Somebody Needs To Remind The Phillies They're Only Allowed To Beat The Bad Teams
The Philadelphia Phillies were the best team in baseball in May. But it made sense to everybody. It was early in the season and they were racking up wins against sub-.500 ball clubs. Nevermind the fact that many of those teams were either .500 or above before playing the Phillies, but then fell to below .500 after getting their shit shoved in for 3 straight games in Philly. That didn't fit the national narrative. The fact of the matter is that everybody else in the country had their perfect excuse for why the Phillies were skyrocketing up the standings. Pretty good team playing against dog shit opponents. Clearly water would find its level eventually, right?
Today is July 11th. The Phillies just became the first team in the MLB this season to reach 60 wins. Have they just played 60 games against truly atrocious opponents? I mean there can't be THAT many bad teams in the league.
Turns out it is something entirely different. Not only have the Phillies been kicking the shit out of bad teams this year, but they've been pumping the good ones as well.
Surely that can't be right. We were told the Phillies would come crashing back to reality once their schedule got tougher. It's one thing to get out of a jam against a bunch of bozos at the plate for Colorado. But what were the Phillies going to do when they'd have to go to the bullpen and get out of an inning with Shohei Ohtani up to bat?
Oh. Okay. That'll play.
It just stinks because clearly everybody worked so hard to create the narrative that the Phillies only beat bad teams. And to see them go out there on a nightly basis to discredit that narrative? It's disrespectful to all the take havers out there. Nobody wants to end up getting "OldTakesExpose'd", but clearly that's what the Phillies are going after.