Nick Castellanos Is CARRYING This Lineup! Cherry Pinstripes Episode 12

the National League East race got a little bit hairy here down the stretch in August and it could have got really hairy last night if the Philadelphia Phillies did not pull out that comeback win in game one of the series against the Braves they go into tonight with a six-game lead now over the Braves a nine game lead over the Mets there's three more games in this series though so they can cut this lead in half this weekend we got a 45 and 24 record at home a 3431 away 41 and 33 against teams 500 or better we're going to dive into the Phillies right now a little bit what's working for them what do they need to get going and we got this big big Brave series and a lot of NL games coming up in September my name is shelfy we are back again with the Cherry Pinstripes podcast YouTube Spotify make sure you're following us on Twitter Instagram Facebook all that fun stuff this series this weekend hopefully last night's game is the turning point for the team this season the Braves if they pull that game out last night they pull that game out last night suddenly it's a four game lead in the division you got three more against the Braves seven against the Mets not playing too well in the second half that was a crucial vital gigantic win last night that I think if this team does get back into their ways and they go on their run like a lot of people thought they would all season long last night's game was the game it was the moment it's the one we'll go back to and say yep that's when they locked it in they've won 10 out of their last 15 now 10 and five over the last 15 and that's with Bryce Harper and Trey Turner still not playing well at the moment like I said they have that six-game lead over the Braves they're one behind the Dodgers right now in the national league three more against the Braves they have four against the Marlins seven against the Mets three against the Nationals they've been much better at home than on the road like most teams but not terrible on the road though 34 and 31 but they do play 17 out of their last 29 games on the road a lot of which being in division games we have taken care of the Nationals and the Mets when we need to the Marlins always scare us but there's a lot of young guys playing right now too got Connor Norby who came over in that Baltimore Orioles deal who's playing great right now for the Marlins and the Marlins are they just played great against us the last time they came to town so none of these teams regardless of what's going on it's always the expanded rosters in September you got to show up and beat these teams and stretch this lead in the National League East but it starts with this four- game series against the Braves riding the momentum from last night that big three-run Homer from Brandon Marsh opposite Feld wind kind of catered to that one a little bit but it got the momentum rolling and eventually Nick ctios with the two-run Homer gives them the lead late and the bullpen shut it down Braves Twitter was in flamed engulfed in flames last night when they took them that starter out of that game and I don't blame him necessarily it stinks when you go to the bullpen and the first guy Aaron bummer came out of the pen gave up that first game and you know you could sense it you could kind of sense the momentum rolling Brandon Marsh got hot the this C Tios Homer was just a spark plug moment orian kering Matt Strom and Jeff Hoffman one two three shut it down in the bullpen three and one/ third scoreless in relief for Christopher Sanchez who ended up having a pretty decent game he went five and two3 gave up four only two of those four runs were earned he struck out eight and this game started bad Matt Olson had two home runs and the Braves had a 4 nothing lead by the time you got to the middle Innings of this game but the Phillies got a hold on it late big win in this one three more coming up the matchups for the last three games of this series tonight we have Ranger Suarez versus Ronaldo Lopez Ronaldo Lopez has been great this season kind of bordering the eligibility line when it comes to the ra but he's been great with the Innings he's got out there the Phillies are avoiding chisale in this series but still Ronaldo Lopez they got Max freed going in game three against Zack Wheeler and then the final game of the series schwellenbach who's been one of the breakout pitchers in Major League Baseball this season will be going up against Aeron NOA this is going to be a dog fight series the Le the next three games of the series 640 start time 7:15 start time and a 710 start time Aaron Nola he's had some bad starts against the Braves over the year the core of this team has seen him an awful lot but he's coming off one of his best starts of the season it'll be huge to have him really get rolling into September and he would do what he does get hot at the right time of the year he's always a good playoff pitcher typical Aaron Nola stuff the dominoes are falling for Aaron Nola to get rolling at the right time and turn this in a good start against the Braves to end out this series would be huge for Aaron Nola now we're going to talk about our boys a little bit the hot boys Nick casianos and Johan roas Nick casianos has been the MVP of this ball Club in the second half I noted at the top Bryce Harper and Trey Turner have been struggling a bit both of their ops's in the second half start with a six and they're getting really close to a five Nick costos on the other hand 296 average 514 slugging 852s he's back to a positive War now on the season which if you would have asked me to months ago I don't think that was ever even in the cards because he doesn't provide much defensively and the the six to eight week start that he had to the season was so bad I actually believe if you go back a few podcasts I said I don't think there's anything Nick casos can do this year to fix his numbers but he's managed to do it he had a monster home run last night to give the Phillies that win a big game-winning home run to center field late in that game