Slumping Bohm gets 2nd straight game off in hopes to clear his mind

PHILADELPHIA -- Alec Bohm is trying everything.

He has hit early on the field, like Friday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park. He has hit in the batting cages after games. He has hit off the Trajekt machine. He has tried different drills. He has studied video. He has talked to anybody and everybody about how to end this slump.

“It’s not like there’s one magic answer that’s just going to make everything click,” Bohm said before Friday’s series opener against Colorado. “Or maybe there is, and I just haven’t gotten there yet.”

Bohm is batting .159 with one home run, 15 RBIs and a .433 OPS in 35 games this season. He has the second-lowest OPS out of 174 qualified hitters in baseball. He has the fourth-lowest OPS of any Phillies player through the team’s first 38 games since at least 1900. Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly put Bohm on the bench for consecutive games, including Friday, hoping it clears his mind and helps him to start playing better.

Everybody hopes it helps.

“Getting away from the game for a day or two, I guess just settling down and resetting for a day or two can be helpful,” Bohm said. “I’ve really left no stone unturned. When I struggle, the only way I know is to hit my way through it. Get lost in the work and just keep swinging, keep working, keep hitting. And eventually all the reps, all the work is going to pay off. I haven’t done anything crazy or out of the ordinary. I’ve just tried to lose myself in the hitting.”

It’s perhaps why Mattingly told Bohm he didn’t want him to pick up a bat on Thursday, the first of his two-day break.

Bohm obliged. He did not pick up a bat once. He instead worked in the weight room and trainer’s room, but otherwise he just watched the game.

But Bohm was back to work on Friday, taking early hitting and infield work.

“It’s eventually going to show up out there,” he said. “I think like, all the work I’ve done in the cage, hitting early on the field, all that stuff, it feels right. It feels good. I feel like, swing-wise, I'm in a good spot.

“It's not the swing. It’s not the approach. There’s not really one thing that I can put my thumb on and be like, OK, that’s it. The timing's here and there sometimes. I’ve had games where my timing's been good. And some of those games, I end up hitting a couple balls over 100 mph. There’s one I don't get up in the air, and there's another that just goes right at someone. And it’s like, all right, well, there's two at-bats where in a different world maybe I could have been 2-for-4 instead of 0-for-4. And it's just, you know, really hard to detach from the result, especially when it's early in the season.”

There is never a good time for a slump, but Bohm’s timing couldn’t be worse. He will be a free agent after the season, making this the most important year of his career. A big season could land him a lucrative multiyear contract.

But Bohm is dealing with something else, too. He is suing his parents, alleging that they defrauded him of millions.

Bohm said on Opening Day that he wouldn’t comment on his personal matters.

Generally, however, Bohm said, “For me, I leave all that stuff at the door. I show up and it’s just like, I’m at the baseball field. It’s baseball. I obviously want the results to be better. It feels like it’s been a lot longer than it really has in the grand scheme of things. It feels like it’s been halfway through the season. For all the other stuff, free agency, whatever, I don’t feel like it affects [first pitch at] 6:40 p.m.

“I think when you’re struggling in baseball, I think that can make everything as a whole a little bit harder. Right? It’s hard to not be happy when you’re hitting .300.”

Bohm has been here before. He batted .193 with six RBIs and a .472 OPS in his first 21 games in 2025. He batted .309 with 11 homers, 53 RBIs and an .802 OPS the rest of the way.

“Those experiences give me the faith and the confidence that I just, yeah, keep a clear head and keep playing and just let it happen, it’s going to happen,” Bohm said. “It’s like a lot of people say, look at the back of the baseball card.

“I’m gonna hit. Nothing stays the same forever. I would be more surprised if I hit .150 the whole year than if I didn't get hot. You know what I mean? I just feel like the law of averages, I know at some point I’m going to get hot.”

Bohm will be back in the lineup on Saturday night. Maybe the turnaround starts then.

“I hope so,” he said.