DENVER — Bryce Harper had seen Mike Dunn, a 33-year-old reliever, before. He had seen him at least once in every one of his seasons as a big leaguer. That is because Dunn is left-handed and teams will always attempt to exploit Harper by deploying a lefty. He faced a lefty in 31 percent of his plate appearances last season; it was the most he had ever seen.
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“We know that every team is going to bring in their toughest left-hander to face Bryce in the biggest moments,” Phillies manager Gabe Kapler said. “If he’s swinging the bat well against those guys, what do you do if you’re the opposition? You leave the righty in? That’s not a good recipe for success.”
The Rockies had a choice in Saturday’s game. Harper stepped to the plate, in the seventh inning of a one-run game, with runners on second and third. There were two outs. Dunn had faced a batter already, so he could have walked Harper and Colorado could have summoned a righty for Rhys Hoskins.
Harper did not think they would walk him.
“Thought maybe they’d be conservative,” Harper said. “But they have their lefty out there. He comes in to do a job.”
Harper whiffed at Dunn’s first slider. He took the next one. He fouled off the third one. He crushed the fourth one because Dunn missed his spot. It was Harper’s seventh hit in 18 at-bats against lefties this season. He has 2 homers and 2 doubles. He’s walked as many times (four) as he’s struck out versus lefties.
He has, so far, neutralized the assumed platoon advantage.
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Harper said he does not spend extra time preparing for an opponent’s left-handed relievers before a series. He has a routine and an approach and he is dedicated to it.
“I’m not a video guy,” Harper said. “I’m more of a feel guy. If I’m going to face a guy like that — or anybody — I’m just try to go out there and feel the game. Feel what’s going on. Location of the pitch. Guys on base, guys on second or third. Mentality and things like that.”
Harper did not have a great feel for Dunn before Saturday. He was 3-for-21 against him with 7 strikeouts and no walks. He had homered against Dunn in 2012, his rookie season.
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Of Harper’s 23 plate appearances against lefties in 2019, only six have come against starting pitchers. He’s 0-for-4 with a walk and hit by pitch in those plate appearances. That makes him 7-for-14 versus the lefty relievers he’s faced, including an 11th-inning double against Harrison Musgrave on Friday night.
That is a remarkable response to teams’ attempts to beat him in the later innings.
“He’s actually been outwardly confident about facing lefties for quite some time,” Kapler said. “It didn’t start, like, in the last week or 10 days. He’s been talking about it since spring training.”
Bryce Harper and Andrew McCutchen celebrate Harper’s 3-run homer in the seventh on Saturday. (Isaiah J. Downing / USA TODAY Sports)
2. When the Phillies added Phil Gosselin to the roster, they viewed it as nothing more than short-term, emergency insurance. But, to Gosselin, it meant everything.
The West Chester native, who grew up listening to Harry Kalas, had accomplished one of his dreams.
“It was cool in the spring, but it’s definitely a whole another level when it’s the regular season,” said Gosselin, who was a non-roster player with the Phillies in the spring. “The games matter. In some ways, getting the call-up here was almost better than the first one I got (in 2013) when I was with Atlanta.”
Really?
“Yeah, just because the Phillies are the team I grew up rooting for,” said Gosselin, 30. “It’s why I love baseball so much, watching those games as a kid. So it’s special in a number of ways.”
Gosselin’s first baseball idol was Scott Rolen. “He was my guy,” Gosselin said. Then, when he went to Malvern Prep for high school, he began to model his game after Chase Utley’s. Now, for at least a week, he is the Phillies’ shortstop.
He enjoyed an unforgettable moment Saturday when he cleared the bases with a fourth-inning double that put the Phillies ahead for good.
“I’ve been up with the bases loaded a lot for the Phillies — it just was in my backyard as a kid, though,” Gosselin said. “It didn’t count.”
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This time it did. Goosebumps.
