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LOS ANGELES \u2014 Every time Brandon Marsh<\/a> visits Dodger Stadium with the Phillies<\/a>, he\u2019s a popular player among the contingent of Japanese media. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a holdover from the 1\u00bd seasons he coincided with two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani on the Angels. Despite a language barrier between them, the two became friends. A few clips of the two of them joking around together went viral during their days in Anaheim, and fans and media in Japan took notice. <\/p>\n So, even though Marsh hasn\u2019t played with Ohtani since 2022, he still gets asked about his friend whenever the Phillies play the Dodgers. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Is it finally time for Mike Trout to be traded? The all-in Phillies make too much sense.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHe was kind of like a big brother to me, helped me out a lot, just trying to teach me how to be a better hitter, and stuff like that,\u201d Marsh said. \u201c \u2026 I think that\u2019s where it all started. It\u2019s all his fame, and I\u2019m just on his little coattail, a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n This season, Marsh is putting his own name on the map with his offensive performance, no coattails needed. He entered Sunday\u2019s series finale against Los Angeles hitting .323, the second-highest batting average in baseball. He\u2019s finally played his way into an everyday role under interim Phillies manager Don Mattingly<\/a>, after being entrenched in an outfield platoon for most of his career. <\/p>\n While Marsh has earned regular starts against lefties, Mattingly has, on occasion, still opted to pinch-hit for Marsh against left-handed relievers late in games. That included Saturday\u2019s 4-3 win over the Dodgers<\/a>, when Mattingly went with Edmundo Sosa over Marsh with the bases loaded against Alex Vesia. <\/p>\n Sosa struck out, but remained in the game and later came through with the go-ahead home run against lefty Tanner Scott.<\/p>\n But overall, Marsh has been the Phillies\u2019 most consistent hitter this season, even through their 9-19 start.<\/p>\n \u201cI can definitely see myself this year pressing a little less, just having a better chance of being in there every single day,\u201d Marsh said. \u201cDefinitely got to still earn it, and I could lose it in the blink of an eye.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a far cry from where he was at the beginning of last season<\/a>, when his average dropped as low as .095 on April 16. But after a hamstring strain landed him on the injured list, he returned from his rehab assignment a different hitter. In the 169 regular-season games he\u2019s played going back to May 2025, Marsh has a .310 average and .834 OPS. <\/p>\n For reference, Trea Turner<\/a> won the National League batting title last season with a .304 batting average in 141 games. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you really go back and look at last year, from talking to [hitting coach] Kevin Long in the winter, after his first month or so, he was one of the best hitters in the game,\u201d Mattingly said earlier this month. \u201cSo he\u2019s just continued that. So now, this is just who he is, right? He\u2019s showing that it\u2019s sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Murphy: The Phillies can\u2019t afford to be patient with Adolis Garc\u00eda (or Justin Crawford). Gabriel Rincones needs a chance soon.<\/a><\/p>\n But even with the success he\u2019s been seeing, Marsh said it\u2019s important for him to stay even-keeled. It\u2019s only natural to be proud of the .300 next to his name, but he tries not to focus on it. <\/p>\n \u201cI feel like that\u2019s something that I feel like I\u2019m still learning like every day, but I\u2019m just really doing my best not to look at the scoreboard,\u201d Marsh said. \u201cBecause I feel like I don\u2019t want to get too, too high, looking at, \u2018Oh, I like where I\u2019m at here,\u2019 and then get complacent, and completely just lose it.\u201d<\/p>\n Marsh said he tries to follow Kyle Schwarber<\/a>\u2019s example, and emulate his approach to flushing his at-bats. <\/p>\n \u201cI feel like just the good, the bad, and all in between, when I get onto the bus after the game, I\u2019m trying my best to forget it. Even the good,\u201d Marsh said. \u201cStill remember some feels and stuff like that to repeat the next day, but if it\u2019s a bad night at the plate, definitely try not to remember anything.\u201d<\/p>\n As Marsh learned last season, everything can change quickly. <\/p>\n But he also learned that when it does, he\u2019ll find his way out of it. <\/p>\n \u201cI have that confidence and belief in myself, if I go through it again, or go through a bad little stretch that I can come out of it,\u201d Marsh said. \u201cDefinitely, I learned a lot about myself in that time, and leaned a lot on the guys around me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Phillies\u2019 Orion Kerkering trying to \u2018build off of a bad memory\u2019 in return to Dodger Stadium<\/a><\/p>\n Extra bases<\/p>\n The Phillies returned Max Lazar (oblique) from his rehab assignment Saturday and reinstated him from the 60-day injured list. He was optioned to Lehigh Valley. To clear room on the 40-man roster for Lazar, Zach Pop (calf) was reinstated from the 15-day injured list and designated for assignment. \u2026 Andrew Painter<\/a> (1-5, 5.40 ERA) is scheduled to start Sunday against Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto (4-4, 3.09).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min LOS ANGELES \u2014 Every time Brandon Marsh visits Dodger Stadium with the Phillies,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,140708],"class_list":["post-341595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-brandon-marsh-shohei-ohtani-relationship-angels-dodgers-phillies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}