MIAMI — The Philadelphia Phillies were still winning Wednesday afternoon when Jesús Luzardo raised his tan glove to his face. “F—!” he yelled after allowing a homer, and it was loud enough to cut through the hundreds of screaming children inside loanDepot Park. Luzardo did not know what lay ahead — a blown six-run lead, a ninth loss in 12 games, a subdued flight to Maryland — but he knew the state of things. If the Phillies concede an inch, it feels like 5 feet.
They are riding the roller coaster again, and this is a season with few parallels in 144 years of Phillies baseball. They were so bad in April that they fired a successful manager. They were so good for two months afterward that everyone looked past their glaring flaws. They played crisp baseball for the first 4 1/2 innings in Wednesday’s 8-6 loss to the Miami Marlins, then reminded everyone why there are existential questions about this group of players.
“Now’s the time that we’re going to find out what we’re made of,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “With our struggle, we’ve let everybody stay in the race. So we find out who we are over this next couple of months.”
Everyone, right now, looks like they need a nap.
The bullpen has been run into the ground; Mattingly made another questionable late-game decision in Wednesday’s loss. A recurring gastrointestinal issue has sidelined Kyle Schwarber, and he might not be ready by Friday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles. Zack Wheeler couldn’t make it past the third inning Monday. Luzardo made far too many mistakes with a big lead Wednesday. Half of the lineup, on any given day, is fighting through some debilitating slump.
The star first baseman, Bryce Harper, is still bickering with the headstrong president of baseball operations, Dave Dombrowski. Then, the interim manager cannonballed into the fray with some strong words for Harper before Wednesday’s game. The Phillies need help at the trade deadline. Everyone knows it. Harper just chose to say it out loud Tuesday night. That annoyed team officials.
“I sense Bryce is thinking about it,” Mattingly said. “I don’t really sense anybody else thinking about it, honestly. … Guys want to be GMs without a real understanding of where the organization is, exactly where this thing goes. Not only this year, but moving forward. Players like being GMs and making calls and spending other people’s money. So I just let it go at that. I mean, Dave’s been doing this a while. He’s never really backed away from trying to get guys. We’re trying to get better. We’re going to try to get better at the deadline.”
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It’s still July. The stakes, relatively speaking, remain low. The Phillies still occupy a playoff position, even after two weeks of bad baseball. They have already proven it’s unwise to assume anything about them. They are going to make trades to add pieces; Dombrowski has summoned about a dozen members of the front office for a rendezvous this weekend in Baltimore. There, the Phillies will chart their course ahead of Monday’s trade deadline.
A certain uneasiness overcame everyone in April. This feels different. The Phillies are not getting destroyed every night. Maybe that makes it worse; they have been close enough to exhaust their best relievers — sometimes in losing efforts. The inconsistent lineup has been good enough on some nights, but it also has not all clicked at once. Even when the Phillies were playing better than just about any team for two months, they were never firing as an efficient machine.
That might explain the current frustration.
“It just feels like this is the time of year when you want to start playing well and get hot in the second half,” shortstop Trea Turner said. “Make a push into the postseason and then try to ride that out as long as you can.”
Nothing is guaranteed. So, what is this team?
“I think this team’s amazing,” Luzardo said. “Everyone saw it. We were the best team in baseball over an extended period of time. So I don’t think it’s a team problem. I think we’re in a bad rut. … After the All-Star Game, we might’ve come back a little slow. … But I think that we’re more than capable.”
Harper, yet again, is at the center of things.
When asked Tuesday night if this lineup can hit good pitching come October, he said: “I think we need some help. I think we’ve proved pretty much all year, we’ve done a pretty good job, but anytime you can get some help in here and reinforcements, I think it helps.”
There isn’t anything controversial about that take, except that it might have some teammates questioning whether Harper thinks they are good enough. Maybe it’s not the most professional way to handle it.
Harper did not name any specific unit or player. “Both,” he said when asked if the Phillies needed pitching or hitting. Can they land it?
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll see. I mean, that’s a Dave question.”
Dave Dombrowski’s comments about Bryce Harper, made during an end-of-season news conference, remain a storyline more than nine months later. (Doug Murray / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
It’s not hard to see through this. Dombrowski wondered aloud last October whether Harper could still be an elite player. Harper took it personally, at least the fact that Dombrowski did it in public. Harper, who carried a .908 OPS through June but has a .630 mark in July, wants to win a World Series. So, he’s now publicly challenged Dombrowski to improve the roster. The cold war lurches into its 10th month.
Harper and Dombrowski have not repaired their relationship. That might not matter except for brief, uncomfortable moments like this. Harper is under contract through 2031. Dombrowski is signed through 2027, although the Phillies are expected to extend him in the near future while perhaps publicly disclosing a succession plan.
Neither Harper nor Dombrowski, two powerful men with huge egos, particularly cares for the other. They probably should figure it out.
“Bryce is Bryce,” Mattingly said. “He’s going to say what he wants. I’m not really concerned about it. I take it kind of with a grain of salt. And knowing how players are over the years, it’s not the first time I’ve heard this. I always look at it, like, internally. ‘I got to get better. We got to get better.’ Simple as that.”
The way Mattingly sees this: It doesn’t really matter if Harper or anyone likes him. He might be gone whenever or however this season ends. He was not Dombrowski’s first choice for interim manager. He probably won’t be Dombrowski’s first choice for 2027 manager.
Don Mattingly said he regretted not using reliever Jonathan Bowlan in the seventh inning. (Sam Navarro / Imagn Images)
Mattingly did not have his full bullpen Wednesday because he used all of his best relievers Monday, then turned to José Alvarado and Orion Kerkering while trailing by a run Tuesday. Neither could pitch Wednesday. So, Mattingly had rookie Seth Johnson throwing as Luzardo began the seventh with a three-run lead. He could have had Johnson and Jonathan Bowlan, a more trusted reliever, get ready in case Luzardo ran into trouble.
It was the biggest moment of the game. In Mattingly’s mind, if the Phillies had to get only two outs with Johnson, he’d prefer to have Bowlan for a full inning in the eighth. Johnson inherited runners on first and second with a two-run lead. He surrendered a game-tying two-run single to Xavier Edwards on a misplaced 0-2 slider.
Bowlan appeared in the eighth. He allowed the eventual game-winning homer to Griffin Conine. So it goes.
Afterward, Mattingly said he regretted not going to his better reliever with the Phillies still in front during the seventh. “A little bit,” Mattingly said. The Phillies have run their bullpen differently since Mattingly became the interim manager. It’s been taxing.
For months, the Phillies almost always won whenever Cristopher Sánchez, Wheeler or Luzardo started. They lost a weird Wheeler outing and a Luzardo six-run lead this week in Miami.
“Those hurt,” Mattingly said, “because you really should have won two out of three.”
Everything is magnified when a team that is supposed to win does not. The Marlins had lost 12 straight before the Phillies arrived. They won’t play baseball Thursday, and that is probably for the best. It’s time for some self-reflection.
“At this point,” Mattingly said, “we find out who we are.”