomes that a pitcher directly controls. Wheeler’s is 2.83, which suggests that his run total is due for some reverse regression to the mean. There are definitely some concerns. Last year, he hit seven batters with pitches all season. He has already equaled that total this year. His ground ball rate is modestly down, as is his strike rate. But the Phillies are 12-6 in his starts as it is.

Nola has been awfully tough to figure. I’m curious if some All-Star break self-scouting might help the guy disguise his pitches a little better. The Marlins certainly appeared to be guessing right with authority throughout his most recent outing. The strikeout rate is encouraging (77 in his last 63⅓ innings). The home runs have killed him (14 during that stretch).

Over his last nine starts, he pitched at a 208-inning pace with a 2.13 ERA and the Phillies were 8-1. There are some very real reasons for the turnaround. His splitter can be a devastatingly effective pitch, and it has been throughout this stretch. He’s been relying on it heavily — 36% of his pitches have been splitters — and to good effect. He’s also been utilizing his cutter more: 20% in his last nine starts, 7% before that.

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The most likely scenario for the second half is that Walker is a less extreme version of the pitcher he was in the first half. That’s more or less what they signed him to be.

It’s hard to believe that we’re watching the same guy who walked 36 batters in his last 52⅓ innings across the majors and the minors before June. That said, he has looked like this for a month now, with just five walks in 33 innings over his last six outings between triple A and the majors. The Phillies have long refused to give up the hope that Sanchez would turn into a capable No. 5 starter. Maybe there was a reason for that.

The Andrew Painter dream is officially dead after a recurrence of discomfort in his elbow. Mick Abel has a 5.95 ERA in his last eight starts at double-A Reading. Griff McGarry has walked 18 batters in his last 15 innings. The options are slim.

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