The Philadelphia Phillies are in the midst of a disastrous stretch, having gone 3-11 since the All-Star Game. Bryce Harper and Trea Turner are ice cold at the plate. Jeff Hoffman had his worst outing as a Phillie Saturday night against the Seattle Mariners. All-Stars Zack Wheeler and Cristopher Sánchez each had clunkers in their most recent starts.
No one is excusing how the Phillies have played recently. Luckily for them, they played so well early in the season that they are still 20 games above .500, and are holding onto a five-game lead in the National League East. But if they don’t straighten things out in the next 10 days, their lead in the division is going to evaporate, leaving the Phillies to fight just to make the playoffs over the final month-and-a-half of the season. It’s been a disaster of late, full stop.
But what the Phillies absolutely didn’t need during their worst stretch of the season was the performance that home-plate umpire Ryan Wills turned in Saturday. According to Umpire Scorecards, Willis struggled so much that his calls gave a +1.31 favor to the Mariners.
In his second inning of work, Phillies reliever Carlos Estévez missed the target J.T. Realmuto set up by quite a bit with two outs and two strikes on Mitch Haniger. What he didn’t miss was the strike zone. Not even close. Umpires are supposed to stick with pitches and call them based on whether they are in the zone, not on how perfect the frame was. Obviously, a good frame helps. But this wasn’t a pitch that was on the black, it was clearly in the zone.
