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<\/p>\nPHILADELPHIA \u2014 When Brandon Marsh steps into the cage shortly after batting practice ends, his audience is typically just the Phillies\u2019 hitting coaches. There, in an echoing room tucked beneath the stands of Citizens Bank Park, Marsh finds his feel for his swing each day.<\/p>\n
He starts with some swings to center, then to left, to right. There is no set number. Whenever it feels right, he moves on. Some parts of his routine have changed this season \u2014 heading to the cage closer to game time, cutting back on swings, just trying to keep things simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of just going \u2018swing, swing, swing\u2019 and trying to find something and feel something,\u201d Marsh said, \u201c(I\u2019m) really slowing down and lowering the effort level. Letting me feel my body and see where everything\u2019s at has helped.\u201d<\/p>\n
These little moments of feeling in the fluorescent-lit room precede the bigger ones that come before a ballpark packed with 40,000 people. Marsh has had plenty this season: his first home run against a left-handed starter since July 2022, collecting 15 hits and nine RBIs in 52 at-bats against lefties, earning his place as an everyday starter after struggling to hit lefties for his entire career.<\/p>\n
After nearly four years of discussion of what Marsh is not, the focus has shifted to what he is: a strong All-Star candidate who can hit lefties and righties. A left fielder who has the second-best average and a top-20 OPS in MLB since June 1, 2025. A contender for the National League batting title, owning a .332 average in 62 games this season. A key Phillies player whose OPS (.878) isn\u2019t far off from Kyle Schwarber\u2019s (.918) and is just above Bryce Harper\u2019s (.872).<\/p>\n
It is a version of Marsh that coaches and teammates believed he could be, finally emerging in his fifth season in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
When given extended playing time against lefty starters in the past, Marsh often struggled. Entering 2026, he had a career .213\/.278\/.303 slash line versus lefties (423 at-bats). This season, he is hitting .288\/.333\/.442 against them. How?<\/p>\n
\u201cJust experience,\u201d said Marsh, 28. \u201cJust learning more and more every day, and getting a little more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe trusts himself more,\u201d hitting coach Kevin Long says of Brandon Marsh, who is third in the majors with a .332 batting average. (Emilee Chinn \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
There was no lightbulb moment, no sudden change that took Marsh from a platoon outfielder to one of baseball\u2019s best hitters. So much of this came with time.<\/p>\n
It goes back to the cage, where Marsh\u2019s sessions are relatively peaceful. He is \u201cultra-focused on what he needs to do,\u201d hitting coach Kevin Long said. It was not always that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe used to beat himself up a lot,\u201d Long said. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t even get through his routine without something going haywire. Two bad swings would lead to a complete meltdown. \u2026 Pitch selection could throw him off. (Now) he doesn\u2019t get rattled.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the same in the field, outfield coach Paco Figueroa said. If Marsh made a mistake on a drill, Figueroa said, \u201cthe world ended.\u201d As Figueroa worked with Marsh over the years, the coach\u2019s messaging was consistent: \u201cYou have all the talent in the world,\u201d he would tell the two-time Gold Glove Award finalist. \u201cBut it\u2019s what\u2019s between the ears.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marsh said little mistakes, like not being able to hit a flip where he wanted to, would have bothered him in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve always been a perfectionist with everything I\u2019ve done,\u201d said Marsh, a former top prospect in the Los Angeles Angels system. \u201cIt\u2019s helped for sure, but also hurts you at the same time. Just having to teeter with that feeling of being too hard on yourself and trying to be too perfect because this game\u2019s so hard. You\u2019re going to fail. You\u2019re going to fail 70 percent (of the time) and make the Hall of Fame.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watching his Phillies teammates, Marsh said, helped him accept this. He saw them laughing at themselves and moving on when they made mistakes. Now he tries to do the same. A game situation is so different from being in the cage, Marsh said. Now he understands that a bad swing or two a few hours before he steps to the plate doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019ll perform poorly when it counts.<\/p>\n
