Does The Philadelphia Phillies Schedule Get Easier In The 2nd Half/All Star Game Voting Check In

welcome in the locked on Phillies in today's episode as it thunders outside here in Philadelphia we've got a very interesting look at the second half of the season for the Philadelphia Phillies a preview of All-Star Weekend in Seattle including some minor Leaguers that will be in attendance from the Philadelphia Phillies organization and of course a preview of tonight's game one of the Phillies series with the Chicago Cubs all that on today's lock on Phillies you are locked on Phillies your daily Philadelphia Phillies podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day no [Music] yes this is locked on Phillies I'm Connor Thomas your host Ben uh a credentialed Philadelphia to Philadelphia Phillies medium member uh for over two years now my second year as the host of locked on Phillies very happy to have you along for the ride locked on Phillies part of the lock on podcast Network your team every single day are very much appreciated make sure you're rating reviewing if you're consuming podcast wise if you haven't checked out the YouTube please do so and uh subscribe if you enjoy what you're watching if you're watching on YouTube uh we're getting close to the 1.5 000 subscribers so 1500 subscribers Mark appreciate everyone uh that's done that already would just be another Milestone and what's been a fun time as the host of Lockland Phillies so go ahead and hit that subscribe button you're helping me out significantly for that so appreciate that very much now let's jump into today's episode of course the Philadelphia Phillies take on the Chicago Cubs tonight uh that game is going to be at 805 p.m Eastern Standard Time over in Chicago thank goodness because looks like there's some pretty rough weather rolling into Philadelphia right now I can see the Lightning Out My Window directly ahead of me but Phillies are on the road so that's good first pitch of that game again 805 PM Eastern Standard Time in Chicago and you can listen to every pitch of the Phillies Hometown radio broadcast on the Sirius XM app just go to the sxm app and search Phillies the good news if you're listening on the xxm app and you lose power you can still get the game as opposed to what happens on TV you wouldn't be able to watch anymore so maybe the XM app is the good call for tonight so go ahead and check our friends out over at serious we'll get in that a little bit later because I know I already kind of talked about the game uh on yesterday's episode you can go ahead and check that out on YouTube but I want to go ahead and start with what we're looking at for the second half of the season for the Philadelphia Phillies now there's 162 games in a Major League season that divided by two is 81. the Philadelphia Phillies have 85 games remaining so we still got a couple until you hit the actual halfway point of the Season you know what's funny is this year it's actually people say the All-Star break is more than halfway through this year the way it breaks out for the Phillies you're going to be about halfway through when you get to the all-star break which is uh interesting so normally you got more than half of the Season done but uh I digress the point is later on in the uh the week when we get to that halfway point I'm going to put out an episode of first half grades for the Philadelphia Phillies we're going to run through individual players uh different units the manager coaches all kinds of stuff got plenty of people to grade out that will be a full episode of first half grades for the Philadelphia Phillies but the first thing I wanted to look at looking at the second half of the season because this was brought up to me uh shout out to the John cucade show uh by the guys this morning over on 97.5 The Fanatic feel free to listen 6 a.m 10 a.m on radio every day you can go ahead and get more viewers truly and some other great personalities we have over there at the fnatic if you're going to listen in but uh John Kincaid brought up a great point that a large majority of the Phillies games in the second half of the season are at home uh they have a road trip here to basically end the pre-all-star break section of their schedule like good number of road games uh just to let you know where the Philadelphia Phillies go as far as schedule they're in Chicago right now to face the Cubs uh then they're going to come back home and see the Nationals then they go to Tampa Bay and they go to Miami and then it's All-Star breaks so they have four more series remaining and three of them are on the road and I mean Tampa Bay is going to be tough Miami is leading them in Division Chicago is a comparable team so you look at that and you say okay uh Nationals think cubs are all right Marlins are pretty good and the rays are really good that all evens out a little bit right feels like a rather balanced schedule so I went on to tackathon that tankathon I don't know I said like that tankathon and I took a look at the remaining strength of schedule for Major League Baseball teams and wouldn't you know it the Philadelphia Phillies