{"id":25209,"date":"2019-09-24T16:50:42","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T20:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=25209"},"modified":"2019-09-24T17:08:17","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T21:08:17","slug":"philadelphia-phillies-are-eliminated-from-postseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/09\/24\/philadelphia-phillies-are-eliminated-from-postseason\/","title":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Phillies Are Eliminated from the Postseason"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>The Phillies Are Eliminated from the Postseason<\/h1>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/philadelphia-phillies\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> have been eliminated from the postseason following a loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/washington-nationals\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Washington Nationals<\/a>. This gives the Phillies a record of 79 &#8211; 77, which will not be good enough for a playoff berth this season. This is now the eighth straight season that the Phillies will miss the postseason. After having such strong momentum heading into the season, the Phillies were unable to stand out in a crowded National League East.<\/p>\n<h2>What Went Wrong<\/h2>\n<p>Well, what started out as a great season for the Phillies, turned out to end pretty quickly. Things started to go wrong on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/philadelphia\/video\/phillies-andrew-mccutchen-asks-prayers-following-injury\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 3rd<\/a> when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mccutan01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrew McCutchen<\/a> suffered a leg injury that would end his season. The team suffered from other injuries, but the injury to McCutchen probably hurt the Phillies the most.<\/p>\n<p>Ace pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nolaaa01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aaron Nola<\/a> took a major step back in 2019 in every major pitching category. His ERA jumped over one full run from 2.37 to 3.75. His minuscule WHIP rose from .975 to 1.256.<\/p>\n<p>Going into the 2019 season, the Phillies were one of the favorites to win their division. While they have played well against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/atlanta-braves\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Atlanta Braves<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/new-york-mets\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York Mets<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/miami-marlins\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Miami Marlins<\/a>; the Nationals were a thorn in their side. A losing record against the Nationals is probably the difference between making the postseason and missing it.<\/p>\n<h2>What Went Right<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/realmjt01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">J.T. Realmuto<\/a> proved the Phillies were right to bring him in via trade. Realmuto saw his HR and RBI totals improve this season. After trading top prospects to acquire him, he was arguably the best Phillies player this season.<\/p>\n<p>In the offseason, the Phillies decided to take a risk in signing free agent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harpebr03.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bryce Harper<\/a>. While Harper has had a good season in 2019, it may not be as good as Philly fans hope it would be. With signing a massive contract there comes massive expectations. Some will argue this season was one of the better seasons Harper has had in his career. Harper drove in 108 runs which is a career-high.<\/p>\n<h2>The Big Question<\/h2>\n<p>The most important question surrounding the Phillies in the 2019 offseason is whether or not manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kaplega01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gabe Kapler<\/a> will return next year. Arguments can be made that Kapler is on the hottest seat in baseball. With this team failing to make the playoffs his seat only gets hotter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Phillies Are Eliminated from the Postseason The Philadelphia Phillies have been eliminated from the postseason following a loss to the Washington Nationals. This gives the Phillies a record of 79 &#8211; 77, which will not be good enough for a playoff berth this season. This is now the eighth straight season that the Phillies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3158,"featured_media":25226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1071],"tags":[610,315,1743,469,241,3008,268],"class_list":["post-25209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phillies","category-mlb","tag-andrew-mccutchen","tag-bryce-harper","tag-gabe-kapler","tag-j-t-realmuto","tag-jake-arrieta","tag-nick-pivetta","tag-philadelphia-phillies"],"modified_by":"Aaron Cornett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}