Philadelphia Phillies: Gabe Kapler deserves credit for quickly learning from mistakes

After a horrendous start to the 2018 season, Gabe Kapler deserves credit for helping the Philadelphia Phillies turn things around.

Back in the offseason, there was plenty of excitement surrounding the Philadelphia Phillies hiring Gabe Kapler, mainly due to the fact that he was going to bring a new kind of style to the table as manager. Unlike previous managers from the last couple of years, Kapler was excited to take more of an analytical approach during his first year with the Phillies, and even though there was some frustration at first, it seems to finally be paying off.

Between the decision to pull Aaron Nola after just 68 pitches in the opener against the Atlanta Braves to getting crushed by their NL East rivals 15-2 a few days later, Philadelphia fans were anything but happy with Kapler early on. In fact, the argument can be made that numerous fans were already giving up on Kapler following the team’s 1-4 start, but luckily a lot has changed since that first week for the Phillies.

Thanks to Kapler learning from his mistakes along with the bats finally catching fire, Philadelphia has become one of the hottest teams in baseball by winning eight of their last 10 games, putting them in a tie with Atlanta for second place in the NL East at the moment. Obviously, there is still plenty of baseball left to play, and it’s tough to consider them a serious threat since they have a long way to go, but at least it’s exciting for the Phillies.

For a team that has been way too comfortable sitting at the bottom of the division over the last couple of years, Philadelphia has been waiting a long time for this team to show some sort of competitive mindset. When looking at the potential surrounding this team last year with guys like Rhys Hoskins along with a rotation on the rise led by Nola, Kapler seemed confident in the offseason about the chances of the Phillies surprising a lot of people in 2018.

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After seeing how unhappy fans were early on, Kapler deserves a ton of credit for how quickly he was able to get Philadelphia back on track. Words can’t even describe how brutal it was to see Phillies fans boo Kapler the way they did that opening week, but if the team continues to play this well moving forward, those fans may owe their beloved manager an apology.