The good and the bad as Phillies enter season's final month

The Phillies are on a roll, having won 10 of their past 12 games and making things a little tighter atop the National League East. Philadelphia has climbed to within five games of Atlanta as we approach the end of August.

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With about a month to go in the regular season, what are some of the positive trends for the Phils and what are some of the negative trends that they’d like to reverse as the pennant chase heats up in September?

Here’s a look:

The Good

The offense has been better, more balanced

The Phillies’ offense, shockingly, ranked last in MLB with a 90 wRC+ entering August. Not where a lineup featuring Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Trea Turner was expected to be. But outside of Schwarber and Harper, the Phils’ bats were mostly quiet through the first four months of the season.

Through July 31, Harper and Schwarber combined for an .887 OPS and 55 home runs. The rest of the club had produced a .653 OPS with 85 homers. In other words, about 40% of the team’s home run output came from two players.

So far in August, the Harper-Schwarber duo is getting some help from others in the lineup. Philadelphia’s lineup has produced a 110 wRC+ this month, which was tied for fifth in the Majors entering Thursday. It’s a major reason the Phillies have won 17 of 24 games in August to significantly reduce their deficit in the NL East.

Alec Bohm (.874 OPS), Bryson Stott (.857 OPS) and Justin Crawford (.313 batting average), in particular, have been great in August. The Phils will need contributions from up and down the lineup if they want to make a deep playoff run.

Nola and Painter have found something

One is a veteran, the other a rookie. Both had very poor starts to their 2026 campaigns.

Nola, in his 12th Major League season, owned a 5.82 ERA over 21 starts through July 22. In six starts since then, his ERA is 2.60. With his knuckle-curveball locked in, he’s struck out 41 over his past 34 2/3 innings, including nine during the MLB at Field of Dreams Game and seven over six innings in his last start.

Painter, meanwhile, endured a very difficult start to his big league career before turning things around recently. Following a successful MLB debut on March 31, when he yielded one run and struck out eight over 5 1/3 innings against the Nationals, he scuffled to a 7.54 ERA over his next 13 outings and was demoted to Triple-A.

But since returning about six weeks later, Painter has been a different pitcher. The 6-foot-7, 215-pound right-hander has a 3.62 ERA over his last six starts. His previous outing, which was last Saturday, turned out to be the best of his career so far -- he gave up one run over seven innings and struck out eight. He also unleashed the fastest pitch of his young career in that game -- a 99.6 mph fastball to strike out the Cardinals’ Blaze Jordan.

If the Phillies can turn the “big three” of Cristopher Sánchez, Zack Wheeler and Jesús Luzardo into the “big five” by tacking on effective fourth and fifth starters Nola and Painter, watch out. Those latter two might be heating up at just the right time.

The Bad

Wheeler is struggling

Although his season debut didn’t come until April 25 after he finished recovering from thoracic outlet decompression surgery, Wheeler was his usual dominant self through his first 16 starts of 2026, over which he posted a 2.16 ERA. But that’s when things started going south.

Since throwing a gem against the Dodgers on July 21, in which he yielded two runs over seven innings with no walks and nine strikeouts, Wheeler has been struggling. Over his past six starts, his ERA is 8.51. That includes his most recent appearance, which came against the Mariners in Seattle -- he surrendered eight runs over four innings at T-Mobile Park.

Of the nine hits off Wheeler, four were homers. He became the first Phillies pitcher in the Modern Era (since 1900) to give up four or more homers and walk five or more batters in a single outing. The good news is Wheeler said he feels “perfectly fine.” The bad news is that for several starts now, he hasn’t had his control -- he’s walked 15 over his last four starts.

Phillies fans will hope that what interim manager Don Mattingly said after Wheeler’s performance against Seattle will prove to be true, and sooner rather than later: “I'm not concerned that he's not going to get where he needs to get to. Obviously, any time guys struggle … you're concerned about it … but you're not like, ‘Oh, this guy's lost it. He's never going to be good again.’”

Turner’s bat went cold after heating up in July

Trea Turner got off to a slow start at the plate this season. But from June 29-Aug. 8, he produced a .297/.336/.572 slash line with 10 homers. It looked as though he was back on track, but then his bat went cold.

It began with an 0-for-6 extra-innings game against the Blue Jays on Aug. 9. Over his last 14 games dating back to around the time the Phils began their hot streak, Turner is hitting .140/.234/.175 with two extra-base hits (both doubles).

Turner led the NL with a .304 batting average last year. This season, his average is more than 80 points below that. Everyone can’t be hot all at once, but the Phillies are going to need Turner’s bat to get to where they want to go this fall. Perhaps a chat with Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki will help -- Turner had a chance to pick Ichiro's brain while the Phils were in Seattle this week.

A tough road ahead

The Phillies’ remaining schedule, based on their opponents’ .525 combined win percentage, is the third-toughest in the Majors as of Thursday. The win percentage of the Braves’ remaining opponents, for reference, is .513.

Philadelphia still has series remaining against the Brewers (three games), the Rays (three), the Braves (seven) and the D-backs (three).

If Philadelphia is going to make a late run at the division crown and wants to go deep into October, it will have to beat some good teams the rest of the way to do it.