The Phillies find themselves in the midst of a three team race for two spots in the NL Wild Card picture. Entering play Monday, Philadelphia, Arizona, and San Diego were all separated by one game with 37 games left to play. It figures to be a tight race that could go down to the wire in the last few days of the season.
When a team finds itself in such a narrow race, any positive contribution helps and any negative contribution could be killer. Naturally, teams look to their stars to shine the brightest
at a time like this. For the Phillies, everything begins and ends with Bryce Harper. Harper, who recently shifted to right field after the acquisition of Luis Arraez, has had a good start to the second half, as he has an .887 OPS with 5 home runs through the first 28 games post All-Star break. Kyle Schwarber meanwhile started the second half a little slower but still has an .821 OPS with five homers of his own. The Phillies offense runs through these two and they will need to play at a high level if the Phillies are going to make the postseason.
But as we all know by now, this team truly revolves around its starting pitching. They’ve been good since the break but not quite up to their usual standards. Yes, Aaron Nola has stabilized, and Andrew Painter has been better, but Zack Wheeler has a 6.04 ERA through five second half starts. The Phillies will need Wheeler along with Cristopher Sánchez and Jesús Luzardo, both of which have excelled post-break, to carry them as far as they will go.
The bullpen has of course been shaky, as they’re overworked and undermanned. But their lynchpin in Jhoan Duran has been their North Star even if he’s allowed more base runners than usual of late. Duran will be counted on to pitch shutdown innings and will likely start to be deployed for multi-inning work as the race tightens.
Every player on the roster will be important in some form or fashion as the margins grow tighter in a postseason chase. These are just some of the biggest names that will have to do the majority of the heavy lifting. So, who is the Phillies most important player down the stretch?
