Phillies searching for answers as tough start continues

This story was excerpted from Todd Zolecki’s Phillies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ATLANTA -- Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola faced his first three batters on Sunday at Truist Park, and it went like this:

Ronald Acuna Jr.: 109.4 mph single

Drake Baldwin: 109.4 mph single

Matt Olson: 105.4 mph three-run home run

In the blink of an eye, the Phillies trailed the Braves in the series finale, 3-0. They lost, 6-2, to fall to 9-19 and 10 1/2 games behind Atlanta in the NL East. Nola allowed seven hits, six runs, three walks and two home runs and struck out six in 4 2/3 innings. He fell to 1-3 with a 6.03 ERA, which is a tick higher than his career-high 6.01 ERA last season.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, following an encouraging offseason and spring.

But then it wasn’t supposed to be like this for the Phillies, either.

Now, the team’s terrible start has Phillies manager Rob Thomson answering questions about his job security.

“Well, I mean, that’s natural, right?” Thomson said Sunday. “It’s normal. And I’ve never worried about that in my entire career. I worked for a guy for 28 years [Yankees owner George Steinbrenner] who, as the 'Seinfeld' episode will tell you, ‘Fires people like it's a bodily function,’ and it never bothered me. It didn’t. I don't have time to think about it. I’m a person that thinks about other people and what can I do to help them?

And it's out of my control. So that's where I'm at.”

But the team’s losing ways -- they snapped a 10-game losing streak on Saturday -- also has players like Nola and Kyle Schwarber answering questions about their manager and coaches.

“I haven’t been doing a great job pitching-wise, been giving up too many runs,” said Nola, when asked about the heat Thomson is facing. “Giving up a lot of three-run homers and putting the guys in holes and not giving them a great chance to string up some hits. The game could be 0-0. Like today, we went down 6-0 really quick. It’s hard to come back against a really good pitcher on the opposing team, when I’m putting them in a position like that.”

Nola put the blame on himself.

After all, Thomson isn’t throwing pitches, just like hitting coach Kevin Long isn’t standing in the batter’s box.

But these are the people that typically take the fall. It just happened on Saturday with the Red Sox, who fired manager Alex Cora and several coaches.

Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said Tuesday at Wrigley Field that a change is “not being pondered at this point.” But Boston’s moves fueled immediate speculation that Dombrowski and Cora could reunite in Philadelphia.

They won a World Series together in Boston in 2018.

Asked Sunday morning if he wanted to address the Cora speculation, Dombrowski declined.

The Phillies have an off-day on Monday. No doubt these conversations will continue internally and externally. If Tuesday rolls around and everything remains status quo, the only way to end this talk is by winning … and winning a lot.

It starts with the players on the field.

“I never thought we would go on a losing skid like this,” Nola said. “It’s baseball, though. We’ve got to get out of it and we’ve got to stay out of it.”