Phillies Offense Explodes, But Is The Slump Over?

Maikel Franco (Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports)

The Phillies offense exploded for a 9-2 victory over the Cardinals on Sunday. The offense finally turned around for the Phillies in Adam Morgan’s first career big league start.

Nine players combined for 13 hits for the Phillies on Sunday, including Maikel Franco and Ben Revere getting three hits apiece.

We’ve seen this before from the Phillies in the month of June, however. It seems that every time the Phillies offense shows signs of life, the runs aren’t produced or the slump regains its form and drowns the Phillies once again.

The Phillies looked to be off to a decent start to the month of June, going 3-3 over the first six games. You may be asking how this is a decent start. Well let’s take a look at how the rest of the month has fared for the Phillies.

Following a 6-4 victory over the Giants on June 7, the Phillies then lost all three games of the series with the Reds. The Phillies scored eight runs across those three games, which is respectable, but the pitching staff gave up 22 runs in the series.

In the next three-game series against the Pirates, the Phillies mustered up a whopping three runs despite totaling 24 hits. Averaging eight hits per game in that series you would think the Phillies would be able to score more than three runs. We have seen it all year from this team, they lack the ability to drive in the runs when they need them the most.

The Phillies were swept in three of the series that were played this month. Being swept in three series in a month is bad, but when you tack on the fact that they have only played seven series so far this month it looks even worse. They now head into a Yankees team that is red hot in the month of June, going 12-6 this month.

Despite the Yankees impressive record in June, they are still a streaky team. The Phillies need this series to boost confidence just a few weeks ahead of the All Star break. With the Phillies offensive explosion on Sunday, they need to ride this momentum over the next several weeks to turn their season around heading into the dog days of summer.