PHILADELPHIA -- Alec Bohm is hitting every opposing pitcher these days from the bottom half of the Phillies’ lineup.
Maybe he could do the same thing at the top.
Bohm had two of Philadelphia’s three hits against Atlanta rookie Spencer Strider in Tuesday night’s 6-3 loss to the Braves at Citizens Bank Park. Strider impressed with a fastball that touched 99.7 mph, a nasty slider and a mustache that would win any Movember contest. The right-hander is a big reason why the Braves are only two games behind the Mets in the NL East and hold the first of three NL Wild Card spots.
"He's got one of those fastballs that's different,” Bohm said. “It's not like a normal fastball. People probably watching are thinking, ‘Oh, he's just throwing fastballs. Just hit it.’ It's not that simple. It just comes out different."
The Phillies are limping toward Tuesday’s 6 p.m. ET Trade Deadline. They have lost eight of their past 12 games. They have averaged only 3.4 runs per game in that stretch. Few players are swinging the bat well. One exception is Bohm. He smashed a 1-2 fastball at the top of the zone for a single to center in the third inning against Strider. He singled to right on a first-pitch fastball at the top of the zone in the fifth.
“I just kept it simple and got to it,” Bohm said.
Bohm is batting .416 with two home runs, 12 RBIs and a 1.023 OPS in his past 21 games. Since his batting average and OPS dropped to .246 and .635, respectively, on June 12, he has batted .367 with an .881 OPS in 31 games.
Among qualified batters, only Freddie Freeman (.380), Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (.380), Harold Ramírez (.380) and José Abreu (.378) entered Tuesday with a higher batting average since June 12 than Bohm.
“It’s baseball,” Bohm said. “You go through good stretches and bad stretches. I’ve just been able to get in a good position consistently lately, and the swing’s been able to come out consistently.”
Bohm has not hit higher than fifth in the lineup since May 29. He has hit mostly sixth and seventh.
Maybe it is time to move him up.
“We’ve been talking about a lot of things,” Phillies interim manager Rob Thomson said. “We scored some runs last night. We scored three tonight. But it’s not enough. So we’re talking about a lot of things with the lineup and trying to inject some runs in there.”
It could come as early as Wednesday.
Kyle Schwarber and Rhys Hoskins carried Philadelphia through June and early July. They hit first and second, respectively. Schwarber homered in the sixth inning against Strider, but he has struggled recently, as has Hoskins. With the way he is swinging the bat and getting on base, Bohm would make sense hitting anywhere from first to third.
Bohm said he is indifferent to his spot in the lineup.
“Whatever Thomper puts out there, that’s where I’ll hit,” he said. “It doesn’t really concern me too much. I don’t think about it like that. Wherever he’s going to put me, that’s where I’m going to be.”