Geaux-ing Places

 I'll give the Phillies credit. With weeks to go until the end of the season, they are still in the playoff race, and they just got done with a pretty epic 10-wins-in-11-games streak. Considering how cooked the Phillies usually are by this point, this is an improvement.

It's gotta be refreshing for Aaron Nola as well, who's never really gotten to be part of a competitive Phillies team. In his career in Philly, the team has only reached .500 once...exactly that, last season. And Nola is a much better pitcher than this team has ever been lately, with a 57-38 record since coming up, 893 strikeouts and a career 3.44 ERA, that's only dipped above 4 during his frustrating 2016 season. Nola's career 21.9 WAR gives the Phils a definite contemporary ace, even as Zack Wheeler continues his impressive reign and Zach Eflin and Jake Arrieta improve their numbers. Plus, Nola is locked up for another few years, and unless this Phillies team somehow gets bad enough to sell, he could spend the prime of his career in Philadelphia like Cole Hamels once did.

This team is still conserving a lot of its August momentum, which is nice. JD, Bryce, Rhys and Didi are still hitting really well, and Jean Segura has improved recently. Alec Bohm is definitely capable of holding a major league position, and has been a solid-hitting third baseman for us recently. Andrew Knapp has become a very powerful backup catcher, perhaps making a case to be made starter next year when we inevitably fail to re-sign Realmuto because we can't seem to have nice things. And Brandon Workman is easing into a solid closing role, more than Hector Neris ever could. 

I like this team, and I have a lot of confidence in this team, but we still have guys like Spencer Howard, Vince Velazquez and Heath Hembree making mistakes, and it could set us back a bit before we even get to October. I just want this team to do something this postseason that doesn't make me too embarrassed. They're healthier than the Yankees, and have more momentum, so it'd be nice if they got something done.

Coming Tomorrow- Last year, I mistakenly believed that he would be heading somewhere else and robbing his team of an undeniably strong hitting talent. I was wrong. They locked him up, and he got right back to where he left off by hitting a billion RBIs.