If, before this season, the average Philadelphia Phillies fan had been told their team would be 43-38 at the 81-game mark, it might not have been met with the maximum degree of enthusiasm, but it certainly wouldn’t have sounded like a disaster scenario either.
That’s where the Phillies find themselves at the season’s midway point. The way they got there was somewhat circuitous, once sitting eight games under .500 — which did feel like disaster — before flipping the switch as the calendar flipped to June.
The Phillies closed out the unofficial yet mathematically sound first half at 22-9, perhaps the most encouraging way to reach five games over .