State Of The Phillies: Offense

The first half of the season for the Phillies has been a time of sheer dominance. Through the ups and downs of the offense, the Phillies have rallied behind their fantastic starting pitching and have catapulted themselves to the best team in all of baseball. The All-Star break is upon us and I thought it would be appropriate to do a little state of the Phillies Address. I broke my analysis down into the 3 categories of offense, pitching, and overall team that will be featured on the site over the course of the next few days.

First up is the Phils offense. While many feel that the offense needs another bat to get over them over the hump, I feel that offense is fine and really starting to hit it’s stride. In the absence of Placido Polanco and Shane Victorino, young guys like Michael Martinez, Domonic Brown, and John Mayberry Jr. are really coming up big. The return of Chase Utley also helped this offense big time. And in comparison to last year, the offense is doing just about the same according to this article posted on philliesnation.com the other night.

The offense has done its job and has produced two 11 game winners in Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels, and a 9 game winner in Cliff Lee. More importantly they have found ways to win and have accumulated a record of 57-34. Individually the only guy hitting .300 or better is Shane Victorino who has a .303 average. While that may be a red flag to some, to me it is a promise of what is to come. Once late July and early August hit guys like Ryan Howard and Chase Utley always tend to heat up. If we have a 3 game lead in first place with just one guy hitting .300, just imagine how much our lead is going to expand once these guys really heat up.

The offense has and will continue after the break to get the job done. People just need to relax and have faith that the veterans on this team will come through. My only hope is that the offense shows up come October.