PHILADELPHIA — A few minutes into Friday afternoon’s batting practice — as life without Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber commenced — Nick Castellanos borrowed a coach’s fungo bat. He stood in center field, with a screen protecting him, and he began to hit balls to his teammates. The Phillies will be tested for at least 10 days. They have rallied around this machine they have created; there is a feeling that anyone here radiates a certain aura.
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So Castellanos, a designated hitter and not an outfielder for a night, had a lighter approach.
“If me hitting fungoes out there makes somebody laugh and get some work done at the same time,” Castellanos said, “it’s a positive.”
This will be difficult. The Phillies are not chasing anyone. It’s a different kind of pressure trying to maintain a best-in-baseball pace while compromised. Harper, sidelined by a low-grade left hamstring strain, is the star of stars. Schwarber, who has a mild groin strain, is the soul of the team. Both of them avoided significant injury and could return in two weeks.
“Obviously,” Harper said, “I think anything could probably be worse, right?”
Teammates echoed Harper’s feelings. Their task: hold the standard a veteran group has created and keep going. Or, in Harper’s words: “Cowboy up and play the game.” It is Pollyannaish, but the Phillies have embodied that spirit for half of this season. Now, they will have to do it with Bryson Stott batting leadoff, Brandon Marsh as the cleanup hitter, and a bunch of platoons all over the field. It’s a challenge.
“Did I go home and dwell on it and think the world is ending? No,” Castellanos said. “Am I concerned? Did I wake up and think about, like, ‘Man, I wonder what the results are from the MRI?’ For sure. Is that the first question I asked when I got here? For sure. But is my day going to change whether it’s a Grade 1 or a Grade 3? No.”
A few people’s days changed as a result of the injuries. Kody Clemens and Johan Rojas flew Friday afternoon from North Carolina and arrived in the majors to see their names in the starting lineup Friday night. Clemens will be the first baseman most days. Rojas, after 10 days in the minors, is back in center field.
“If he’s here, he’s going to play most of the time,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said.
Rojas generated an important run in Friday’s 2-0 win over the Miami Marlins with his legs. He started the eighth inning with a hustle double. He went to third on a wild pitch, then scored on a sacrifice fly.
The Phillies were pleased with his work in the minors.
“Everything that we wanted him to do,” Thomson said. “See pitches, grind out at-bats, use the field. Use the speed game with bunting. He cut down the swing. He did all that. So he’s proven to us that he’s got the aptitude to be able to do that and the physical capabilities to do that. Hopefully, it continues here.”
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The Phillies have won 25 straight games in which their starter has gone seven innings. After Harper and Schwarber went on the injured list Friday, Cristopher Sánchez made everything better by tossing a 101-pitch shutout. They will be reliant on pitching and defense while the lineup is depleted. Thomson will take more chances; the Phillies attempted three steals Friday of second base with two outs. Harper, Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto, still recovering from knee surgery, have accounted for 45 percent of the club’s home runs this season.
“I think in the near future,” Thomson said, “we may have to create some stuff.”
Thomson said there is a “good chance” Harper and Schwarber will return before the All-Star break, which begins July 15. They are eligible to return on July 9. The Phillies begin a series with the Los Angeles Dodgers that night. They have three against the Oakland Athletics after that.
This is guaranteed: Neither Harper nor Schwarber will be on the field for next weekend’s anticipated series against the second-place Atlanta Braves. Both players, according to team sources, had pushed back against an IL placement so they could be available for that Braves series. The Phillies would have played short for a week. Instead, they decided on a more conservative path.
“I never really put timetables on myself or anything like that,” Harper said. “So, obviously, you guys know I’m going to try to get back and get my body intact the best way I can. The best way I know how. The quickest way possible.”
Harper has National League MVP aspirations. He does not want to miss action. Thomson likened his hamstring strain to that of Marsh’s. He missed 12 days, which included a two-day rehab stint in the minors. Harper will not go on a minor-league rehab. So, the 10-day minimum stay is possible.
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The Phillies are attempting to achieve a tricky balance. They want to win as many games as they can. They also know nothing matters except what happens in October. It’s why Trea Turner, who has been medically cleared and is considered 100 percent healthy by the team, has looked tentative on the bases since his return from a six-week hamstring injury.
“I think he’s being smart about how he’s running,” Thomson said. “When he needs to put on the gas, he does.”
The team followed the same thinking with J.T. Realmuto, who could have played through a small tear in his right meniscus, but went for knee surgery earlier this month to fix it now. Realmuto is still trending for a return soon after the All-Star break.
It means, until then, the Phillies need contributions from others. Castellanos, who has underperformed, is one. The Phillies have lost three veteran on-field leaders. He can alter the narrative of his season by delivering when the Phillies need him — on and off the field.
“I don’t think that just because circumstances change all of a sudden, like, now I need to go and search for more,” Castellanos said. “I think I’ve done a great job of staying consistent and staying levelheaded. Not flipping out when things personally don’t go my way. And not being over-the-top excited when we are firing on all cylinders. So, for me, all I do is just continue to run my race. And, obviously, if anybody has any questions, they always know I’m going to shoot them straight.”
The Phillies are convinced the standard they have created inside the clubhouse is real. Call-ups know the expectations when they enter. Thomson is transparent with them about roles and upcoming lineup decisions. Schwarber is an extension of the manager inside the clubhouse. Schwarber and Harper will travel with the team next week to Chicago and Atlanta. Realmuto is expected to join them.
They’ll be there as support only. All the talk about this thing the Phillies have made will be tested.
“It just speaks to the depth of what we have,” Castellanos said. “And, then, we have a pretty good winning culture here where everybody is focused on the bigger picture. I just think that breeds a recipe for success.”
(Top photo of Nick Castellanos and Bryson Stott: Nic Antaya / Getty Images)
