The offense, it’s offensive: Yankees 3, Phillies 1

When the Phillies struggle on offense as a collective, there is usually a simple recipe for it:

1. The stars slump

2. Everyone starts pressing and swinging at bad pitches

3. There are bad swing decisions

Everyone starts pressing and swinging at bad pitches

The offense is in the middle of one of those stretches right now where everyone is trying to do too much, swinging at bad pitches, trying to hit a seven run home run and now, we have a four game losing streak.

And tonight, they even struck first! Trea Turner gets hit by a pitch, Kyle Schwarber doubles, newly shorn Bryce Harper hits a sacrifice fly and all of a sudden, there is a 1-0 Phillies lead and a runner on third base. Little did we know that that was the only run that would be scored on the evening.

On the mound, Tim Mayza was the opener and did a fine job over two shutout innings, giving way to Brian Keller in his major league debut. Keller did give up a home run to Austin Wells, but for the most part, did just fine in keeping the Yankees off the board, only allowing a single run over three innings. Clearly, the coaching staff did not want Keller out there too long, instead opting to go to the bullpen in the sixth inning instead.

In that inning, Kyle Backhus walked the first hitter he faced before getting the next two on strikeouts, giving way to Seth Johnson. Johnson looked like a decent candidate to break out as a reliever, but it just has not come to fruition. He gave up back to back hits to allow Wells to score and give the Yankees the lead.

Meanwhile, the offense was generating some traffic against Weathers, but couldn’t push anything across. In the sixth, they got runners on the corners with Bryan de la Cruz and J.T. Realmuto each singling, but facing Angel Chivilli, Bryson Stott popped out into foul territory to end the threat. The Yankees tacked on another in the seventh on a Jasson Dominguez home run and that was basically that.

The offense is just slumping so badly right now and everyone is trying to swing their way out of it. The Yankees have been pitching well prior to this series and have carried it over into Philadelphia, but still, there should be better at bats coming from this lineup. They’ll try and salvage a game tomorrow night on Sunday Night Baseball with Cristopher Sanchez on the mound, so we’ll see.