The Phillies are atop the baseball standings, riding high on the fuel of their postseason disappointments.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The Phillies are winning games at such an incredible rate that you would have to go back to the glory days of Grover’s American hipster status to discover anything close to what the fan favorite team from Philadelphia has accomplished this year.

Take Ranger Suárez, the ace lefty.

In his first ten starts of the season, the 28-year-old Suárez has a 1.36 ERA, which is the third-lowest of any Phillies starter. He is 9-0 overall. The only player with a lower ERA in his first ten starts of 1916 and 1915 than Suárez is Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander.

What about the team as a whole?

As they ride high atop the baseball standings, the Phillies have gone 29-6 over their past 35 games, matching the best 35-game run in team history that was previously accomplished in 1892.

Who can forget the presidential election of 1892, in which Benjamin Harrison was defeated by Grover Cleveland, making history as the only president to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms?
Grover as a first name may be out of style these days (sorry to the furry blue monster, but if the Phillies win it all, they’ll parade down Broad Street instead of Sesame Street), but the team is still dominating the standings, just as they did over 130 years ago.
The Phillies, who are 37-14, begin a six-game trip in Colorado on Friday. They are ahead of the Atlanta Braves by six games in the NL East.

This early in the season, they are winning at a rate that not even Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt or Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard could match. The streaks they’ve been on lately are about as striking as a Schwarbomb: Philadelphia, which is 17-3 in May, has now swept seven series, the most recent being a three-game victory over the Texas Rangers, the winners of the World Series. The team began the month with the best 50-game start in baseball since the Seattle Mariners in 2001.

Nick Castellanos, a 12-year veteran and right fielder, declared, “This is the best team I’ve ever been a part of.”

The postseason disappointment from the previous season may have been the cause of the early run. The Phillies lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2023 after holding 2-0 and 3-2 leads in the NL Championship Series, one year after an unexpected run to the World Series in 2022 that ended in defeat.

In Philadelphia’s four NLCS losses, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, and Castellanos combined for 5 for 53 (.094) with 11 walks, 22 strikeouts, and 2 RBIs. In Game 7, the four hit 1 for 15 (.067) with five strikeouts and no RBIs against six Arizona pitchers.
“The way that bitter season ended made it really difficult for me to enjoy any part of the offseason, even when I was on vacation,” Castellanos stated.

The Phillies lost in the kind of heartbreaking fashion that frequently prompts a roster change. Perhaps they trade an arm for one of their free-swinging sluggers. Perhaps they let go of a few free agents.

Dave Dombrowski, the team president, chose to practically do nothing.

The Phillies made the decision to run it back, as they say in athletics.

They re-signed right-hander Aaron Nola, a homegrown talent, to a $172 million, seven-year deal. Manager Rob Thomson was signed to an agreement that lasted until 2025. They re-signed Zack Wheeler to a three-year, $126 million contract, removing any potential distraction from his play in the last year of his contract.

Everybody has a little bit of an advantage, according to Thomson. “They wish to see it through.”

Why ruin something positive?

“Our bond as a group is strengthened because we were able to face adversity and experience losses together,” Castellanos stated. “Congratulations to the front office and ownership for having faith in pieces that were already here.”

On opening day, the Phillies possessed a payroll of $243,476,617, a far cry from their 2002 description as “a major-market team disguised as a small-market welfare recipient” by writer Murray Chass of The New York Times.

Yes, Harper is back to his old self, hitting twelve home runs. J.T. Realmuto has hit in 13 straight games, which is a career high. Alec Bohm, a third baseman, leads baseball with 20 doubles and is second in the NL with 46 RBIs.

The Phillies can, in fact, slug.

However, it is a relic of a rotation that is regarded as the best in baseball.

With 18 starts this season, Phillies starters have thrown at least seven innings, which leads all of baseball.

Realmuto stated, “They all obviously have plus, plus stuff.” But it’s difficult to game plan against and succeed off of them simply because they can all target batters in different ways inside the strike zone and throw strikes with many pitches. We have a lot of guys that can do that. Just throwing different pitches in different counts and they’re all for strikes when they want them is uncommon in this game.

Therefore, it’s possible that the Phillies are sticking to their traditional methods of thinking and comparing themselves to the greatest players and teams in franchise history. This puts them at the top of baseball.

But every time they see beyond another sold-out crowd and the World Series banners that flew at Citizens Bank Park in 1980 and 2008, they understand that a record start is meaningless in the absence of a championship end.

Reliever Matt Strahm commented, “It’s cool, but again, we all know what we want to accomplish.” What’s more impressive is that other Phillies teams have won World Series. That is our desired course of action.