Quietly, one of Phillies’ lineup depth pieces is heating up

It really is no knock on Bryson Stott, rather a nod to the Phillies’ current roster construction, that he is not among the most important hitters in the Phillies’ lineup. The onus will be on the stars to carry them to, then through, October. The outfield has garnered most of the scrutiny and is subject to the most playing-time adjustments over the next couple weeks. The best way to lengthen the Phillies’ lineup is to figure out the cleanup spot, which probably comes down to Alec Bohm or J.T. Realmuto. And for his part, Stott’s floor is elite defense at second base while seeing pitches in the No. 9 hole. It’s not a disaster.

None of the above means the Phillies won’t take whatever they can get from the more unheralded portion of their lineup.

In that regard, Stott is providing. The Phillies’ second baseman racked up two hits on Sunday in a series-sweeping win over the Rangers, giving him seven hits in his last 13 at-bats and, quietly, his best 15-game stretch of the season: He’s hitting .349 since the start of July 23, with seven extra-base hits and a .581 slugging percentage.

At least on the surface, it hasn’t been fluky; Stott’s hard-hit rate since July 23 is 40.6%. Until that day, it was 24.5%. His line-drive rate of 26.7% in August is at a season high.

So it’s not just as though Stott is finding more holes. He’s squaring more balls up and elevating them, too.

Of course, with Stott, there will always be the dramatic splits: He has a .712 OPS this year against righties and a .523 against lefties, and there haven’t been enough lefty opportunities in the last couple weeks to change the big picture. At this point, the numbers align with the platoon. The Phillies have faced seven lefty starters since the All-Star break; Stott has started against two of them, even with Alec Bohm sidelined for a majority of that duration, necessitating Otto Kemp or Edmundo Sosa at the hot corner.

One of those two starts for Stott came Sunday, and he singled at 105.7 mph up the middle on a center-cut sinker from Patrick Corbin in the fifth.

But don’t expect the approach to change much, even if Stott keeps producing against righties. His situation is not like that of Brandon Marsh, whose strong three-plus months against righties (and in the field) could inspire manager Rob Thomson and the Phillies to give him something closer to the everyday job in left. While the Phillies will try to make the outfield situation work with the relatively thin group they have, the infield scene is much different. Bohm’s return will dry up Sosa’s starts; the Phillies will certainly try to keep him in the lineup as much as possible by platooning him with Stott at second — perhaps relegating Kemp’s opportunities to strictly left field or a bench role.

But a capable bottom-of-the-order bat against righties, whom the Phillies will naturally encounter more, with plus defense is a profile the Phillies will certainly take for the rest of the season out of Stott, who was slashing .228/.301/.325 as late as the morning of July 23.

Of course, that was 101 games into the season, and Sunday was Game 117. The last 16 could have been somewhat of a mirage. There are reasons to hope — hope — they’re not. It would go a long way in stretching the Phillies’ lineup and taking at least some of the burden off of the top of the order to carry the offense.