After a blistering start to the season, the Philadelphia Phillies have come back down to earth, particularly offensively. They slashed .259/.331/.424 in the first half, the second half has seen a decline to .246/.307/.399.
That’s a 5.6 percent drop in OPS. Struggles with breaking balls have been one of the pronounced concerns with the Phillies, who have been game-planned against explicitly to see fewer fastballs and more breaking pitches.
Friday, the Phillies are trying a simple tweak: Using the curveball machine in batting practice. Rob Thompson told reporters Thursday that players see curveballs in the batting cages in the clubhouse daily, but the thinking is that getting curveballs from the machine out on the stadium will help build a better mental picture for how the pitch tends to break.
“They do it in the cages every day,” Rob Thomson said in an article for The Athletic by Matt Gelb. “But I think it’s more beneficial on the field because you get to see the flight of the ball.” Batters, despite the nearly full-lineup slump, have appeared unconcerned.
“I don’t think it’s a concern, it’s more weird, you know, for us. I don’t think it’s anything, you know, we’re necessarily doing wrong. We’re preparing, we’re doing all our stuff we normally do,” Trea Turner said after a 3-2 loss to the Braves Thursday.
Perhaps a bit more urgency would be warranted, though. Braves starter Spencer Schwellenbach pitched 6.2 innings (three hits, two earned runs, one walk, nine strikeouts) in Thursday’s Braves win and admitted his game plan was simple: Attack with the curve. “Same scouting report.
Harper and Schwarber in the lineup this time around, but watching the last couple of games, they struggled with curveballs. … Later in the game that’s kind of what I leaned on,” H/T Gelb.
Gelb’s analysis on the fastball decline is astute. Here’s a look at the last eight losses for Philadelphia and how the starting pitcher’s profile changed: With the exception of Nelson on August 9, each of the last eight losses for the Phillies featured a pitcher that either increased their curveball usage or decreased their fastball usage, or both (two did both, and Gallen doesn’t use a curveball).
It seems the scouting report has really leaked of late, with the last four losses featuring three starting pitchers that increased their curveball usage by an average of 6.2%. The curveball machine is well-timed. We’ll see how it pans out for Thompson and the Phils, who still have a 6.0 game lead over the Braves in the NL East.
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