are dead in the middle they have the 15th hardest schedule remaining uh they have a opponent winning percentage of 500 even there's two other teams that have 500 even San Francisco Giants have a 500 even remaining strength of schedule and so do the Atlanta Braves now that's not good news for the Phillies in the division because the Braves having the 15th easiest or I guess tied for the 15th they're technically listed the 16th but easiest schedule doesn't really leave you a lot of room to make up ground right it's not like they're playing Murderers Row the rest of the way they're saving they're gonna have their easy series too um let's see the Marlins have the seventh hardest schedule so they have a combined win exchange of 511 that they're facing so that's good news the Phillies can chase down the Marlins and they got a chance to do that in a series coming up later but uh looking at who the Phillies play the rest of the way some of their hardest uh they still have the raise for three but that's pretty All-Star break Atlanta and Miami they play seven and ten times respectively yeah series with the Orioles who are red hot a series with the Giants who the Phillies don't play well and have been playing well and two games against the Blue Jays but you also still have six games remaining against the Pittsburgh Pirates who have fallen off Big Time six against the St Louis Cardinals who can't figure it out seven against the Padres who have been struggling this year seven against the Mets who you just watch how bad they can be uh three against the Kansas City Royals and still 10 games remaining the most against any divisional opponent besides Miami uh with the Washington Nationals so yeah there's some easy games that are going to be coming to Philly's way the rest of the way it's going to break about even if they play better than average baseball they should have a better than average record and it's an opportunity for you to go ahead and take care of some games that you should win so when I look at the second half of the season I say playing more games at home than on the road you have a 500 opponent winning percentage uh and I think some of those teams uh that are really good that you're seeing the Marlins um or some of the other teams the Giants uh the Orioles I I don't know that they have the staying power to be as good as they have been in the first half for the entirety of the season I think it's a good opportunity for the Philadelphia Phillies to stack some points I still feel confident about this team making it in I still like what they're trying to do and some of those teams that are they're trying to chase down for uh the wild card spot I mean just go ahead and look at it Marlins seventh hour schedule the Diamondbacks they might get called by the Dodgers eighth hardest schedule in baseball the Pirates 10th hardest schedule they're out of it the Padres trying to make up rounds 11th hardest schedule in baseball I mean a lot of those teams that the Phillies are kind of in the mix with or chasing or right around there and you go ahead and see that they have schedules that seem to make their second half tougher than the Philadelphia Phillies so that's that's good news you'll love to see that and uh just for fun where are the meds at the Mets have the third hardest schedule remaining in all of baseball LOL mats I just I can't get over making fun of them from this weekend but yes that's just a general look at the second half schedule for your Philadelphia Phillies it's uh it hasn't been a difficult schedule yet but it hasn't been an easy one I feel like the Phillies had a super balanced schedule this year uh and maybe that's just the product of the new way they're doing the schedule where you play every team right there might be a year where you don't play the Twins and the twins think and you're like oh my schedule's a little bit harder than a team that's in the AL Central but this year is the first year that uh the Phillies play every opponent at least once and I think that leads to less advantage in the schedule which I guess if you're a pure baseball fan is good for me I'd rather the Phillies play the Nationals every single game or the Phillies play like the Oakland Athletics every single game but it's not realistic and it's not what's best for the sport so I do think this shows that the new schedule is working um but yeah it is what it is an opportunity not a great one but a solid enough opportunity to take advantage of a second half of a season where the schedule might be a little bit more favorable than the first half of the season and also the team is just seeming to play better baseball right now if they can build them momentum now coming up we're going to talk about tonight's game with the Chicago Cubs we're going to go ahead and break that down talk through the lineups talk to your starting pitchers give you an idea of where the Cubs are right now I know I kind of did that in yesterday's episode but I want to take a look at what's going on over there in Chicago uh and uh what the Phillies expectations are for this mini road trip before they come back home and see the