Phil Gosselin stands on second base after his 3-RBI double in the fourth on Saturday. (Isaiah J. Downing / USA TODAY Sports)
3. A recent report that the Phillies are among the teams that have shown “strong interest” in Texas left-hander Mike Minor is not accurate, two sources said. But Minor should not be eliminated as a potential Phillies target for later in the summer, closer to the trade deadline.
The Phillies and Rangers had cursory conversations during the offseason about Minor, according to a third source, but Texas was inclined to keep him. Minor, 31, is signed through the 2020 season and the Rangers want to field a more competitive club next year when they open their new ballpark. It’s possible Minor isn’t moved this season.
The connection between the Phillies and Minor is natural. The Phillies will be linked to any and all available lefty pitchers. Minor has started well for Texas but his strikeout rate is about the same as last season and his walk rate is a few ticks higher. A few more months of improved performance from Minor could compel the Phillies to show more serious interest.
4. There is a sizable amount of buzz from within the organization about Kyle Dohy, the 22-year-old lefty reliever at Double-A Reading. Dohy could jump to Triple A in the coming weeks. He throws in the mid-90s and, while there will always be doubts about his abilities to throw strikes on a consistent basis, he has big-league talent.
The Phillies have a need for a second lefty to complement Adam Morgan, who has pitched quite well in the first three weeks. Pay attention to how the Phillies use Dohy in the minors; his last two outings have been two innings apiece. He’s thrown strikes 59 percent of the time. But he has yet to surrender an extra-base hit.
For now, the Phillies have three lefties in the bullpen with the weekend addition of Austin Davis to the roster. Davis had moments in 2018 when he resembled a credible, big-league weapon. He’ll have a chance to reclaim that role. It’ll be interesting to see if he can carve into some of the situations that veteran José Álvarez has occupied so far.
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5. Three hamstring injuries in four days will prompt the Phillies to examine their training programs. There is no common thread to the injuries suffered by Jean Segura, Odúbel Herrera and Scott Kingery. The Phillies devote more resources to sports science than ever before. They travel with three athletic trainers and two strength coaches. They study players’ sleep patterns and monitor their food, which follows a program designed by a new in-house nutritionist and chef.
Still, the Phillies want to make sure the hamstring issues are nothing more than a coincidence.
“The one thing we can do is talk about it a lot,” Kapler said. “Have conversations internally about what we can do better and then dig into what has been done. Our practices this year are similar to what our practices were last year and we didn’t have these kind of hamstring injuries.
“We’re checking things like hydration, workload, pregame warm-up, things like that. We feel like we’ve done our due diligence and feel good about our practices right now. But that doesn’t mean we don’t take it very seriously and we will continue to dig in to feel how to be better at preventing injuries.”
6. Vince Velasquez was relegated to a footnote in the disaster that was Friday night, but it should not diminish what the Phillies saw from their fifth starter. His fastball was spectacular. It sat at 95 mph and topped at 98. He threw it for a strike 74 percent of the time. Colorado hitters swung and missed at 15 of his 65 fastballs.
“Ever since my first outing, I never had any type of doubt with my pitches,” Velasquez said. “I’m throwing everything with full-on conviction. I’m throwing it with a purpose. Quality fastballs in the zone were effective.”
Vince Velasquez delivers one of his 97 pitches on Friday. He had 8 strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings. (Isaiah J. Downing / USA TODAY Sports)
The last pitch he threw, a 97 mph fastball in on the hands of Garrett Hampson, might have been the best one of the night. Hampson’s bat shattered. The ball floated into shallow left field for a run-scoring double.
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More than anything, Velasquez looks composed.
“There’s more poise coupled with more intensity and more focus,” Kapler said. “He also has a different energy when he’s not on the mound. A more confident energy right now. In the dugout, in the clubhouse. Smiling a little bit more. More playful. You can tell when he feels athletic because he takes some liberties on the mound. He changes his delivery up a little bit.”
