The Phillies might be four games off last season’s scorching 40-game pace (28-12), but they accomplished something Sunday night, with a 3-0 victory over the Cleveland Guardians, that they did not do once in 2024. They have won five straight series for the first time since June 2023.
They reached the quarter mark of the season playing their best baseball. It hasn’t always felt like the Phillies were in command of games. But they will begin Monday with the fifth-best record in Major League Baseball.
Here are seven numbers that help explain the good and bad through 40 Phillies games in 2025.
Phillies rotation: 26.9 K%
This isn’t just the best rate in MLB this season, by almost a full 2 percentage points. It would be the eighth-highest strikeout rate by any rotation since at least 1990 (and probably ever). It’s not just the strikeouts; the Phillies rotation’s walk rate has been among the 10 lowest all season. Zack Wheeler, who has struck out 74 and walked 11, embodies it.
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But it’s not as if this is a rotation that’s chasing big strikeout numbers at the expense of pitching deep into games. Their starters have averaged 5 2/3 innings per outing, ranking second behind the Kansas City Royals rotation. Phillies starters have the weapons to hunt a strikeout when needed, while still having other paths for more efficient outs.
It’s an impressive blend that has powered the club’s 24-16 record.
Zack Wheeler has a 33.2 K%. (Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
Kyle Schwarber: 46-game on-base streak
Pick any number for Schwarber to begin this season, and it’ll show why he’s the club’s most productive hitter. He has a .404 on-base percentage. He is tied with Aaron Judge for the major-league lead in homers (14). His 76.6 mph average bat speed ranks eighth in the sport. He’s hitting lefties better than he has hit righties. He has made a seamless transition from the team’s leadoff hitter to its cleanup man.
Schwarber’s 46-game on-base streak dates back to last season. It is the fourth-longest such streak for a Phillies hitter in the modern era (since 1900) and the longest since Bobby Abreu’s 48-gamer from 2000-01.
Schwarber, who will be a free agent at season’s end, has improved his stock in a real way.
Right-handed relievers: 1.49 WHIP
Ever since his six-run implosion on April 19, Jordan Romano has allowed one earned run in 6 2/3 innings with seven strikeouts and two walks. He earned a drama-free save Sunday night. All of that is encouraging, although Romano has dug a deep hole. His season ERA is 8.79.
It’s not all Romano; the Phillies have not received consistent relief work from their righties. That 1.49 WHIP ranks 26th in baseball. The teams with worse righty bullpen work: the Athletics, Miami Marlins, Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Angels.
The Phillies need more from Orion Kerkering, who has not found his footing in 2025. They expected José Ruiz to be a useful righty middle reliever. He was not, then went on the injured list with neck spasms. Joe Ross and Carlos Hernández have been worse than league average.
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Meaningless mop-up appearances can distort this number. Through 40 games, the Phillies haven’t had many of those.
But this is not a new issue. In 2024, Phillies righty relievers had a 1.33 WHIP; that ranked 24th in baseball. And that was with Jeff Hoffman in the bullpen. The Phillies addressed it at the trade deadline last summer by acquiring Carlos Estévez.
Jesús Luzardo’s sweeper: 47.3% whiff rate
Luzardo has been a revelation in his first few months with the Phillies, and a major reason is a pitch that he didn’t throw once before 2025. Soon after the December 2024 trade from the Marlins, Luzardo told Phillies pitching coaches he wanted new ideas to freshen his arsenal. He suggested a cutter; he had been tinkering with one in the offseason. The Phillies settled on a sweeping slider, a variation of the slider Luzardo had thrown before but with more horizontal movement.
It’s become his go-to out pitch. Batters have hit .179 with a .282 slugging percentage against the sweeping slider. And 47.3 percent of the time he throws it, a hitter swings and misses. It’s an absurd rate for a new pitch. For context: Only two starting pitchers have thrown sliders or sweepers with a higher whiff rate; Hunter Greene’s slider has a 53.7 percent rate and Gavin Williams’ sweeper is at 52.6 percent.
Alec Bohm and Brandon Marsh: 11 combined extra-base hits
Through 40 games last season, these two regulars produced 31 extra-base hits. It’s a different situation in 2025; Bohm and Marsh have trudged through the worst slumps of their careers. Marsh missed more than two weeks with a hamstring injury. He’s shown some life — and more pop — in the last week.
So has Bohm, but the power outage has worsened. He has only two extra-base hits in his last 16 games. Bohm is slugging .389 in his last 365 days. He is hitting the ball harder, at a league-average rate in 2025, than in the last three seasons. But he is pulling the ball in the air at the lowest rate since his rookie season. The Phillies had Edmundo Sosa start at third base against a righty pitcher over the weekend in Cleveland, and it’ll be interesting to see if that happens more often in the coming weeks.
Alec Bohm circles the bases after homering against the Rays last week. He has a 70 OPS+. (Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)
Phillies left-handed batters vs. left-handed relievers: .891 OPS
Only one team — the New York Yankees — has had more left-on-left plate appearances against the opposing team’s bullpen. The Phillies know they will see every lefty reliever an opponent has. So far, they are winning those matchups. That OPS is second-best in baseball this season, trailing the New York Mets’ 1.018 OPS. (The Mets have a mere 56 plate appearances in those situations.)
Schwarber has drawn a lefty reliever 36 times in the first 40 games of the season. He is hitting .286/.444/.821 against those lefties. He added to it Sunday night with a two-run homer off Cleveland lefty Tim Herrin.
THIS GUY IS UNREAL#RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/QH3T7cbpj7
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) May 12, 2025
The other lefty hitters — Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott and Marsh — have held their own against lefty relievers. Even Max Kepler, who has been platooned so he doesn’t face lefty starters, has done well against lefty relievers. He’s hitting .286/.304/.524 in 23 such plate appearances.
Rob Thomson: 20 different Phillies batting orders
Manager Rob Thomson spent all spring experimenting with various lineups. He settled on something unsettled: He’d use Schwarber as the leadoff hitter against right-handed pitchers and Trea Turner as the leadoff hitter against left-handed pitchers. That plan changed by the 13th game, when Stott batted first.
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The Phillies are functionally running platoons at three positions. And, even with Thomson’s tweaking, they have fielded the most stable lineups in the entire sport.
Their 20 different lineup combinations are by far the fewest this season. The Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants have used 28 different batting orders. The Chicago Cubs have had 29. Players like to know when they are playing and where they are batting. The more consistent a manager is, the less thinking the players have to do. At least that’s how they see it in the Phillies’ clubhouse.
But, in modern baseball, a set lineup isn’t sacrosanct. Teams deploy more platoons. There are fewer everyday players in the sport. Load management over a 162-game season is a real thing. Injuries are impossible to avoid.
Through 40 games, the Phillies have achieved a balance in lineup construction.
(Top photo of Kyle Schwarber: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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