Two of the Phillies exciting young hitters, Rhys Hoskins and Scott Kingery, have failed to produce at the plate in recent weeks.
When this season started you would be hard-pressed to find a hotter hitter than Rhys Hoskins. He carried the Phillies offense through the first month of the year, posting a .346/.495/.603 slash line with four home runs and 19 runs batted in through April 27. He had one of the best walk rates of any player in the league at 21.4 percent.
Scott Kingery also had a nice start to his MLB career, hitting seven doubles and two home runs through his first 13 games as a major-leaguer. He racked up 12 RBI in that span with a .855 OPS and 127 wRC+.
However, the two have not had much success recently. Kingery has done little since those first two few weeks, hitting just .182 with a .436 OPS as of Sunday. He has just one extra-base hit and one run batted in. He has struck out in nearly 30 percent of his plate appearances while walking in only 4.2 percent.
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There was thought that Kingery would improve at the plate once he got into the lineup on a consistent basis. He now has that chance with J.P. Crawford on the disabled list. Since taking over as the everyday shortstop, Kingery has done better but still not great. He drew his first walk since then Sunday afternoon, racking up eight hits over the 11 games prior.
Hoskins has dealt with struggles of his own since the calendar turned to May. He was hitting just .176 with a .633 OPS heading into Sunday. Four of his seven hits this month have gone for extra bases after his double in Sunday’s game, but there are just too few of them.
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What has been especially concerning for Hoskins this month are strikeouts. His 16 strikeouts heading into Sunday were tied for fourth-most among all players. He picked up two more on Sunday, giving him an alarmingly high 39.1 percent strikeout rate this month. Combine that with a 13.0 percent walk rate, and it should be no surprise that his numbers have dipped so far.
After Sunday’s game, Hoskins now has a .268/.414/.472 line for the season. It still puts him among the top hitters in the league, but those numbers are largely propped up by his ridiculous start to the season and will continue to decline if Hoskins’ struggles continue.
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Despite their recent issues, Hoskins and Kingery will remain in the everyday lineup as they try to work things out. The two were expected to be major offensive contributors this year, especially Hoskins. For the offense to succeed, both of them need to be performing far better than they have in recent weeks.