Which players does one choose when the entire team doesn’t lose a game all week? It doesn’t just mean those who had good weeks. It also applies to those that had a rough stretch as well as there weren’t many.
It was just a really good stretch of baseball.
Three up
Luis Arraez – It’s kind of impressive what adding a hitter like Arraez can do for a lineup. Since his trade from the Giants, he has injected some new kind of life into the lineup that has really changed this season. A moribund offense prior,
they all seem to have taken what he does at the plate and adapted it for themselves. There will be talk of giving him an extension once the season is over and there is some fairness to thinking that might be a good idea, but let’s just enjoy these two months remaining before getting into all that.
Bryce Harper – Harper’s stated desire to have somewhere between 140-150 walks on the season might have sounded foolish at the time, but it sure seems like he is going for it now. His OBP of .500 for the month of August has given the Phillies a boost. His getting on base (and more importantly, the production behind him) have paced the offense these last few games.
Andrew Painter – There have been multiple stories written since Saturday about how good Painter actually was in his start, but it’s the stuff modeling gurus that really turned out. Check any one you want on social media and they’ll all pretty much agree – it was the best his stuff has looked this year both from the naked eye and from a data point of view.
Three down
Jonathan Bowlan – The trade that the team made this offseason to get Bowlan from the Royals in exchange for Matt Strahm truly could not have gone better. Bowlan has been excellent for the Phillies, discovering some zip on his fastball, executing a truly dominant slider and elevating himself to being one of the team’s trusted setup men. As for Strahm, all of the things that he was defying in Philadelphia (giving up home runs, lack of strikeout stuff) all caught up to him in Kansas City, leading to a disastrous season in which he found himself DFAed. Even as Bowlan struggled a bit this week (maybe he’s getting a little tired this late in the year), it’s hard to find this season anything but an unmitigated success.
Jesus Luzardo – Listen, I’m grasping at straws here. His last start this week wasn’t all that great, but he’s been awesome this year and was due a clunker.
Bryson Stott – You can’t have everyone clicking on offense at the same time. Pretty sure there is some kind of baseball law against that. This week, it was Stott’s turn to struggle, going 2 for 22 on the week, then having the rumbly tumblies on Sunday while Kyle Schwarber was walking the Cardinals off the field.
