LOS ANGELES -- The Phillies are confident catcher J.T. Realmuto avoided any serious injury when a 97 mph fastball to his left wrist forced him from Sunday’s series finale at Dodger Stadium.
“He's gonna be OK,” said interim manager Don Mattingly, who added X-rays were negative. “Obviously sore, couldn't really squeeze, wasn't gonna be able to swing and actually had a little trouble catching, too. So sore enough to get him out of there.”
Realmuto’s injury was just the start of a long afternoon for the Phillies in a 9-1 loss to the Dodgers.
Andrew Painter allowed four runs over just 3 1/3 innings -- the shortest outing of his brief 11-game big league career. He allowed a home run to two of the three batters he faced after Rafael Marchán replaced Realmuto, continuing a season-long trend for Painter.
The 23-year-old righty has a 3.89 ERA over 34 2/3 innings while throwing to Realmuto, but he has a 9.16 ERA in 18 2/3 innings pitching to anyone else (Marchán/Garrett Stubbs).
So the postgame update on Realmuto was certainly good news for Painter and the Phillies. The not-so-good news is that Philadelphia’s offense continues to struggle.
The Phillies have gone 11 straight games without scoring more than four runs. They have just 26 runs and 59 hits during that stretch. The last time the Phillies had that few runs and that few hits over an 11-game stretch was in 1968 -- the season literally dubbed "The Year of the Pitcher."
Prior to that, the Phillies hadn't done that since 1908.
Overall, the Phils (30-29) head into the month of June ranked 29th in batting average (.224), last in on-base percentage (.292) and 28th in OPS (.673).
“Obviously shocked by that, right?” said Bryce Harper, who watched the final three innings from the dugout after the Phillies emptied the bench. “When you go into a season with the team that we have, you don't think you're gonna have that. Just got to keep plugging along.
“June starts tomorrow, so have a good June. You won the month of May, so that's huge for us.”
To that point, the Phillies went 18-10 in the month of May. Only the Brewers (19-7) had a better record in the National League. Of course, all it took was Cristopher Sánchez literally not allowing a run, Zack Wheeler putting up a 1.38 ERA in his first five starts of the month and Jesús Luzardo posting a 1.54 ERA over his past four starts.
“We've pitched really well. We haven't really got on track offensively,” Mattingly said. “We'll keep working on that, and we feel like that's going to break out at some point.”
So, what gives the Phillies that confidence?
Well, despite ranking near the bottom of the Majors in all of those result-based categories, the Phillies actually rank out pretty well when it comes to some of their hitting metrics. They entered Sunday tied for third in MLB in hard-hit percentage and tied for sixth in average exit velocity.
As Trea Turner pointed out, they have the same exact hard-hit percentage as the Dodgers -- the team that leads the Majors in batting average (.263) and OPS (.792).
“They're a pretty good team,” Turner said, “so if we're doing stuff that they're doing, then I think that's a good sign.”
Of course, it’s also frustrating. That emotion boiled over for Turner on Sunday, when he flung his bat and spiked his helmet following his inning-ending flyout in the seventh inning. It dropped his season average to .223 with a .622 OPS.
“You can look at all sorts of numbers and stats,” Turner said, “and I think that's what's frustrating is, I feel like some guys are taking good swings, hitting the ball hard and just not finding holes.”
To Turner’s point, the disparities between the Phillies’ expected batting average, slugging percentage and wOBA and their actual batting average, slugging percentage and wOBA are among the highest in the Majors.
But expected statistics don’t count on the scoreboard.
The Phillies won’t see the back-to-back champion Dodgers again until late July. They are not scheduled to return to Dodger Stadium again in 2026 -- unless they do so in October.
For that to even be a possibility, though, the Phils know their offense needs to get going.
“At the end of day, it comes down to whether or not you score the runs,” Turner said. “And we haven't done that.”