The Phillies\u2019 western swing started out well with the team scoring seven runs in the first inning of Friday\u2019s game against the Rockies. Unfortunately, the offense largely dried up throughout the remainder of the series<\/p>\n
The Phillies will try to get their bats going again when they travel to San Francisco for a three-game series against the Giants. The good news is that the Giants are off to a slow start to the 2026 season. The bad news is that no matter how good or bad the Giants are in a given season, the Phillies rarely win games in Oracle Park.<\/p>\n
Record: 3-7, Fifth place in National League West (4.5 games back)<\/p>\n
The Phillies visited Oracle Park in July 2025, and as they usually do, they lost the series. However, they were able to win the finale by a score of 13-0, which feels like a special kind of triumph.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the deal with the Giants?<\/p>\n
After a mediocre 81-81 season that resulted in the firing of manager Bob Melvin, the Giants had a modest offseason, opting to stay away from the top of the market, and instead pursue second-level free agents like Harrison Bader, Adrian Houser, and Tyler Mahle.<\/p>\n
Under new manager Tony Vitello, not much seems to have improved, and the offense has been putrid. They\u2019ve scored the fewest runs of any team in baseball and have already been shut out three times. They haven\u2019t hit for average, they haven\u2019t walked much, and their four combined home runs rank last in the majors.<\/p>\n
The pitching has been far more mediocre in the early going. The Phillies are scheduled to face three veteran starters in Adrian Houser, Tyler Mahle, and Robby Ray, so at least they won\u2019t be surprised by anything they see. The Giants\u2019 bullpen is largely unproven with players like Blade Tidwell and Ryan Walker in key roles.<\/p>\n
Featured Giants player: Harrison Bader<\/p>\n
After the Phillies acquired Harrison Bader at the trade deadline in 2025, the Phillies\u2019 outfield situation became much better. He played solid defense in centerfield and put up one of the best offensive stretches of his career.<\/p>\n
There was a strong sentiment that the Phillies should bring him back, but ultimately, they went in another direction. I liked Bader and certainly wouldn\u2019t have minded having him on the team, but the team also seemed determined to play rookie Justin Crawford in centerfield. Since much of Bader\u2019s value comes from defense, it was questionable how wise it would be to sign him to play a corner outfield spot.<\/p>\n
Early in the 2026 season, Bader hasn\u2019t done much to make the Phillies regret their choice. While he\u2019s still playing strong defense, he hasn\u2019t hit well, putting up an OPS of just .396.<\/p>\n
Remembering a guy who used to play for the Giants<\/p>\n
Barry Zito was a star pitcher for the Oakland Athletics in the early 2000\u2019s, winning the AL Cy Young Award in 2002. After the 2006 season, the A\u2019s allowed him to leave as a free agent, but he didn\u2019t go far, signing with the Giants.<\/p>\n
For whatever reason, crossing the Bay didn\u2019t agree with Zito, and he was largely a bust. The two-time All-Star\u2019s most notable achievement was leading the NL in losses in 2008, and his ERA during his seven years in San Francisco was over a run higher than it had been in Oakland.<\/p>\n
It should be noted that the Giants won two titles while Zito was there, although he didn\u2019t even pitch in the 2010 playoffs. There\u2019s been some debate about Zito\u2019s worth among Giants fans. Because while he was not good overall, he did pitch well in the 2012 postseason, and flags fly forever.<\/p>\n
Oracle Park has not been kind to the Phillies in recent years. The Phillies haven\u2019t won a series in San Francisco since 2013 (though they did split a four-game set in 2017). Really, the park was never all that friendly to the Phillies as they\u2019re 25-58 since it opened in 2000.<\/p>\n
Andrew Painter will get the first crack at reversing that luck as he will make his second career start in the season opener on Monday. Maybe the rookie can succeed where so many veterans have failed.<\/p>\n
Normally, I\u2019d say the Phillies were catching the struggling Giants at the right time, but it seems more likely that the Giants aren\u2019t actually as bad on offense as they\u2019ve looked, and they\u2019re due to regress the heck out of the Phillies the next few days.<\/p>\n
Everybody Wants You defeated My Sister to become the first song to successfully defend the title.<\/p>\n
The next contender comes from the year 2009 and describes what Oracle Park has done to the Phillies over the years. It\u2019s Gives You Hell by All-American Rejects:<\/p>\n
A good rule of thumb for the Phillies is that they are never as bad as they look when they play at either Oracle Park or Citi Field. And if the Phillies should happen to do the impossible and actually win this series, then maybe that\u2019s a sign that this is their year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phillies\u2019 western swing started out well with the team scoring seven runs in the first inning of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,4,72344,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342],"class_list":{"0":"post-666809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-phillies-features","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-giants","14":"tag-sanfrancisco","15":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","16":"tag-sf","17":"tag-sf-giants","18":"tag-sfgiants"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116359055796174063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}