Philadelphia Phillies: Rhys Hoskins can’t seem to catch a break as of late
By Dan Parzych
As if his hitting struggles weren’t already frustrating enough, it looks like the Philadelphia Phillies will also be sending Rhys Hoskins to the DL after suffering a fractured jaw.
All things considered, the Philadelphia Phillies have plenty of reasons to be thrilled with the way their season has gone so far since the team is actually in consideration for first place in the NL East.
For a team that has finished at the bottom of the division in three of the previous four seasons, seeing the Phillies eight games above .500 heading into Wednesday’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers is truly amazing.
A strong rotation led by Aaron Nola and Jake Arrieta has been one of the main reasons behind Philadelphia’s success this season, but if this team truly wants to continue playing at a high level over the next few months, Rhys Hoskins may need to return to his old dominate ways.
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After exploding into the baseball season towards the end of 2017 by hitting 18 home runs in 50 games, expectations were high for Hoskins heading into his first full season with the Phillies.
Unfortunately, Hoskins has been anything but effective for the most part since the end of April (.151 batting average for the month of May), and as if his struggles at the plate weren’t already frustrating enough, it looks like the youngster could miss some time with a broken jaw.
On Monday, Hoskins took a nasty foul ball to the mouth, and even though the situation didn’t seem like that big of a deal at first, that obviously changed real fast following a CT scan.
Now that Hoskins is most likely heading to the DL, and expected to miss a significant amount of time away from the field, maybe the unexpected time off will be good for the outfielder to focus on getting back on track once he returns.
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At least with Hoskins out, other Phillies like Aaron Altherr and Nick Williams should be able to fill in for the mean time while providing the necessary offense to keep Philadelphia in good shape when it comes to the division race. When seeing how well teams like the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals are playing, Philadelphia will need all of the extra help they can get until Hoskins returns.