to give them the 5-4 lead but this guy is now contributing what you paid for and I've said it since the day we signed him he was always going to be a streaky power hitter he tells you as bluntly as he can anytime anyone ask C ball hit ball there's no strategy there's not much of an approach he is up there playing backyard baseball this is not an analytics based baseball player he goes up there hacking and when he's hot it is very very fun to watch and when he's not it can get ugly but just like a lot of guys on this team and we've seen it last year with the brave series in the playoffs he seems to step up when it matters most it doesn't matter if the Ops is 670 740 or 852 like it's been in the second half I want this guy in our lineup in big games and this Nick casos if we have this Nick casianos in the playoffs Bryce Harper gets going look out because an MVP Nick casianos is exactly what you paid $100 million for now next to him in center field his guy Johan roas kind of figuring it out a little bit he's batting 300 on the dot in the second half you really can't ask for much more than that the Ops and the slugging is never going to be there it's just never going to be there he's not going to walk a ton he's in the nine hole he's not the best hitter in the world pitchers are going to be attacking him if he can have stretches like this where he can bat 300 over the course of six weeks that's huge because as we have noted here top five in Sprint speed 100 percentile at 30 mes an hour plus seven outs above average 94th percentile in Major League Baseball he has the top rated arm value in baseball this year in the 100th percentile his average exit V on the arm strength is 91.9 from center field usually usually the Cannons are in the corners Johan roas is flying around out there and then chucking low 90 missiles from center field there's a reason that they've given him a really really long leash offensively this defensive Talent can win you ball games it won you a ball game in that Atlanta Series last year when he took that double from Ronald aun in the Gap with the bases loaded Trevor plof has called this out last year's season in the playoffs shout out Trevor ploof this is a a guy who will take two or three runs off the board and you won't even notice that it was a big play his jumps are that good he moves that fast he is a premium Defender he's not a good Defender he's not a go glove Defender this is a premium Defender and if he can just have flash in the pan stretches like this where he's b 300 the hot boys in the bottom of the order are carrying this ball Club right now it's been a tough second half but 10 wins over their last 15 and it has been motored by Nick casianos and Johan roas in the bottom half those two guys hopefully they can just keep this thing rolling because now Brandon Marsh is getting hot Bryson stot has been a lot better over the last couple of weeks bottom of the half bottom half of the ORD rolling eventually at some point your MVPs are going to start hitting too you don't want to see a stretch like this in October but the the boys have a whole month to figure it out and the odds are my money's on black Bryce Harper and Trey Turner are going to turn it around before we get to October hopefully Yan rohas is still hitting by then the other concern I have with this team and this has been a huge topic on Twitter over the last couple weeks and really since the the bullpen deadline Acquisitions that were made with Carlos Estes and Tanner Banks the bullpen identity what is the bullpen identity my biggest concern concern with the Phillies they have a great Bullpen they have so many guys that they can go to righty and Lefty they have options and now you're moving Taiwan Walker out there we'll see what he can bring to the table but every single night no matter who the starting pitcher is for the Phillies when we get to the fifth inning I don't know who's coming out first I don't know who the setup man is that night I'm not sure if it's going to be Carlos Estes that's closing there's just a lot of we're playing it by inning and I get that in the analytics era of baseball but there is and I'm a big preacher of habit and routine in this sport you got to have at least a little bit of consistency I don't love that we'll use Jeff Hoffman in the ninth and then turn around and use him in the sixth two days later I don't love the especially with the depth that we have I don't think there's any reason for it you look at that 2022 World Series against the Houston Astros before the Phillies even faced the Astros in that series my biggest fear that playoff was the Astros because they had an identity in their Bullpen if they got to the six that was it Rafael Montero Hector nerys Brian Abu Ryan Presley ding dong ding dong didn't matter if you you had lefties coming righties coming they were bringing their best guy beat him we have the arms to do that Carlos esz and Jeff Hoffman should be splitting the eighth and the ninth however you want to do it stop getting Fancy with this stuff man if I see Jeff Hoffman in the sixth inning one more time I'm going to throw up all over my desk he honestly could be closed if cars if we didn't pick up Carlos Estes and Jeff Hoffman wasn't the solidified closer right now I'd be flipping tables around this office Carlos Estes another note on him fan base there's a couple people on Twitter that don't seem to think the Carlos Estes pickup was great there's two things you can't do with Carlos esz and I'm going to preface this by saying there's nothing wrong with this some guys are just like this you're not paying $30 million Carlos Estes can't go two innings and you shouldn't pitch him on back-to-back days just like we should have never thrown Craig Kimbrell in the eighth inning when he was here he's a ninth inning closer some guys just don't have the eighth just like some setup guys can't pitch in the ninth Craig Kimbrell has always been that way you go back to 20 20 not 20 92010 whenever he came up he's better in the ninth than he is in the eighth it's weird but he just is we didn't use him