It’s almost time for the Phillies to focus on 2023 and beyond. Almost.

With an injured MVP and a hopeless pitching staff, the Phillies need to keep their focus on the future as the MLB trade deadline draws closer.

Phillies interim manager Rob Thomson after a pitching change against the Arizona Diamondbacks on June 11.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

by David Murphy | Columnist

Published Jun. 28, 2022, 8:02 p.m. ET

The sun was out and the humidity was low and Bryce Harper was headed for hand surgery. Rob Thomson couldn’t change any of it, so he did what he had been doing for 23 games and chose to focus on all that was positive outside of his control.

Someone mentioned Ronald Acuña and the Braves’ second-half surge to the World Series last year that coincided with the loss of their young centerpiece star. Thomson countered with his own for-instance: 2003, an opening-day collision at third base that left Yankees star Derek Jeter with a dislocated shoulder that cost him 36 games. He just as easily could have pointed to 2011, when Jeter strained a calf in June and missed three weeks.

Both years, the Yankees went on to win the division, thanks in no small part to their ability to win 38 of their 54 games with the star shortstop on the shelf. That included a 24-12 mark that followed Jeter’s opening-day injury in 2003.

“I still like our club,” Thomson said on Tuesday as he sat in the home dugout at Citizens Bank Park and watched his hitters take early batting practice. “We’re going to move forward.”

That’s the right approach. For now. But the Phillies can’t afford to wait too long for that forward movement to occur. If 2022 ends up being the wash that objectivity currently suggests, the worst thing they can do is throw good seasons after bad. At some point, the focus will need to turn to the things that must be done to put the organization in the best possible position for 2023 and beyond. Is there a market for J.T. Realmuto? Who is starting at first base two years from now? Is there a way to inject some quality near-major-league-ready pitching talent into the minor league system? Does it make sense for Harper to come back at all, or should he pour all of his effort into repairing the elbow injury that has relegated him to DH duty for much of the season?

The clock on these and other questions officially started on Saturday night, when Harper was hit on the thumb by a pitch in a 4-2 win over the Padres. While the Phillies did not put a timetable on their superstar’s return when announcing that he would undergo surgery to stabilize his thumb, the layoff is more likely to be in multiples of months than weeks.

They’ll need much less time than that to figure out how to proceed.

The Phillies’ series opener against the Braves on Tuesday was the start of a crucial stretch that will see them play 12 out of 15 games against teams that entered the day at least eight games over .500. That includes 10 games against the Braves and Cardinals, both of whom are ahead of them in the NL wild-card standings.

“We plan on being in the mix,” Thomson said.

There’s nothing wrong with hope as long as it does not become a currency. Even with Harper, the Phillies were a baseball team whose flaws were so fundamental that you had to wonder whether they could afford to prioritize the present at the Aug. 2 MLB trade deadline. The pitching situation is not one of those things that can be rectified cheaply. Matt Moore and Ian Kennedy did not cut it last season. Their 2022 equivalents won’t fare any differently.

The Phillies are at least two shutdown innings a night away from being a team that inspires any degree of confidence for the stretch run and beyond. That could take a number of different forms: a playoff-worthy starter plus a legit high-leverage arm, a couple of high-leverage arms plus a back-of-the-rotation piece ... mix and match all you want.

The fact of the matter is, the Phillies are expecting to send Bailey Falter out to the mound at least twice in the next 10 days as Zach Eflin attempts to recover from his latest bout of knee soreness. In 53⅔ innings in the majors, Falter has allowed 34 runs and 10 home runs, including 13 and five in 20 innings this season. Whenever Eflin returns, he’ll be riding a stretch of six starts in which he has allowed 18 runs in 31 innings. Combine that with Kyle Gibson’s current trend toward regression — the veteran righty has allowed 17 runs in 26⅓ innings in his last five starts after entering June with a 3.83 ERA — and there are plenty of red flags.

Eflin, Gibson, Ranger Suárez — that’s a back of the rotation that needs good backup. The Phillies don’t have it, and the only place they might potentially find it is the trade market. That’s a dangerous position to be in for a team that is hovering around .500 and just lost its MVP.

As for the loss of that MVP, it’s worth considering just how much the Phillies are losing. Heading into Tuesday, the Phillies had won 17 of 23 games since Thomson replaced Joe Girardi on the bench. In those 23 games, the Phillies scored 122 runs, an average of 5.3 per game. Of those 122 runs, Harper was responsible for scoring or driving in 26, an average of 1.13 per game that grows to 1.37 when you account for the fact that he did not play in four games. He reached base 35 times, hit five home runs, and walked as many times as he struck out (11).

Obviously, the best-case scenario is for the Phillies to continue to win games at a 17-of-23 clip for as long as Harper is sidelined. Anything short of that, and the focus should turn to 2023.