The Philadelphia Phillies are the best team in baseball and the first club to reach the 60-win mark after taking the second in a row against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday night.
However, not every player has had a season to remember when it comes to on-field production.
Utilityman Whit Merrifield has struggled to get going since joining the Phillies early in the spring. After a rip-roaring spring training, the veteran hasn’t performed how we had imagined.
Whether you chalk his first-half struggles up to succumbing to the pressure of playing for a new team, getting used to a new role as a bench player, or a combination of both, Merrifield is aware of how his season has gone.
The 35-year-old isn’t one to shy away from social media and recently had a hilarious interaction with a quickly humbled Phillies fan on X (formerly Twitter) who had expressed their dismay at Merrifield’s performance this year.
Merrifield handled the comment perfectly, with the humor and poise of the experienced veteran he is.
But that wasn’t the end of it. The two had another exchange, although this one had a much different feel about it. QuaranTom, obviously realizing how his first snarky comment came across, backpedaled like he was riding a kid’s bike.
“What I said was mean but I really just am hoping for more production at the plate,” he said. “Defense is solid. Go Phillies!”
And Merrifield made sure to reciprocate in a professional manner:
The Phillies sure are having fun, and fans should be, too. This kind of season is one of those one-in-a-million special seasons, unprecedented for a lot of fans watching today.
Baseball fans, and sports fans in general, are so programmed to wring our hands over the minutiae of every single pitch, every single at-bat and every result on the field that sometimes it’s easy to forget to “sit back and try to enjoy it,” as Merrifield says.
While Merrifield’s batting average has resided around the Mendoza Line for most of the season, he’s hitting .278 in 18 plate appearances this month. Hopefully, it’s the start of a strong second half.
