PHILADELPHIA — For 33 days, Trea Turner has had a front-row seat to one of the best shows in baseball. The $300 million shortstop with a hamstring injury is reduced to a spectator, and he hates it, but it has afforded him a rare chance to observe the Phillies. Typically, Turner finds a place on the dugout railing next to veteran infield coach Bobby Dickerson.
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Sometimes Turner disappears to watch from the underground batting cage. There are various camera angles (with delayed feeds) on a big screen. Turner is studying his teammates’ at-bats, but he can see everything else too.
“There’s not a seat open,” Turner said.
The Phillies have felt what it’s like at Citizens Bank Park in October. It’s unparalleled. But they have created this thing that demands everyone’s attention weeks before the official start of summer. It fills a ballpark on a random weeknight in May. It comes with a certain pride. It is a party.
“Crazy,” Turner said.
Nasty Casty#RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/hGKEcL0kZF
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) June 5, 2024
The Phillies (44-19) are 25 games over .500. They have an eight-game lead in the division after sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers, one of the three other teams in the National League with a winning record. The Phillies have lost nine games since April 25. They have lost those games by a combined 15 runs. Five of those losses have come in extra innings. Again, for emphasis: They have been beaten four times in regulation over the past 41 days.
They are 22-8 since Turner went down. He has noticed something else during that time.
“Some teams struggle going from the underdog to the favorite,” Turner said. “And I think we’ve done a good job at it because of the people we have, the players we have. We’re not really satisfied with a lot. We play really well with the underdog mentality. But then we’re expected to win 90 percent of our games because of the roster we have.”
This was a transition last season that took longer than the Phillies expected.
“Now,” Turner said, “we’re obviously hoping that this year is the precedent for many years to come. We’re expected to win, and we know we’re expected to win. But it’s how you deal with that. Not all teams deal with it well.”
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The Phillies have scored the most runs in Major League Baseball this season. They have the lowest rotation ERA in MLB. They have the lowest bullpen ERA in MLB since May 1. The season is almost 40 percent complete, and the Phillies are still on pace to win 113 games.
Something special is happening here.
The Phillies and their fans — who’ve packed Citizens Bank Park with an average attendance of nearly 40,000 per game — are riding a wave this season. (Bill Streicher / USA Today)
Nick Castellanos had an exclusive time reserved on the field more than three hours before every game during this homestand. Rafael Pena, one of the club’s assistant hitting coaches, met him on the field. It is rare for the entire group to take batting practice together at the scheduled time — Bryce Harper and J.T. Realmuto almost never hit outside. Neither does Turner.
But Castellanos wanted something different: a private batting practice. He values feel over everything else. The Phillies obliged. A bunch of staff members have joined Pena and stand in the outfield to retrieve the balls Castellanos hits. He’ll take hacks in a sleeveless shirt with a black earbud in his right ear.
“Getting out there a little bit early, I feel like I can take my time a little bit,” Castellanos said, “fully feel the things that I want to feel. It seems to be working.”
Nick Castellanos is the #walkoff hero for the @Phillies! pic.twitter.com/4nd6Eu7W3t
— MLB (@MLB) June 5, 2024
Castellanos dug a deep hole to begin this season, and as he languished, the Phillies rose. His manager did not waver. Castellanos would continue to play — every single game. The veteran appreciated that and reciprocated that faith in his way. He’ll often do more extra pregame work than any player on the roster. He is hitting .214/.277/.353 this season, well below what the Phillies expect him to do.
He won Tuesday’s game with a walk-off double in the 10th inning. “This game beats you down for the little victories,” he said in an on-field postgame interview with NBC Sports Philadelphia. Then, Wednesday afternoon, he secured another win with a two-run homer, the only runs scored by either team.
“The team success is far greater than my own personal success,” Castellanos said. “Thanks to my teammates and how good they’ve been playing, it’s been easy to keep me focused on the things that are important. Right? And that’s just winning the game that is today.”
And when those who carried the Phillies for months slumped, Castellanos stepped into a leading role.
“I mean, I’ll take it,” he said. “As long as we’re winning.”
Castellanos and Taijuan Walker, two of the weaker links on one of the best teams in baseball this season, have gravitated toward each other. Both would love to play bigger roles. For now, they are applying the standard the Phillies have set.
Do your job. Keep trying to make it better.
“There’s no drama,” Walker said. “No one’s out of line. There’s nothing messy. We just handle our business. And I think it is because we have so many veterans. That’s the biggest thing. We’re an older team, but we’re not old. We’ve all been around. We’ve all been on losing teams. We’ve all been on winning teams. We just know how to handle ourselves and how to go about our business. I feel like we know this is the year. We have to take care of business this year.”
The Phillies swarm Nick Castellanos after his walk-off double against the Brewers on Tuesday. (Bill Streicher / USA Today)
The Phillies have won 23 of their last 26 games at home. They secured their seventh series sweep by scoring a mere seven runs in three games. The Brewers came to Citizens Bank Park averaging the second-highest runs scored per game in the National League. The Phillies held them to two runs in 28 innings.
Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suárez and Cristopher Sánchez have combined for a 2.36 ERA in 305 1/3 innings this season. Nola is sixth in the NL in ERA … and fourth on his team.
Aaron Nola pitched seven scoreless innings against the Brewers to lower his ERA to 2.77. (Kyle Ross / USA Today)
The largest deficit the Phillies have faced since May 1 was five runs — for an inning — in a May 26 game at the Colorado Rockies. Philadelphia trailed by four runs for the last two innings of a May 27 game at the San Francisco Giants. In total, three Phillies pitchers threw a combined 68 pitches with a deficit of four or more runs since May 1.
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“We never feel like we’re out of a game,” Realmuto said.
“I can’t really remember off the top of my head how many losses we’ve had where we haven’t been in it since the beginning of the game,” Castellanos said.
The Phillies are on a historic pace but not doing outlandish things. The pitching has been remarkable. The offense, though still generating runs, has not clicked. The general reaction inside the clubhouse to Harper winning National League player of the month for May was tepid because everyone — including Harper — knows he’s even better.
“We haven’t blown people out,” Turner said, “which we will do and we can do.”
So, when the pitching regresses a bit, the hitting should compensate. Until then, the Phillies are riding this wave.
“It’s incredible,” manager Rob Thomson said. “It really is.”
Something special is happening.
“Coming from somebody that’s been on a lot of bad teams, yes, I can definitely appreciate it,” Castellanos said. “Winning is so much fun, honestly. And it solves every problem in an organization. There’s no doubt about that. But the realist in me knows that there’s so much baseball left. And it’s not how you start; it’s how you finish.”
GO DEEPERTwo years of Rob Thomson, the trusting manager who helped change everything for the PhilliesGO DEEPERDavid Dahl joins the party as the Phillies begin the outfield replacements dance(Top photo of Nick Castellanos celebrating his two-run homer with Garrett Stubbs: Laurence Kesterson / Associated Press)
Matt Gelb is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Philadelphia Phillies. He has covered the team since 2010 while at The Philadelphia Inquirer, including a yearlong pause from baseball as a reporter on the city desk. He is a graduate of Syracuse University and Central Bucks High School West.