Velasquez has walked just 5.9 percent of the batters he’s faced. He has a 2.55 ERA in 17 2/3 innings. It’s an encouraging beginning.
“I was pretty thrilled,” Velasquez said. “I was pretty excited.”
7. Maikel Franco has a secret. He reached into his backpack at the base of his locker this weekend and pulled a small bottle from it. “This is one of my favorites,” Franco said. It’s called Bal d’Afrique and it smells great.
Franco spritzes the cologne near his neck before batting practice. He sprays it again before he steps onto the field for a game. He does this all the time. It’s a thing.
“When you get used to it, you want to be fresh,” Franco said. “You want to smell good. I do it all the time.”
Last week, Franco and Segura shared the same scent a few minutes before batting practice. “Most of the Latin players do it,” Franco said. Carlos Santana, apparently, was notorious for it. He had different colognes for different days and sometimes he’d mix them. It’s mostly a Dominican thing.
“It’s something that I do every day,” Franco said. “When I’m not doing it, I just think about it all day long. It’s like a superstition.”
8. Every week we’ll try to highlight a particular pitch that was especially interesting, memorable or just weird. This is the pitch of the week.
Franco has remained in the No. 8 spot in the lineup despite producing like a middle-of-the-order bat. The Phillies have a .948 OPS from the eight hole, the best in the National League, which averages a .713 OPS. The Phillies could move Franco higher in the order, especially now with the various injuries around the team. But Kapler believes there is something to Franco hitting eighth. Franco agrees. So they will not mess with it.
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Last Monday, Franco faced hard-throwing Mets righty Noah Syndergaard and took three pitches in his first at-bat. Syndergaard started him with a slider, then countered with two fastballs. Franco remembered that when he came to bat in the fourth inning. He hacked at a first-pitch fastball and fouled it back. He swung at another fastball and fouled off that one, too. He was in the hole and he remembered the first-pitch slider from the first at-bat. He guessed that Syndergaard would try to sneak another past him with an 0-2 count.
Syndergaard hung it. Franco punished it. It was his first home run on an 0-2 count since 2015.
The idea behind batting Franco eighth is that it will force him to be even more selective than before. He has carried a low strikeout rate in previous seasons. But he tended to chase in fastball counts and opposing teams began pitching him backward. Franco hit .221 with a .456 slugging percentage against breaking balls in 2018, according to Statcast data. He’s hit .263 with a .632 slugging percentage in a small sample this season.
9. What would have happened Friday night had the Rockies tied the game in the 12th inning and it continued? Juan Nicasio was pitching on back-to-back days and he might have been able to handle the 13th inning. But the Phillies decided earlier in the game that Victor Arano was not healthy enough to pitch. Nicasio was the last man standing. “After Nicasio? I thought (Aaron) Altherr,” Kapler said. “Maybe Altherr comes in and (Jake) Arrieta or (Zach) Eflin goes to left field. Those were the alternatives I saw.” … The Phillies, on Thursday, will finally wear their powder blue uniforms for the first time in 2019. They will wear them for every home Thursday game — eight times in all. They’ll also wear them for three games in Pittsburgh during a July throwback weekend. The alternate red uniforms that resembled the spring training tops are gone. … Asked for a scouting report on Lehigh Valley, Gosselin selected Jan Hernandez as someone who impressed. Hernandez, a former third-round pick who has spent most of his seven-year minor league career as a part-time player, implemented some swing changes. He’s started hot. “He wasn’t in big-league camp with us,” Gosselin said. “He’s really, really talented. He hits the ball as hard as anybody. Real strong. Good arm in the outfield. It’s funny how some guys, it takes a little while for it to click for whatever reason. It seems like he’s slowly getting better and better. I was impressed by him.”
The Local Nineis a weekly collection of Phillies observations and analysis.
(Top photo: Isaiah J. Downing / USA TODAY Sports)
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Kary Bruening
Update: 2024-05-25
