Countdown to Opening Day: Any lessons from last year's fast start, weak finish?

Countdown to Opening Day: Any lessons from last year's fast start, weak finish? originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

CLEARWATER, Fla. — In baseball, there’s a game almost every day. And that creates a dilemma when things start to slip sideways.

Players have to think about what they did wrong in order to correct their mistakes, but not so much that they carry it over to the next game. Stewing over yesterday’s failure is a pretty surefire way to turn one bad day into a slump. And the same principle can apply to an entire season.

On July 11, 2024, the Phillies completed a sweep of the mighty Dodgers at Citizens Bank Park. They were 61-32, proud possessors of the best record in baseball.

From that point until the end of the season, they were a game under .500 (34-35) and then got punched in the nose by the Mets in the NLDS.

It was a stunning conclusion to a season that started with such promise.

By the time another spring training opened this February, out of necessity, they’d put all that behind them. When the season opens in Washington on March 27, it will be irrelevant. “Everybody talks about the playoffs last year. Well, the playoffs are gone,” manager Rob Thomson said early in spring training. “It kills me every day to think about not winning and how we lost. But you can’t control it and it’s in the past. And we’ve got to focus on today.”

He’s right, of course. But that has to follow a period of introspection, a CSI-level autopsy to try to determine why everything went kerflooey. Here are some theories and observations:

— The constant talk about getting off to a fast start was drummed into the players so much that there was a subconscious letdown when that goal was accomplished.

Thomson was pretty graphic in describing how hungry he thought his players were at his first Clearwater press conference in 2024. “I think these guys are motivated. They’ve had two years of tasting it. Now they want to take a chunk out of it and swallow it, you know, and eat it,” he said.

President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski flatly rejects that premise. “I don’t think there was too much emphasis on getting off to a fast start,” he said early in spring training. “And I would say the same thing this year. Whether it comes out publicly or not, we want to get off to a fast start. It helps.”

— The players lost a little mental edge once they built up a huge division lead. After all, the difference between winning and losing at the Major League level is small.

The Phillies had a 10-game cushion over the Braves by June and were never seriously challenged after that. So it wouldn’t be surprising if the players’ focus wasn’t quite as sharp down the stretch.

One possible telltale sign could be that the team’s chase rate, how often they swung at pitches outside the strike zone, improved earlier in the year, then rose slightly. Then, in the NLDS, they whiffed 38 times in four games. Thomson disagrees.

“I don’t think they lost their edge, and I still see the same type of motivation,” he said. “I see the same kind of grind and eagerness to get back there. You’ve got to get back there. There’s no guarantee you’re going to. But we’ve got a good enough club to get back and win the whole thing, really. But you can’t just assume you’re going to get back to the playoffs. You have to earn it.”

Said Dombrowski: “I’m not really sure what happened. I can’t tell you 100 percent. We just didn’t play as well. I can’t tell you the mental aspect of that because it’s only guessing when you come down to it. But it’s apparent we didn’t play as well.”

— Regardless of what happened last season, even though they’ve made the playoffs three straight years, they still haven’t had two good halves to a season. In 2022 and 2023 they started slowly then had to come on strong after the All-Star break.

“I think about that a lot,” Thomson said. “How do you do that?”

To illustrate his point, he used left-hander Ranger Suarez, who was terrific in the first half but whose effectiveness dropped dramatically after that due to a series of injuries as an example.

“Do you limit his innings? Do you limit his pitch counts early? I don’t know,” he continued. “We’ll just have to play it by ear. Do you get guys more days off? I don’t know. You’ve still got to win games. And when it’s there for you, you’d better win them. Because a poor loss can send you into a deep dive very quickly. You’ve got to be careful with the whole thing. It’s very fragile.”

— Every team has to deal with injuries. Still …

Both Dombrowski and Thomson prefaced these remarks by saying they weren’t making excuses.

“We had a lot of injuries, behind the scenes,” Dombrowski pointed out. When you look at it, (Alec) Bohm had (a hand) injury. (Bryson) Stott had (an elbow) injury. J.T. (Realmuto had a knee) injury. (Trea) Turner had (a hamstring) injury earlier and came back. Austin Hays. Our starting pitching got hurt, the fifth starter type. Ranger was hurt. So that might have contributed as much as anything.”

He actually missed a couple. Brandon Marsh (hamstring) and Kyle Schwarber (groin) both spent time on the injured list, too.

Most significantly, Bryce Harper was the NL Player of the Month for May and June and a legitimate MVP candidate. He was on the IL with a strained hamstring and admitted to having issues with his elbow and wrist later in the year. He hit 21 homers with 61 RBI and .983 OPS in the first half, 9 HR, 26 RBI, .793 OPS after the break.

Bohm was .290/.804 before injuring his wrist at the end of August, .170/502 after he came back. Stott admitted during spring training that soreness in his elbow nagged him from May through the end of the season.

All were back for the playoffs, but not all were completely recovered.

“I do think it took a toll on us,” Thomson said. “That’s why I always say health is the most important thing. Because we do have talented guys, and a really good group of guys as far as makeup and how they get along and how they pull for each other. And we have more depth than we’ve had in the last three years. But your depth can be depleted quickly, so we’ve got to keep these guys healthy.”