The Philadelphia Phillies hope the challenge of a tough ballpark will awaken their slumbering bats when they open a three-game road series against the San Francisco Giants in Oracle Park on Monday night.
The Phillies are 5-4 in large part because of an inconsistent offense. Their 4-1 loss at Colorado on Sunday was their fifth game scoring three or fewer runs.
An uplifting 10-1 win at hitter-friendly Coors Field in Denver on Friday was followed by a total of three runs by the Phillies over the weekend. It’s the type of roller-coaster ride that has slugger Bryce Harper warning fans not to get too high with the highs or too low with the lows in April.
“That’s kind of how seasons go sometimes, right?” he said. “Some guys have good first months and then have a terrible rest of the season. Or they have a really bad first month and then they win an MVP. That’s why you play the whole season.
“You don’t put too much stock in the first couple games. You just play your game, understand it’s a long season, and you’ve just got to find value in playing a full season.”
Kyle Schwarber has three early home runs and Harper two, and now the left-handed sluggers will take their annual cracks at the San Francisco Bay beyond the right-field bleachers at Oracle Park.
They’ll do so in the series opener against right-hander Adrian Houser (0-1, 1.69 ERA), who will make his first home start as a Giant. He was a hard-luck loser in a 7-1 defeat at San Diego last Wednesday after limiting the Padres to one earned run in 5 1/3 innings.
He’s gone 1-2 with a 3.90 ERA in eight career games (three starts) against the Phillies.
Houser will oppose right-hander Andrew Painter (1-0, 1.69 ERA), who got just enough support last Tuesday to earn a 3-2 home triumph over the Washington Nationals. Painter allowed just one run in 5 1/3 innings.
The rookie will make his first big-league road start and his first against San Francisco.
The Giants likely will enjoy seeing a team without “New York” on the front of its jerseys after opening their home schedule last week by getting swept in three games by the Yankees before losing three in a row to the Mets the last three days after a series-opening win on Thursday.
San Francisco manager Tony Vitello acknowledged to reporters after Sunday’s 5-2 defeat that the frustration of “defensive mistakes” and “guys not running the bases hard enough or smart enough” contributed to a seventh-inning dispute with umpires that resulted in his first major league ejection.
“When you’re not playing well, everybody notices everything,” Vitello said. “At least now they become a talking point. The nice thing is you can pick out the things you can eliminate because you can control them and eliminate them.”
Neither Houser nor Painter allowed a home run in his season debut. There have been just nine homers hit in the first seven games played at Oracle Park this season. The only Giant to have one is Rafael Devers.
– Field Level Media
