The Phillies have started to steady themselves with back-to-back wins over the Minnesota Twins, but the bigger picture still looks shaky. A club that entered the All-Star break with momentum has stumbled badly since then, losing six of its first eight series after the break and slipping into a three-way tie with the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks for the second and third playoff spots.
That’s a far cry from where things seemed headed when Philadelphia surged under interim manager Don Mattingly after the late-April firing of Rob Thomson. Kyle Schwarber was setting the tone at the top of the order, Bryce Harper was anchoring the middle, and Christopher Sanchez was putting together a season that looked worthy of Cy Young consideration. For a while, the Phillies looked like the team best positioned to challenge the Dodgers in the National League.
Now the margin for error has thinned. J.T.
Realmuto put it plainly, saying, per Charlotte Varnes of The Athletic, “We’ve got to turn it around,” Realmuto said, per Charlotte Varnes of The Athletic. “There’s still plenty of time to do so.
But nobody in here is happy about the brand of baseball we’re playing right now. We just need to figure it out, turn it around and play a lot better here pretty quickly.”
Even with the recent wins, there are obvious trouble spots, and two of them stand out.
Aaron Nola has become one of the most worrisome. The veteran right-hander has been with the Phillies since 2015, but this season has been another rough one.
He is 4-9 with a 5.33 ERA over 130.0 innings and 25 starts, and only seven of those outings have qualified as quality starts. He has also allowed a National League-high 30 home runs.
Nola did turn in a strong outing in the Field of Dreams Game against the Twins, giving up five hits and one run over five innings while striking out nine. He got plenty of help that night, too, with Schwarber launching two home runs into the corn in a 7-1 Phillies win. But that one night does not erase the larger body of work.
The full season line tells the story more clearly. After posting double-digit wins from 2022 through 2024, Nola went 5-10 with a 6.01 ERA in 2025 while dealing with a right ankle sprain and a right rib injury. That’s a steep drop, and there isn’t much in the current profile to suggest he’s suddenly going to become a reliable answer down the stretch.
Realmuto is the other major concern. For years, he has been one of the best catchers in baseball during his eight seasons in Philadelphia, with three All-Star selections and three Silver Slugger awards to his name. This year, though, the production has dipped.
He is hitting .218/.290/.342 with eight home runs and 40 RBIs, and he hasn’t looked like the same threat at the plate. Injuries have played a part, with Realmuto dealing with a right foot contusion, lower back spasms and a bruised left wrist earlier in the season. At 35, there’s no guarantee he gets all the way back to his old level.
There’s also been an issue with how often he uses the ABS challenge system. Realmuto has a strong 70 percent challenge rate, but he has only challenged 60 times behind the plate, a total that trails other catchers.
He has said he does not like to challenge early in games, but when he passes on them, Phillies hitters often end up taking those challenges at the plate instead. That’s not the kind of tradeoff Philadelphia wants.
If Realmuto can clean things up and Nola can give the club more than he has most of the year, the Phillies still have a path to the playoff spot they’re chasing. But right now, those two are at the center of a slump that has made the road much less comfortable.
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Phillies Still Have One Problem Threatening Their Playoff Push
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Even with the recent improvement, the concern is what happens when the hot bats cool off and the rest of the order still hasnt found steadier footing. For a team trying to hold its place in a crowded National League race, that kind of inconsistency is hard to hide, especially when the margin for error keeps shrinking and the lineup still needs more everyday answers. [Read more 🡒]