As the United States celebrates its 250th birthday, players representing the city where much of it began will arrive in Kansas City to play a three-game set. Of note to many fans will be the fact that the Phillies started the season 9-19. At that point, they fired their manager, Rob Thomson. They then hired the GM’s dad, Don Mattingly, and the Phillies have gone 40-20 since and are now firmly in the playoff picture in the National League. I, and many others, would argue that firing their manager probably had little to nothing to do with the turnaround of a very talented team. But its impossible to prove that, so it will probably dominate a lot of the thinking this weekend.
Since the league introduced the balanced schedules prior to the 2023 season, the Phillies have taken two out of three in every series the teams have played.
Philadelphia Phillies (49-39) vs. Kansas City Royals (35-53) at Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City, MO
Rays: 4.48 runs scored/game (16th in MLB), 4.42 runs allowed/game (13th)
Royals: 4.12 runs scored/game (23rd), 5.07 runs allowed/game (26th)
Kyle Schwarber leads all of baseball with 30 home runs. Bryce Harper recently hit for the cycle and is tied for ninth in MLB in home runs with 20. Brandon Marsh has always been better than you probably realized, but he’s having a career year for the Phillies in 2026. On the other side, aging superstars J.T. Realmuto and Trea Turner have both fallen off quite a bit this year, and while rookie Justin Crawford began the season on fire, he had an abysmal May, slashing .195/.253/.312. He bounced back some in June, but still hasn’t become the star Phillies fans were hoping he could be. The Phillies outbid the Royals for Adolis García last offseason, but he was not good, and he’s now out for the remainder of the season with an injury.
Going purely by the pitching matchups, the Royals are about to get worked this weekend. Jesús Luzardo has been more of the same for Philadelphia after they acquired him from the Marlins last year and gave him a contract extension prior to this season.
Aaron Nola hasn’t been the ace he once was for the Phillies, but he’s still been lightyears better than Luinder Avila, the Royals’ planned starter.
Cristopher Sánchez is one of the frontrunners for the NL Cy Young, along with Jacob Misiorowski. Add in that he’s a left-hander, and I’ll be on perfect game watch that day.
The Phillies have one of the best bullpens in baseball, led by superstar closer Jhoan Duran, who is having a career year in his age-28 season. Their next best reliever will be familiar to many Royals fans; it’s Jonathan Bowlan. Bowlan never could seem to get a foothold in the Royals’ bullpen last year despite consistently pitching quality innings. He has instead flourished in the Phillies’ pen after being dealt for Matt Strahm. Their big offseason acquisition, Brad Keller, hasn’t been as good as they had hoped, but he’s also not sinking them. Lefty José Alvarado has an atrocious 6.10 ERA but a 3.24 FIP that suggests he’s been quite unlucky.
I don’t have particularly high hopes for the Royals in this series, but hopefully Jac Caglianone, Bobby Witt Jr., and Carter Jensen can put on a fireworks show for the Royals faithful during their final home series before the All-Star Break.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.royalsreview.com ’
