After what seemed like an eternity, the Phillies offense finally seems to be playing up their potential. They are 7-3 in their last 10 games, and have pulled back to within 2.5 games of first place in the N.L. East.
The difference in the last 10 games has been a return to smart, patient at-bats.  Rather than swinging at the first pitch, or chasing whatever junk a pitcher throws, the Phillies are now taking bad pitches and waiting for good pitches or mistakes to hit. The results are 6.5 runs per game over the last 10 games.
This is in direct contrast to the previous 20 games where the Phillies were perfecting the art of first pitch swinging. With no patience, no base-runners, and every player trying to hit a 5 run homerun, it was no wonder the Phillies could not score. Any offensive powerhouse would struggle to score runs with that mentality.
At the core of this new found patience is the greatly improved ability to work deep counts and generate walks. Walks lead to base-runners, which lead to big innings. In the series against the Indians, Brian Schneider drew a big walk to lead off the 9th inning that set up Jimmy Rollins’ walk off homerun.
On Friday against the Blue Jays, the patient Phillies drew 7 walks in the game, 4 against starter Jesse Litsch. This got the Toronto starter into trouble by raising his pitch count, and chased him from the game after giving up 6 runs in only 4 innings.
On Sunday, the Phillies continued to show good patience as they ended Toronto starter Brett Cecil’s day after just 4.2 innings, in which he had already thrown 97 pitches and given up 7 runs.
Maybe it helps that the Phillies got some favorable match ups against the Indians, and missed Toronto’s better starters, but the progress in the last week is very encouraging, and the same approach against any team will keep the Phillies offense going.
