👋 Good morning! The streets of Philadelphia are packed. The people are all chanting, “Bunt! Bunt! Bunt!”

I cleaned the meme up a little bit, this is a family newsletter after all.

The Cubs are a very good baseball team this year, with the best run differential in baseball. But the Phillies are now 3-1 against the Cubbies, with some wild wins mixed in there. Two of them involved Jordan Romano stranding a ghost runner, how about that? A trip to Wrigley Field snapped the Phils out of their last funk about six weeks ago, and hopefully this series can also get them back on track. I hope so, at least. — Rich Hofmann

Phillies 4, Chicago 3 (11): Mike Calitri, take a bow. Don’t know who that is? I’ll let you know in a little bit.

But for now, boy, that was excruciating.

The Phillies had 16 hits, 15 of which were singles. Rob Thomson said it after the game, 16 hits and three (real) runs is pretty hard to do. When Romano stranded the ghost runner in the top of the 10th inning, Alec Bohm grounded into the single most predictable double play to strand a ghost runner in the bottom of the frame… surpassing Edmundo Sosa’s double play with the bases loaded earlier in the game.

Nope, it did not come easy. Nothing does for these Phillies right now. My hope is that this game functions like the one we saw on June 1st, 2022. The Phils had lost seven of eight coming into that game, including three in a row against San Francisco at home. They hung on to win 6-5 that night, fired Joe Girardi the next day (that is the part that I hope does not happen, unless they can somehow fire Joe Girardi again) and then rattled off nine wins in a row.

My point: Sometimes, the “schneid-breaker” is not easy or cathartic. In fact, sometimes it’s downright excruciating. I sure hope this is one of those times.

As I have already mentioned, the Phillies won this game in large part because Bryson Stott and Otto Kemp put down two A+ bunts in the 11th inning. That is not 100 percent true, they technically won because every pitcher not named Matt Strahm was very good. But besides that, the bunts were key. In Moneyball, Brad Pitt told us all that bunts are outs. On the contrary for the Fightin Phils! The Cubs have a third baseman (Matt Shaw) who made some incredibly athletic plays in this one. But he could not get to Stott’s bunt in time, and the first baseman (Michael Busch) could not get to Kemp’s in time. The Phils were playing small ball. The smallest of balls, even.

My favorite part? Kemp does not really bunt all that much! Hardly ever. Kemp was asked by reporters when his last bunt in a regulation game was, and he had the answer right away: “I think summer ball in St. Cloud, Minnesota in 2021. I popped it up straight to the catcher.” The kid is already a pretty good quote! Do not say that Otto Kemp cannot fill the notebooks up.

Kemp had three hits on the night, one ball that was tattooed (the first hit of his MLB career) and two that went a grand total of 20 combined feet. They all count the same in the scorebook. Prediction: You will be seeing plenty of “Otto-matic!” tweets and headlines this morning. It really is too easy.

And oh yeah, Mike Calitri is the Phillies bench coach. For our site, Jim wrote a wonderful story about him and his late father last October. Anyway, one of Calitri’s jobs is to coach bunting. I feel like the Phillies, who had four productive bunts in the game, should have given Calitri the post-game Gatorade bath in the clubhouse. This was the man’s Mona Lisa!

Jaire Alexander: The Green Bay Packers released two-time All-Pro corner Jaire Alexander on Monday. If you look at Wikipedia (and of course I do), Alexander was born in Philadelphia before moving to Charlotte early in his life. So, the question that everyone in Philadelphia asks whenever any player of significance gets released during a slow part of the football calendar: Is it time to bring the 28-year-old back to the nest?

I will answer a question with a question, at least initially: So, what do we know about Alexander?

Seems like Alexander and the Packers were in a similar situation to Dallas Goedert and the Eagles this offseason. The team wanted a paycut, largely because of the player’s durability issues. But unlike with Goedert, this one ended in a release.

In some ways, I can understand why the Eagles would be interested. Howie Roseman preaches that player acquisition is a year-round process, and this is exactly the type of situation in which the Eagles signed James Bradberry in 2022. But I do not see it, for two main reasons:

CJGJ speaks: C.J. Gardner-Johnson likes to talk. He actually got thrown out of an NFL game for talking this past season. And here, he talked to Houston reporter Aaron Wilson about the Eagles letting him go…

Maybe I am giving the Eagles too much credit during their championship honeymoon, but I thought it was explained pretty well. They want to save money for the Jalen Carters, Quinyon Mitchells and Cooper DeJeans. They know what CJGJ does for their defense. I really do think it was about the money!

Looking at Russia: On yesterday’s pod, Charlie and Bill talked about the Maxim Shabanov rumours (a nod to our Canadian readers). And Charlie mentioned a recent article written by Corey Pronman in which an anonymous team executive says the following: “If we felt comfortable taking Russians, we would have them as second-round picks.”

Needless to say, that executive is not working for the Flyers.

Zack Wheeler, reaching the 1K club: Ho-hum, Wheeler had another kid and then gave the Phillies six excellent innings. And at one point, Wheeler became the 10th player to throw 1,000 strikeouts in a Phillies uniform. I am not usually that interested in milestones (which I find pretty arbitrary at times), but 1,000 seems like a pretty round number. One of the best free-agent signings ever, in any sport.

Wheels was the fastest pitcher to reach that mark in Phillies history. Alas, no matter how fast he works, I do not think Wheeler is catching Steve Carlton (3,031).

J.T. Realmuto’s bizarre reverse splits: Last night was a perfect encapsulation of J.T. Realmuto’s bizarre season at the plate. For his career, Realmuto has pretty even splits against righties (.781 OPS) and lefties (.764 OPS). He is not a player who feasts against the opposite side like some hitters, but still, pretty good against both.

This season, Realmuto has a .333 OPS against lefties. So bad that it is kinda hard to do. And he was helpless against lefty Matthew Boyd last night. Three terrible ABs. But then against two righties late in the game, J.T. came through. He has a strong .805 OPS against righties. But man, they gotta figure what should be the easier part of the equation.

For Pete’s sake: The Sixers are losing one of Daryl Morey’s top lieutenants. Per Shams, Senior VP of Basketball Ops Peter Dinwiddie is leaving for what seems like a similar role in Atlanta. Dinwiddie was one of the more important figures in the front office.

Dinwiddie’s initial hire was a tad unorthodox. Back in 2020, Elton Brand hired Dinwiddie from Indiana and Prosper Karangwa from Orlando… before Daryl Morey came aboard over all of them on the org chart. Again, unorthodox for the lieutenants to get hired before The Big Boss. But hey, 2020 was a trip for all of us.

Dinwiddie must have got along pretty well with Morey, as he stuck around all this time. Well, until now. He gone.

A.I. turns 50: No, the good A.I.

Five years away from the $32 million Reebok trust fund getting cashed.

The Phils are back at it, Mick Abel against Colin Rea (6:45 p.m., NBC Sports Philly). Can we score some runs for my guy Mick this time? And the Eagles will hold their one day of mandatory mini-camp tomorrow. One day? Uncle Vic has gotta be losing his mind at that one. He is probably telling his entire defense that they are getting soft as you are reading this.

Your tentative Tuesday schedule at ​PHLY​:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann

Daily Newsletter Editor

PHLY Sports