Washington Nationals so we've got all that coming up we'll discuss that as we continue today's episode of Locked on Phillies first though I want to tell you about my friends at eBay Motors okay you heard me talk about them in yesterday's episode but I got to tell you again I got to make sure you understand what I'm saying for a championship team it's all about making sure every player is a perfect fit and you know what you can win a championship without Perfect Fit players in sports but not in your car if something doesn't fit right your car's not going to work it's not going to be a championship car it's not even going to be a serviceable car it's what you need to do to make sure your vehicle is running smoothly so 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Phillies the fills have a 52.1 percent chance to win tonight according to ESPN analytics uh their matchup predictor favors the Phillies now I'm just going to do something real quick I'm going to go ahead and pull up the weather in Chicago because we know it's going to be windy but I also see this weather outside my window and I want to get a general idea of what it's going to look like in Chicago for this road trip for the Philadelphia Phillies so I'm just going to go on my handy weather channel app and look at oh 69 right now 69 degrees in Chicago as far as what we're looking at for the temperature right now looks a little overcast tomorrow it looks like you're getting 77 in Sunny Thursday 87 with a chance of showers not enough it looks like to get the game pushed back or canceled I'm just going to look at the hourly tonight and yeah 68 degrees 67 degrees a little bit of a cooler night Ball's probably not going to fly as well in Chicago tonight for the next couple days seems to be a little bit warmer no Day games in Chicago for the Philadelphia Phillies which is interesting to say the least with playing at Wrigley you'd expect to have big games but a good sign with Rangers Suarez on the mound tonight and the ball not flying all that well now I know he's induces ground balls and everything but he's hasn't been as much of a strikeout pitcher this year he has in 43 and two-thirds Innings 42 strikeouts uh so solid but not like one of those top level strikeout guys he does work to contact a little bit so it'll be nice to see if the ball isn't carrying like it normally can at Wrigley then hopefully that's a good thing so cooler night in Chicago for the matchup of James Taylor against Ranger Suarez Suarez one and two on the year uh as opposed to two and five on the year for Dion uh three five era to six seven one era I mean the Phillies CA pitcher with a 671 era they should be licking their chops right now especially with the offense having not performed all that well in the series against the Mets uh that's great and then when you also see a 155 whip a base runner and a half an inning great and that's because Scions walked uh 19 in 53 and two thirds Innings he only struck out 45 and he's allowed 64 hits in 10 home runs Soros three home runs 14 walks 42 hits and 43 and two thirds Innings but he's only got 10 less Innings those numbers aren't super deflated because Suarez hasn't pitched a lot much and the three five era seems to be dropping constantly huge advantage to Rangers Wars in this one that's why the Philadelphia Phillies are favored because the Cubs or the Cubs the ESPN folks apparently clearly see an advantage to Philly's way in the pitching matchup so yeah that looks good now let's look at the lineups for these two teams respectively schwarber is leading off and playing left for the Phillies Turner batting second playing short Nick cassiano's in right field batting third Harper DH batting forth need him to go yard need him to break out of this slump uh Alec bone batting fifth playing third Bryson stopped batting sixth playing second Brandon Marsh batting seventh playing Center Cody Clemons goes to first base and bats eighth against the right-handed Zion and then uh Garrett Stubbs is going to get to start at catcher or Lefty bat there a catcher uh to go ahead and give romito a day off their careers uh against James Dion uh shorebird is four for 16 but with two home runs Turner's batting 167 casiano's two for four so small sample size Harper's four for ten bats 400 season well uh bones two for three stats one for two Marshall for seven so we'll see if he can go ahead and get his first hit with four strikeouts that's not great and Harper four for ten with four strikeouts as well uh and the Cody Clemens has seen him once and he's one for one with a home run oh love to see that so uh not a lot of sample size uh but some of the top guys seem to see them all right I think the Phillies offense will be fine tonight I'm hoping they'll get if they get five or six runs that should be good enough for eight Ranger Suarez start night uh the Cubs lineup they've got Nico Horner leading it off say a Suzuki and right field batting second Ian hap left field uh Morel then clean up playing Center Dansby Swanson at shortstop training on CN eth and Cody Bellinger at first base Jan Gomes catching Nick Madrigal at uh over at third base