Phillies' hitting coach has ridiculous excuse for struggles against lefty pitching

The Philadelphia Phillies are in the midst of an eight-game losing streak, and a whole lot is going wrong with the team.

While the pitching staff is partially to blame, the offense is a big reason for the struggles this season. And more specifically, the Phillies' offense against left-handed pitching this year has been a massive issue.

After their most recent loss, Charlotte Varnes of The Athletic shared the excuse from Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long as to why the offense is struggling so much against lefty pitching, and it's for a completely ridiculous reason.

Phillies' hitting coach shares ridiculous reason for lefty struggles

"To Long, the struggles partly come back to the lack of a lefty batting practice arm," Varnes writes. "The Phillies were without one until a few days ago, when Logan Mathieu joined the team. Long, who would typically throw lefty batting practice, had surgery last August and is still unable to throw. Bullpen coach Cesar Ramos and assistant pitching coach Mark Lowy throw lefty batting practice, but can't during games. Mathieu can."

This reasoning from Long is completely ridiculous. For the entire MLB season so far, amid a brutal 8-16 start to the year, the Phillies haven't had a lefty pitcher for batting practice.

The Phillies have struggled against left-handed pitchers all year long. Right-handed hitters had a .149 batting average against lefty pitching entering Wednesday night's game. As a team, their .171 average against lefty starters is also a brutal number.

Long's excuse for the Phillies' struggles against lefties is that the team hasn't had much chance to practice against lefty pitching.

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But this is a Major League Baseball team. How did they not have a single pitcher who could throw batting practice?

This reasoning from Long is a ridiculous one, and should be setting off alarm bells for the Phillies organization. This is not a small oversight; this is a big issue that somehow wasn't addressed until recently, and it's not like it was a sudden issue either.

While the losing streak is concerning enough on its own, the stories from the losing streak, with this insight from Varnes about Long and his role in the offensive struggles, are alarming and completely ridiculous.

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