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The numbers
.245/.384/.503, 10 HR, 26 RBI
The background
In his first three seasons, Hoskins was one of the most inconsistent hitters in baseball. When he was locked in, he was a threat to homer every night. But when he wasn’t, it felt like all he could do was either walk, strikeout, or pop the ball up. Considering he ended the 2019 mired in one of those “wasn’t” stretches, he was considered a major question mark entering the season.
The bad
The season started off with one of those bad stretches. It might have actually been the worst bad stretch of his career.
Rhys Hoskins is sitting at 19 consecutive games without a home run, a new career-high. He is slashing .092/.277/.108 with just three RBIs during this drought.
— Jonny Heller (@JonnyHeller) August 7, 2020
On August 8th, he was batting .111 with zero home runs, and it looked like the good Hoskins might be gone forever.
The good
The good Hoskins did return. He started accumulating base hits at an acceptable level, and while he didn’t hit his first home run until August 18th, he hit ten of them in the next 25 games after that. He also destroyed left handed pitching, with a 1.241 OPS against southpaws for the season.
And then some more bad
When making a play at first base on September 12, Hoskins collided with a baserunner, tearing the UCL on his non-throwing arm. He missed the remainder of the season, and losing his bat from the middle of the lineup did not help the Phillies’ playoff push.
For as much as we criticized him early on, the Phillies season went downhill when Rhys Hoskins got injured. Tough year! #OnTo2021 #RingTheBell
— Danny Podolsky (@PodolskyDanny) September 27, 2020
The future
Fortunately, the injury was to Hoskins’ non-throwing arm which should allow him to return to action sooner rather than later. Given the possible delayed start to the season, he might not miss much time at all. The bigger worry is that trying to rehab the injury might send Hoskins back into one of his bad spells.
With at least one major 2020 lineup contributor expected to be gone in 2021, the Phillies really need Hoskins to provide power from the right side. If he can come back near the level where he left off, the Phillies should have an imposing middle of the lineup. If he can’t, then the Phillies may have trouble scoring runs on a consistent basis.