there and just their careers against Ranger Suarez Horner's one for five two hundred uh Suzuki's only seen him four times but he's got two hits Ian Happ is batting 222 morel's never gotten a hit off him dansey Swanson against Rangers for us listen that's two for 21 career and 0.95 batting average that's not good Bellinger one for seven um the other guys I mean Badger girls one for one Mancini's one for one Gomes one for three the two biggest sample sizes you have uh well the three you even have two for nine two twenty two fancy Swanson two for 21.095 and Cody Bellinger one for seven one forty three it seems a working Theory here that maybe we'll keep an eye on as we continue Rangers scores this season uh it seems that the more Ranger swords has faced the bat or the worst they do against him you might get them early yeah you might have like two hits in your first four bats and then all of a sudden he figures it out and continues to go to work uh that would seem to Echo what we've seen in his career as he's gotten better throughout his career as opposed to what happens to some players where you see a major drop off once people start figuring them out at the major league level now Rangers Suarez has been really really good and an underrated pitcher in Major League Baseball and good for the Phillies to have him on the mound today and just looking at the Chicago lineup and what they are for the season guys you have to worry about now Nico Horner is batting 282. the aim and Morel are the only ones over 280 in this lineup you're gonna have to keep an eye on them at the leadoff spot and the cleanup spot uh home runs Morel also has 13. he's their guy you cannot let Christopher Morrell beat you tonight he's been the probably the best Setter for this Chicago Cubs team this year he's got 30 RBIs to go along with that as well um Suzuki's 257 hops 267. I mean this lineup looks solid uh Daisy Swanson baton 267 Trey Mancini 245 Bellinger 254 Gomes 272 Madrigal 260. I mean there's no major strongs points like they don't have anybody that's batting like 350. I like the Phillies have with Nick casiano's but they also don't have anyone who's batting like 180 like the Phillies had with Kyle Shore where he's been better lately but yeah they so uh you look at it and or actually is batting 181 so he hasn't been that much better he has been better though chalk it up count it uh bottom line is the Phillies have some more uh high-level performers they're in like the 290s or 300s but the Cubs have a very consistent lineup uh this is a lineup that you can't go ahead and uh you're not going to be able to just take a deep breath because you got to seven or eight in the lineup Rangers scores is gonna have to go to work tonight and we'll see if he can go ahead and take care of business I do have full faith in him to do so because he's been great this year but uh let's talk expectations real quick the Cubs are basically a very similar team to you they're 37 and 39 on the year they're two games above 500 the Phillies 40 and 37 on the year three games above 500. a consistent lineup from the Cubs less consistent from the Phillies but a little bit more uh high level like the disparity between the top average and the lower average or larger for the Philadelphia Phillies so a different style of offense to this point uh what we've seen the Phillies a little bit streakier probably the Cubs a little bit more consistent but the bottom line is these themes are very close to each other in record and some numbers that you're going to look at statistically so what would be a appropriate expectation for the Phillies I think the Phillies are the better team they come with the higher pedigree and the uh also higher expectations so I want the Philadelphia Affiliates to win two out of three in the series against the Chicago Cubs but anyone who's heading into this series expecting a sweep well the only reason you'd be expecting that is because the pitching matchups the Phillies have their hottest pitchers going the uh the Cubs do not have two of their best pitchers going with a rookie that's come off of them that's been throwing pretty well whose Name Escapes me right now and Marcus strowman who always gives the Phillies trouble so opportunity for the fills two out of three is the expectation three out of three would be awesome one out of three would be very disappointing and if you get swept by the Cubs this fan base ain't gonna be happy with you especially the folks that I was talking about in yesterday's episode that think you were handed the series against the New York Mets so go ahead and take two or three from the cups simple right never that simple but we'll see how they can care of business tonight coming up I want to go ahead and talk a little bit about the All-Star game as we're on the eve of the All-Star game and I want to discuss some minor Leaguers from the Phillies organization that have already punched their ticket so we'll go ahead and discuss that as we wrap up today's episode of Locked on Phillies all right let's talk All-Star game Seattle coming up just a little bit July 11th you'll go ahead and have the