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\n Brandon Marsh talks to Kevin Long in 2023. The Phillies outfielder works with the hitting coach during the offseason. (John Adams \/ Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Marsh also credited Long, whom he works with during the offseason, with keeping him level-headed. They live 20 minutes from each other in Arizona during the winter, so Marsh will typically spend four days a week with Long \u2014 or up to six, Marsh said, if things are going poorly.<\/p>\n
There were no big changes this offseason, Long said \u2014 just refining Marsh\u2019s routine. They focused on being on time, getting Marsh\u2019s body into proper positioning, ensuring he is tight and connected at the plate.<\/p>\n
Still, this work preceded moments of frustration in spring training, particularly a stretch when Marsh said he hit a lot of grounders to second and flares to left, along with striking out. That, to Marsh, was when it all clicked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made it a point like, \u2018I\u2019m not going to be that. I can\u2019t be that, or I\u2019m not going to be the player I need to be for my teammates,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Even if that was a turning point, much of who Marsh is now can be traced to previous seasons. After all, entering Tuesday, he had hit .315\/.362\/.494 with an .856 OPS since his activation from the injured list on May 3, 2025.<\/p>\n
Since then, Marsh has spoken frequently about being stubborn, staying within himself and staying \u201cjust dumb enough\u201d at the plate. Being stubborn, to him, means sticking to what he\u2019s doing, trying to be himself and trusting his work is enough. Being within himself means not being \u201cSuperman\u201d \u2014 or Harper \u2014 but to play his role at the plate. As for being dumb enough:<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely still doing your homework,\u201d Marsh said, \u201cbut not living and dying by percentages and shapes, which is hard to do. You get a sheet and it says something, and then they can go out there and flip it and do a completely different thing. So, just trying to be a chameleon up there. Whatever they give me over the heart of the plate, I feel like I\u2019m ready for it. Maybe not every time, but I feel like a lot of the time I\u2019ve been ready for it. I\u2019ve got to just somehow stay that way. That\u2019s the hard part.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the cage, he works toward staying this way. Long, who underwent surgery after tearing a biceps tendon last year, is back to throwing left-handed batting practice to Marsh. They run flips and other drills in the cage before Marsh begins work with Trajekt, a machine players use to track pitches; the velocity machine; and the spinball machine. He checks all the boxes: up, down, off-speed, etc.<\/p>\n
The routine is not dissimilar from what he\u2019s done in the past, from what other players run through. Nothing is dramatically different, except for one thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe trusts himself more,\u201d Long said. \u201cHe knows his swing more, he knows his body movements, he knows what it feels like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marsh has been chasing this kind of sustained success, this feeling for so long. Adversity will come at some point, but he now knows that\u2019s just part of life \u2014 not cause for panic. This realization, along with his overall evolution \u2014 the trust level and maturity that his coaches speak of \u2014 is a product of years of work. Work to figure out his daily routine after not having one as a prospect, to excel at the routine once established, to not punish himself for mistakes, to stay even-keeled in the day to day.<\/p>\n
In some ways, the timing of Marsh\u2019s breakthrough is ideal. The Phillies\u2019 lineup, slow to awaken this season, has relied heavily on Marsh alongside Harper and Schwarber. It is hard to imagine the Phillies being 36-31 and back in contention without Marsh\u2019s efforts. These few months might even earn him a spot on the NL All-Star roster for the Midsummer Classic in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be really cool to be part of that group this year,\u201d Marsh said, \u201cespecially in Philly. I\u2019d be lying to you if I said it wasn\u2019t on my mind, but I\u2019m really not focused on that. I\u2019m really focused on just trying to be present here with these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has been a long road, but here he is. Why look ahead?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 When Brandon Marsh steps into the cage shortly after batting practice ends, his audience is typically…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5262,591,2365,85],"class_list":["post-727757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}