This is the story of how Philadelphia addressed its horrendous fielding and turned around its season.
SAN DIEGO — The Phillies heard the jokes at the beginning of the year. They read the critiques, and they saw the replays, and they looked up the statistics. But they didn’t need any of that to confirm what they already knew: Their infield defense was dreadful.
It’s still not perfect. (They got a ninth-inning reminder of that in Game 1.) But the jokes no longer really apply in the same way. For those who never updated their original perceptions of this defense, it’s time for a revision: This Phillies infield truly is better than it was at the start of the season.