All-Star game coming up your way from the Pacific Northwest that'll be fun hopefully the weather's good I know it's super rainy up there all the time but uh that's fun good baseball crowd in Seattle you saw they got behind the Mariners when they went on that short little playoff push last year and uh yeah good baseball City now we don't know who's made it for the major leagues yet Nick Casiano should be an All-Star Bryce Harper might be an All-Star mostly on name recognition only uh from the designated hitter spot he probably doesn't deserve to be an All-Star starter at DH but he could be just because of the uh the name recognition castianos certainly deserves to be an All-Star player if not a starter in the outfield for the national league he's been that good this year and he's going to be in Seattle I firmly believe he's going to be there it might just be by one of those depth moves uh by uh the staff of the National League All-Star team but anyway they're still the uh the Futures game and what the Futures game is you pick some top level prospects around baseball and part of it is uh name recognition part of it is potential so you might see a guy in the Futures game who's hitting like 150 like how in the world is this guy here and then you see coming into the year he was like a top 50 Prospect in baseball it just had a really bad start so it's not the same as the All-Star Game for Major Leaguers because you're not going to see a guy just because he's hitting 315 in the miners you're going to see the guys that your team drafted highly that might be up in the major leagues next season all this stuff so there are two Philadelphia Phillies organization members that will be heading to Seattle Justin Crawford will be going you know Justin Crawford as the first round selection of the Philadelphia Phillies from this most recent draft and also son of Carl Crawford former big Leaguer he's been incredible down in single eyeball so Justin Crawford has earned the right an outfielder and maybe the Phillies have finally got it right in the Outfield during the draft and then Mick Gable will also be representing the Philadelphia Phillies in the Futures game now Andrew painter is of course the highly touted pitcher and Prospect in this minor league organization and once he comes back healthy he'll probably be with the major league team at some point this year but Mick Abel in a normal farm system like without Andrew painter if you didn't have one of the best prospects we've seen in a while uh pitching wise Mick Abel would be a highly touted Prospect as well he gets kind of lost in the Andrew painter Shuffle so it's nice to see him get an opportunity and Crawford being so young and being selected in this game is awesome as well so a great news for the Phillies farm system I have those two guys going and have an opportunity to watch them when they televise the Futures game so if you haven't seen them you get to see how Thule and athletic Justin Crawford is and what you could see from the right side of the mound with Mick Abel coming up in future years with the Philadelphia Phillies as long as he doesn't get traded for pieces that might get the Phillies closer to a World Series we'll see but it'll be fun to watch those guys as well so congrats to those two get Bryce Harper in the uh All-Star Game get Nick Castellanos in the All-Star game and the other thing there's been an alliance Forum between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Baltimore Orioles at least on Twitter the accounts are tweeting at each other I guess the alliance is just you vote for our players in the American League we'll vote for your players in the National League and we'll just get a bunch of votes in for both teams which is funny and everything like that it's also proof positive of why the fan vote shouldn't be a thing because there shouldn't be like those agreements like that but it's whatever uh so yes if you go ahead and fill it out the Orioles are on our side go ahead and put the Orioles in for the American League put Hadley Richmond out there as a starting catcher uh put Conor Henderson out there I mean go ahead and add the Orioles players in on the American League side and I guess they'll do the same for the Philadelphia Phillies but that's your All-Star update that's your preview of the Chicago Cubs series and uh especially tonight's game and that's also a conversation about the second half of the schedule wow we covered a lot in today's locked on Phillies thank you so much for checking us out and being along for the ride on the lock on podcast network uh part of well yeah your team every day I do want to remind you one more time 805 PM Eastern Standard Time first pitch for the Phillies and cubs uh you can listen to every pitch of the Phillies Hometown radio broadcast of that game on the SiriusXM app just go to the SX on the app and search Phillies and you can go ahead and pull that up uh thank you so much for checking us out make sure you're rating reviewing subscribing uh it's everything and especially the YouTube really helps me out and I will talk to you next time on the next episode of lock Phillies