Joe Girardi has no room for error with this Phillies lineup

For a host of reasons, there is a good deal of worry surrounding the Philadelphia Phillies‘ offense. And manager Joe Girardi finds himself in a difficult spot because of it. Injury, ineffectiveness, and the need for routine days off have already pushed this lineup to the point of being well below average on a number of occasions already during this young season.

Girardi has an unenviable job going forward to try and patch a lineup together with healthy players who can actually push some runs across the plate in a given night, all while dealing with a black hole in center field and a seemingly cooked Andrew McCutchen. Throw in the pitcher’s spot, and that’s one-third of the order giving you nothing right from the jump. Maybe the Phillies should actually be glad that the National League didn’t adopt the DH for this season, because Brad Miller and Matt Joyce aren’t going to scare anyone.

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To be clear, I can’t fault Girardi’s lineup decisions too much if the Phillies get shut out or struggle mightily in key situations in a game, as we saw earlier in their series against the San Francisco Giants. And I know that players need to be given days off. Bryce Harper has a wonky back. J.T. Realmuto can’t catch every game. Fine.

Joe Girardi is already running out of options for the Philadelphia Phillies’ lineup.

But what I can’t get behind are moves like sitting Rhys Hoskins on Tuesday night, thereby putting Miller at first base and batting him fifth in the lineup, ahead of three guys (Alec Bohm, Mickey Moniak, and Nick Maton) who had 71 combined career MLB hits entering the night.

What a putrid bottom of the order.

The move looked like it actually worked for a while, with Miller delivering a home run. But the Philadelphia Phillies bullpen reverted to its 2020 form, blowing the game, and dropping the team below .500 for the first time this year. And while I can’t say if Hoskins’ presence in the starting lineup would have changed the result of this game (he hit a garbage time home run in the ninth inning, for the record), I do know that this team has to stockpile wins right now, while they’re here for the taking.

I understand that Hoskins is coming back from offseason surgery, but this team is desperately trying to get something going. I’m sorry, but the big bats in this lineup can’t sit right now if they’re healthy (the catcher position notwithstanding).

This is saying nothing of the ever-looming specter of Covid. At a moment’s notice, you can lose a chunk of your regular lineup simply because they had close contact with someone who tested positive. And let’s not ignore the injury trend rearing its ugly head around baseball early this season. It certainly seems that a lot of players are having trouble getting back to the grind after last year’s drastically shortened campaign. You’d better win games while you have healthy players.

Right now, the Philadelphia Phillies don’t have the luxury of giving the night off to productive regulars. Doing so risks fielding a lineup that has only three or four MLB-caliber hitters in it, ones who can be danced around by an adept manager and opposing pitching staff. The Phillies’ group of hitters is even thinner than we thought they were a few weeks ago, which isn’t on Girardi. But moves like sitting a healthy Rhys Hoskins the night after the team got shut out are just making the situation worse.

Put a good chunk of blame on the organization’s inability to develop major league level bats or the way they’ve completely mishandled players like Scott Kingery who looked like they could be useful players. No matter the case, Joe Girardi has the ultimate responsibility of putting a winning lineup on the field. It’s not going to be easy with this group, and I’m not liking what I’m seeing so far.

Wins in April count the same as wins in September, and I can’t help but feel that things are going by the boards already because Joe Girardi is taking too long of a view instead of simply trying to bank wins now with the best lineup he can.