One could say that the IronPigs have tanked under new manager Tank Adamson.

After all, the team did open the season 4-0 for the first time in franchise history and was 16-11 in late April.

At the same time, the Phillies were struggling and changed managers, dropping Rob Thomson in favor of Don Mattingly, at least on an interim basis.

Since then, the Phillies have had a resurgence and the IronPigs have — pun intended— tanked.

This is far from being a managerial problem though. Adamson is a smart and well respected baseball man, and the players appreciate his straightforward style. There are concrete reasons why the team has done a deep dive down through the standings.

The reason is actually much like it was near the end of last year’s first half of the season. Then, the IronPigs were in great shape to win the first half championship and have a home playoff game to determine the International League champion, but that never happened.

Instead, Lehigh Valley went into a tailspin, did an impression of the 1964 Phillies, and didn’t reach the playoffs.

It was a matter of roster churn. It’s typical in minor league baseball, which is one reason many leagues use the two halves formula to determine playoff teams. Rosters are temporary things in the minors with players coming and going. It happened last summer, and it has happened again this season.

Add to that some key injuries, and there’s the perfect storm for a 4-15 stretch of games.

There have been 37 Triple-A roster moves since Thomson’s firing, which led to the promotion of Lehigh Valley manager Anthony Contreras to be the Phillies third base coach, which led to Adamson taking over as Boss Hogg at Lehigh Valley.

Consider just some of the changes: The Phillies released and then re-signed Lou Trivino, and have released pitchers Genesis Cabrera, Jonathan Hernandez and Lenny Torres. On Monday, they released infielder Sergio Alcantara. All were struggling to stick on the roster and were eventually jettisoned.

Felix Reyes and Otto Kemp passed each other on the Northeast Extension going to and from Philadelphia. Reyes was a big part of the IronPigs early success before he was snatched away by the Phillies, hit a home run in his first major league at-bat, and then disappeared somewhere on the Phillies bench.

Kemp was a definite bright spot for the IronPigs when he returned, but has now gone back to Philadelphia and is somewhere in that same black hole that swallowed up Reyes.

Among the additions, Pottstown’s Levi Stoudt, who is also a Lehigh alum, was promoted from Double-A Reading. They also signed pitchers Jackson Rutledge, Kirby Snead and Grant Holman in recent weeks.

On the position player side of the ledger, Dylan Moore came down from the Phillies, and former first round pick Dylan Carlson was also added to the IronPigs roster.

Adamson is hopeful that things will settle in and that the team will pick up the pace. Perhaps, even become good enough to make a second half run at the playoffs.

To do that, they will need to score more runs, and allow fewer.

Lehigh Valley has the second worst run differential in the International League, having allowed 54 more runs than it has scored. The team batting average, fielding percentage and ERA are all in the bottom half of the league stats. No IL team has hit fewer home runs than Lehigh Valley.

FEELING STRONGER EVERY DAY ... Outfielder Gabriel Rincones Jr. and infielder Erick Brito are both on rehab assignments, and are both at Jersey Shore. First baseman/outfielder Keaton Anthony has started a rehab assignment with Clearwater. The Phillies have pitchers Zach Pop and Max Lazar both stationed at Lehigh Valley for rehab assignments. Both assignments end this week, which means the Phillies will need to make decisions on both pitchers.

HOW TO SPEAK AUSTRALIAN ... Having Melbourne born and bred Tank Adamson as the manager of the IronPigs has sent some media folks scrambling for Google — or at least an Australian to American translation guide. In talking about pitcher Michael Mercado, Adamson told reporters that the right-hander had “a bit of a niggly shoulder.” It turns out that “niggly” is in fact a word, not just Australian slang, and it means bothersome, fussy, or annoying. In other words, Mercado’s shoulder has been a little sore.

WHO NEEDS HITS? ... In Saturday night’s win, Lehigh Valley collected just three hits in a 5-4 win over Scranton. The Pigs were helped by two Scranton errors that led to an unearned run, and managed enough plate discipline to draw eight walks. The five runs set a franchise record for the most runs scored with three or fewer hits. It was also the first time that Lehigh Valley had won a game with three hits or less since 2022.

WHICH IS IT? ... The official game release for Friday night’s game from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre had the IronPigs getting a walk-off victory on an infield error. The official release from the IronPigs had them winning the game on an infield single by Christian Cairo. Actually, they were both right, at least for a while. Initially, the official scorer had Cairo reaching on an error, which was what the RailRiders were going by. After the game, the play was changed to a single, which is what the IronPigs went by and was the official result. The ironic thing is that since the runner that scored was the “zombie runner” at second base, the run goes down as an unearned run either way.