🔔 Dress to Impress: Phillies' Offensive Stats Skyrocketed Last Month

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Look good. Feel good. Play good? For the Phillies, that is obviously the plan. They boarded their recent flight for Milwaukee in style rocking red pinstripe overalls made by FOCO (and made a thing by Garrett Stubbs, of course). You know we’re one more good month of baseball away from seeing these all over the place, right? We’re talking classrooms, ACME, Ashburn Alley, your annual pumpkin picking photos on Instagram.

Flannel is out this fall around the Delaware Valley. Pinstripe overalls are in.

In the email today:

The Phillies would love to run back another Red October next month, but they absolutely do not want to repeat the September they had a year ago.

Just like last season, the Phillies enter the final full month of the regular season a solid 15 games over .500.

But they stumbled down the stretch last season, going just 11-14 in September. In the process, they almost fumbled away a postseason spot.

• According to Baseball Reference, the Phillies begin the month with a 98.7% chance to make the postseason. FanGraphs has them at 96.6%, so the outlook this morning is pretty promising.

• Only the Dodgers (100%), Braves (100%), and Brewers (97%) currently have better postseason odds.

• The Phillies’ playoffs odds have surged over the past 30 days. Only three teams (Mariners, Cubs, Brewers) have experienced a more significant jump.

• Just how weird did things get late last season? The 2022 Phillies entered September with an 84.9% chance to reach the playoffs. Four weeks later, those odds were down to 70% percent with just a few games to go.

Our take: You have to like the way the Phillies are playing right now, but this is baseball, and things can turn in a hurry. Last season, they played September with the weight of recent collapses and an 11-year playoff drought looming over them. This year should be different. The Phillies are confident and have proven they have what it takes to succeed when the stakes are high.

And if all of that fails, well, then just know this — the Phillies play the Mets seven times and the Pirates three times over their final 10 games.

2)🔋 A Top 10 Offense, Out of Nowhere

The month of August was wild.

The offense spent most of this season struggling to consistently score runs. A big part of the problem was an inability to consistently hit home runs. Well, 27 games and 59 home runs later, things look a bit different right now than they did just a few short weeks ago.

• On July 1, the Phillies were 19th in runs per game. On August 1, they were 17th.

• After scoring an average of 6.52 runs over their last 27 games, they are now 9th in runs per game.

• Just one month ago, they were 21st in homers per game— now they are all the way up to 11th.

• The 59 home runs in August are, by a wide margin, the most in team history, and the third most in baseball history.

• Believe it or not, the Phillies are currently averaging more home runs per game than they did a season ago despite Bryce Harper’s delayed power surge and the season-long absence of Rhys Hoskins.

Our take: The numbers above aren’t to say that the Phillies suddenly possess baseball’s scariest offense. Teams like the Rangers and Braves have been mashing at a prolific rate for more than just a month. Still, the Phillies are 5th in slugging percentage, seventh in on-base percentage and sixth in OPS among all MLB teams. With Harper’s power back and Trea Turner now playing out of his mind, this suddenly looks like the offense everybody was drooling over last winter.

3) 😎 Tweet of the Day: A Team That Wears Overalls Together, Wins Together

Behold the majestic beauty of this look. We figured the team-wide fashion show was coming with some of the guys slowly buying in on the overalls for a couple weeks now.

Garrett Stubbs started the movement and some players have sporadically joined in following wins. Jake Cave had them on by his locker after the Phillies swept St. Louis last Sunday.

You may be wondering to yourself, "Can I get a pair of these?” You also may not be wondering that at all, but either way, the answer is yes! They even come in powder blue:

Hot.

4) 💧 Water Cooler

Save your Aaron Nola takes. If the Phillies can line things up the way they want, he’s the Game 2 guy. As for Game 3, that’s not quite so clear.

Have additional thoughts? Reply directly to this email to comment, and see if we include your response tomorrow.

5) 🔗 Link Roundup

• Here’s a great read from earlier in the week by my colleague Anthony SanFilippo on the journey of Phillies Spanish language interpreter Diego Ettedgui. 🗣️

• It has been an up-and-down run for the Phillies’ closer lately, but Craig Kimbrel is looking for a return to form in September. 🔥

• A look at Bryce Harper’s greatness and how he compares with baseball’s other current elite players. (paywall 💰)

The newsletter today was written by: Bob Wankel (Follow on X)

Thanks for reading!