THIS IS WHAT happens when you build a team to lose.
Young players ignore basic baseball tenets. Veterans protect their own best interests. What should be a collection of professionals evolving as a unit instead devolves into a group of mercenaries punching a clock, cashing a check and marking time.
No one expected the Phillies to exceed .500 in their second year of a rebuild. Then again, no one expected them to win 53 games, either, which is the pace they'd set entering Sunday's action in Arizona - and we use the word "action" loosely here. They are, by any measure, one of the worst offensive teams in baseball, even though they play their home games on a glorified softball field.