After chipping away for a month, Phillies’ Alec Bohm rediscovers some joy

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DENVER — Before the first two innings ended Tuesday night, Alec Bohm had fully extended to snare a line drive above his head, then fielded a grounder behind third base and fired a perfect jump throw to second base. He moved in the field with ease. But at the plate, he grounded out to second base in his first two at-bats. He drilled a liner to right field in his third at-bat. He had nothing to show.

“There’s been a couple of games where I’ve started out 0-for-2,” Bohm said a few hours before a 7-4 Phillies win over the hapless Colorado Rockies. “And some days, I would have to let that just piss me off or whatever. Maybe I wouldn’t have been as prepared or ready for my next at-bat. Then there’s been a few games lately where I’ve ended up getting two hits in a day where I started 0-for-2. A little token over the course of the season.”

That pregame observation was prescient. Bohm batted again in the seventh inning with runners on the corners and smacked a run-scoring single to left. He hit another ball hard in the ninth for a single. He could look at the giant scoreboard in Coors Field, see the updated numbers — a .264 batting average and .667 OPS — and find comfort. Still not what he wants, but better.

There is joy in the grind again.

“I’ve typically been a hot starter,” Bohm said. “So I’ve never kind of played it from this angle. I’ve always started hot and tried to hold on at the end. I feel like in my career, I’ve had some tough stretches at the very end of the year. Hopefully, now, we’ve flipped it around.”

Bohm commanded so much attention at the beginning of the season because he was stuck in a miserable spiral. He appeared dejected. He fell to eighth in the batting order. The noise around him was louder and louder.

Alec Bohm. Ring It.#RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/zGanlA2Ept

— The Liberty Line (@LibertyLinePHL) May 20, 2025

Now, he’s starting to chip away at it. Bohm has hit .337/.392/.465 in the last 30 days. Only Kyle Schwarber has a higher OPS among Phillies in that span. Bohm crushed a go-ahead homer in Monday’s game and drove another ball 372 feet to the pull side, albeit for a warning-track out. He has emerged from the April darkness with an improved power stroke in May, traditionally the worst month of his career.

He just looks different.

“He’s got that pep in his step, right?” Bryce Harper said.

“When you’re hitting and you’re not 0-for-4 and worried about this and that, you can let your mind relax and make those plays,” Trea Turner said. “I mean, it’s all intertwined. It’s all connected.”

The Phillies have collected 17 hits in consecutive games for the first time since 2007 and only the fifth time since 1935. They have won five straight games and own the best record in the National League. They have pummeled inferior opponents, a feat that can energize everyone in the lineup. But it might benefit Bohm the most.

Bohm has five multi-hit games in the last nine he has played. The results improved before last week, but he started to feel the power stroke return at Citizens Bank Park against the St. Louis Cardinals. He drove a slider 388 feet to center for a deep flyout. He clubbed an opposite-field homer. He pulled another ball to deep left over the weekend against the Pittsburgh Pirates that died on the warning track.

“That just started to trickle into the rest of it,” Bohm said.

Just getting the ball in the air to the pull side was an improvement in itself. Bohm is not a dead-pull hitter; he takes pride in an all-fields approach. But he has hit too many balls on the ground in 2025. His rate of pulled balls in the air was down by half. He said he was missing the pitches he should be pulling — either fouling them back or pushing them too much.

Alec Bohm celebrates in the dugout after hitting a two-run homer against the Rockies on Monday. (Isaiah J. Downing / Imagn Images)

“I would like to pull the ball a little more,” Bohm said. “But I also think sometimes when I go up there with that intention, I make myself an out. I end up not getting the pitch to do it on anyway. It’s more about letting it happen naturally. And I think that is starting to come more, whereas at times I would force it. Then I was just swinging at bad stuff.”

There is a virtue in that lesson. Bohm entered Tuesday tied for the 10th-most outs on balls hit at 90 mph or harder. The league was hitting .413 with a .757 slugging percentage on those batted balls this season. Bohm was a little unlucky, but that did not explain everything about his slow start.

He made things tougher on himself. Now, it’s not the end of the world if he begins a game hitless in two at-bats.

“A lot of times it’s tougher to start slow and find it,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “He’s been able to find it. He can hit. He’s got good raw power, which you saw (Monday) night, but it’s not going to show up just because of the swing mechanics. And I’m fine with him just staying where he’s at because he puts the ball in play and hits line drives. He uses the field. He’s a good hitter. I’m happy with him.”

Before the first game at Coors Field this week, Thomson had Bohm batting fifth in his lineup, but admitted it was a mistake. Bohm flipped with J.T. Realmuto and hit sixth. He was back to eighth on Tuesday, but Bohm could soon force his manager’s hand and creep higher in the batting order.

That would be some validation. Maybe the real validation, though, is not even needing it.

“Now,” Bohm said, “it’s just showing up, being prepared, and playing.”

(Top photo: Justin Edmonds / Getty Images)

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