Phillies acquire Justin Bour from Marlins

You may recall, just a week ago, that the Marlins came through Philadelphia for four games. The Phillies, celebrating the tenth anniversary of their last World Series championship, swept them in a huge, morale-boosting stop on their way to Arizona.

But one man did all he could to stop that from happening. That man’s name was Justin Bour, the Marlins first baseman, who hit three home runs in four games at Citizens Bank Park. All three sailed over the wall in deep center field, showing the power of which Bour, who is sporting a .412 SLG for the season after posting a slash line of .289/.366/.536 last season, is capable.

The Phillies seemed to like what they saw and, without a deep bench to provide them much pop from the left side of the plate, have claimed Bour from Miami off trade waivers and worked out a deal to acquire him, according to Ken Rosenthal.

The question of course becomes what the Phillies plan to do with him, beyond pinch hitting appearances, given that they have two first basemen at the moment already and one of them is playing in the outfield. His second half numbers have not bounced back from the first half, and in fact have sunken a little lower (.161/.258/.375 in 17 games since the all-star break). “It’s been kind of so-so,” Bour said of this own numbers.

But Bour led the Marlins in both home runs (19) and walks (69), which fits him right in with the rest of the offense, which seems to rely on tiring out pitchers and then maybe hitting a home run off of them. He also is a distinguished Braves-killer, hitting .304 with a 1.227 OPS against them in 2018, which isn’t far off from his career anti-Atlanta numbers (.302 BA, 1.023 OPS in 159 AB).

Besides, there seems to be a grander plan in place.