right we've we've got to stop playing games lock these guys in let this Bullpen have an ident I want the other team to know what's coming and be fearful we don't have to play matchups we have three Bullpen relievers that were in the All-Star game not counting Carlos estan what Jose alvado is not here anymore we don't even notice Tanner Banks is a stud identity this team has to have an identity on October 1st and it starts with the back end of the bullpen I want teams to know that if this game gets to the sixth and they're not up they're in trouble the mixing and matching has to stop that's my biggest fear but Taiwan Walker where does he fit in how does this work I am not closed off to the idea that this guy's going to go to the bullpen and actually provide some value especially if you get in a spot where you need two innings in the fifth sixth or six seven or the fourth fifth maybe so maybe things go real south and you got to get desperate we've throw Noah Cinder guard middle relief in a in a playoff scenario before maybe comes out could you could you see that story that storyline Taiwan Walker coming out middle relief gets too scoreless in a playoff game suddenly he a hero seen crazier things in Philadelphia seen much crazier things in Philadelphia but now before I wrap this up cuz going into September we're going to have a lot to talk about this playoff race is going to get spicy like I said we have a million division games coming up and you know how it is in the NL like we said it doesn't matter who we're playing or what the record is these NL games are spicy and weird we will have Jake Burger having three Homer games on us if we don't show up this team really needs their MVPs to get going we've talked aled about the bullpen the bullpen identity the back end of the lineup's been great right now but no matter what you go back to the NLCS last year up 32 come back home you have two home games lineup's been great pitching staff's been great I know we talk about that eighth inning from Kraig Kimbrell 1 two 3 4 in the lineup had two hits in two games two for 21 or 22 with a walk I think does not matter what anyone else on the field is doing you're not winning that game the one two three four even five in your lineup that you're spending $100 million on has to contribute and right now my guys who I've never critiqued on this show by the way are having a tough go 37 second half games for Bryce Harper right now he's batting 230 with a 691 Ops Trey Turner 36 second half games 230 average 601 Ops just three home runs that Ops is almost in the 500s now 66 Ops Plus for Trey Turner and Trey Turner is not out it's not like he's not a guy that like when he's not hitting you know he's saving runs on this side you're eating average defense for Trey Turner so stretches like this you know this season it's kind of been that's what the season's kind of been for him if we're being honest a lot of up and down 866 April March 571 in May 9:44 in July 6:37 in August does he get hot in September go down in October or do we just let him ride out this cold streak for two or three more weeks and get hot in October just like Nick ctios he was catching the barrels against the Braves in the playoffs last season but we need these guys to get going straight up and again back to the top last night's game hopefully can be a pillar moment you see a guy like Brandon Marsh come out and say no we're going to win this game Big Barrel opposite field home run Bryce Harper is built for the moment and ever since he's come to Philadelphia he came to Philadelphia with a tag as someone who couldn't really perform in the postseason and overall his postseason numbers don't look great because his first playoff as a 19-year-old he went one for 21 so they're always going to be anchored down by that he's been phenomenal with the Phillies got that Padres series he couldn't even believe it in The Dugout did I just do that I I think was the first thing that came out of his mouth in The Dugout after he took his helmet off was did I really just do that that's the Bryce Harper this team needs right now Bryce starts hitting Trey starts hitting Bullpen locked this it's been a it's been a month now Tanner Banks has been here a month Carlos esz has been here a month we know what we have in Jeff Hoffman get the identity right there figure out what you have in in Taiwan Walker I like this bench now a lot more than I did at the deadline I know we moved Whit marfield and he turned into Kansas City Royals Whit marfield down in Atlanta Austin Hayes is going to be coming back back soon should add some extra thump against lefties down the stretch and that'll be huge against the bullpens with the expanded rosters you're going to see a few more lefties in September Kyle schwarber Bryce Harper you're going to and the Braves have been lining themselves up for for Lefty spamming the Phillies for a while Austin Hayes is someone that's going to get added into the mix here that could be huge he's going to come up in a couple spots here late September and even in the postseason Austin Hayes will have big at bats for this team so keep him him in the front of your mind as well there's a lot of guys that haven't really contributed to this 10- win over 15 Gam game stretch that you will be seeing contribute as we move forward Kyle schwarber's been up and down but he's having one of his better Seasons with the team three games left against the Braves 17 on the road let's get it going again guys if you're not already following the podcast it's YouTube and Spotify Cherry Pinstripes make sure you're following us on Twitter Instagram Facebook Cherry Pinstripes we're back here every week we had a couple week Hiatus there before the allstar break had to get some things fine-tuned but make sure you're following us on socials we're every single day on socials even if we miss a podcast if we go a week or two without a podcast there's always social content every single day on Twitter and Instagram so go check that out stay up to date with the Phils I'll talk to you guys there and I'll see you in the next one peace