ATLANTA — The concession speech will come in a few days. On Friday, though, manager Gabe Kapler finally conceded something that has long been apparent to everyone who has watched the Phillies this season.
The admission came in the middle of Kapler's defense of his pitchers, specifically right-hander Vince Velasquez. Although Velasquez has a 4.59 ERA, Kapler cited his 3.65 fielding independent pitching, a metric that measures only that which a pitcher can control (home runs, walks, hit by pitches, strikeouts), and noted that Velasquez is on par with Houston's Charlie Morton and better than Colorado's Kyle Freeland (3.