Philadelphia Phillies: Funk on offense preventing team from taking advantage in NL East

After losing for the fifth time in six games, the Philadelphia Phillies need to get out of their funk on offense.

Despite being in decent shape for the most part with a 16-13 record, the Philadelphia Phillies are coming off their fourth loss in a row on Tuesday after falling to the Miami Marlins 2-1 in extra innings. Not only did this mark the third time in four games the Phillies were held to a single run, but with five losses in six games, Gabe Kapler‘s team has been missing out on a golden opportunity to possibly build a lead in the NL East.

At the moment, Philadelphia will head into Wednesday’s game against Miami sitting two games behind the New York Mets in the NL East race, which is quite impressive. For a team that hasn’t finished a regular season with a winning record since 2011, the Phillies were expected to go through another year of rebuilding under Kapler since this was his first gig as a manager, and it would take time to work with all of the young talent on the roster.

Instead, Philadelphia overcame a horrendous 1-4 start to work their way up into becoming one of the teams to beat in the National League, although they still have a long way to go when it comes to proving themselves since it’s only May. Obviously, there’s nothing fans in the City of Brotherly Love would love more than to see this team finally return to the playoffs, but this recent funk the Phillies are in is another example of how much learning Kapler and company still have to do.

With young talent like Rhys Hoskins along with a key veteran signing in the offseason with Carlos Santana, there’s no excuse for a team like Philadelphia to be held to just seven runs over their previous four games, especially when the last two have been against Miami. When seeing how tight the race for the NL East title is turning out to be, it’s games like these that could easily come back to haunt the Phillies later on in the season if they’re still in the running for the division.

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Not to mention, after Wednesday’s series against Miami wraps up, Philadelphia will hit the road again for their meeting of the year against a familiar face in the Washington Nationals. In other words, if the Phillies don’t figure out a way to get out of this recent funk on offense like the previous four games, they could be in for a long series against a Nationals team looking to continue working their way to getting back above .500.