PHILADELPHIA — The season was six games old when Alec Bohm spent the weekend at Mickey Moniak’s house in suburban Denver while the Phillies visited the Rockies. Bohm’s career-worst slump was in its nascent stage, but his lawsuit against his parents for allegedly defrauding him had become public. As Bohm’s inner circle shrank, Moniak was a constant.

It was around that time when Bohm re-hired his former agency, The Team, which also represents Moniak. The two players bonded as first-round picks who rose together in the Phillies’ system. While few really know what Bohm is thinking right now, Moniak does.

“He’s obviously going through a lot,” Moniak said Friday. “I couldn’t imagine, you know, what that’s like. We know he’s a way better baseball player than this. Sometimes it’s tough; a lot of people don’t realize that outside of noon to 10 p.m., you have a life outside the field. Everyone can go through tough times. He’s going through it right now. I think he’s going to be OK.”

The Phillies benched Bohm for two days, a decision that interim manager Don Mattingly labeled a “reset” for the embattled third baseman. Bohm will return to the lineup on Saturday; after winning eight of nine, the Phillies have lost two straight, the latest a 9-7 defeat to the Rockies in 11 innings. They have no viable alternatives at third base, so Bohm will have more chances to swing his way out of it.

But the Phillies have already pulled two levers. They dropped Bohm, who began the season as the team’s cleanup hitter, to the bottom of the lineup. They ordered the two-day mental reset. Now, if Bohm cannot produce, Mattingly will have to carve into his playing time. It’s just the natural progression of things.

Bohm’s .433 OPS through his first 35 games of this season is the worst 35-game stretch of his career — by 80 points. He had a .513 OPS in 35 games during a run in April and May 2021; the Phillies demoted Bohm to Triple A later that season.

He’s since started in a World Series, made an All-Star team and been discussed by the Phillies in trade talks the last two offseasons. But he has not faced something like this.

“When you’re struggling in baseball, I think that can make everything as a whole a little bit harder. Right?” Bohm told MLB.com on Friday. “It’s hard to not be happy when you’re hitting .300.”

Mattingly spent time Friday during batting practice with Bohm. He’s issued strong statements of support. “I believe that to the day I’m not on this earth, that he is going to hit,” Mattingly said. “And we’re going to need him to be himself. He’s going to get a lot of big hits for us.” As Mattingly answered more questions about Bohm, he might have hinted at his message to him.

“We’re not getting anything back from what’s happened — yesterday, the beginning of the season — none of that’s coming back,” Mattingly said. “So the only thing we can really do is move forward.”

The roster, as of now, is not the most flexible. The Phillies have spent the last 10 days attempting to smother a burning house, and a recent streak of good baseball, powered by their starting rotation, has helped some. Team officials can focus on the smaller fires.

But whenever one is extinguished — Brandon Marsh, right now, is too good to be treated as a platoon player — another appears. Justin Crawford has started only two of the team’s last seven games against a lefty. He is 1-for-18 against lefties. The rookie center fielder looks to be in a platoon, but the Phillies don’t have a righty-hitting center fielder to pair with him. So those at-bats in center are Marsh’s now.

The right-handed hitters used by the Phillies in left field have produced a .098/.098/.195 slash line in 41 plate appearances. So, even if Marsh slides over to center to protect Crawford against a lefty, the Phillies still have a hole. It’s one reason they told Edmundo Sosa to run around with the outfielders on Friday afternoon, resurrecting an experiment abandoned more than a year ago. This is nothing more than an exploration created out of desperation. It probably won’t lead to anything, but the Phillies have to try everything.

The way Mattingly sees it, Sosa must play somewhere whenever the Phillies face a lefty. Bryson Stott has lobbied for years to be an everyday player, and Bryce Harper renewed the cause this week during a postgame interview. The plan at the beginning of the season was to sit Stott and Marsh against lefties. Both have shown some life in the last few weeks.

Maybe Crawford is the weakest link now. He went 3-for-4 and hit his first career home run Friday as the Phillies erased a 6-0 deficit. But Felix Reyes, who replaced Otto Kemp on the roster as the infielder asked to be a platoon outfielder, has not done much. So, might as well think about another infielder in the outfield.

Then again, Sosa might be needed most at third base. The whole thing feels dizzying because it is.

It’s the second week of May, far too early to be thinking about trades, but it is abundantly clear the Phillies will be seeking a right-handed bat in July. Again. In the era of expanded postseason, it’s difficult to know which teams will be selling, let alone which viable righty bats will be available. The Phillies will be willing to trade almost any prospect in their farm system, which is considered to rank among the bottom third in the sport.

Aidan Miller, the club’s top prospect, has not swung a bat in more than two months while sidelined with an undisclosed back injury. There are no guarantees that Miller, even if healthy, would have been a big-league factor in early May. But he could have put pressure on the Phillies.

Mattingly said there’s been an organizational effort to diagnose Bohm’s issues — from hitting coach Kevin Long to his two assistants, Edwar Gonzalez and Rafael Pena, to biometric swing data.

“Nobody’s, like, just looking away saying he’s going to hit,” Mattingly said. “You’re trying to figure out solutions, not that there are any solutions like that. Most of the time, it’s the guy catches a feel, all of a sudden gets a couple of knocks, and then he’s off to the races.”

So, they’ll go for a vibes improvement. It is why Mattingly made the call to sit Bohm when he did. The Phillies told Bohm not to pick up a bat Thursday. He did not participate in any pregame drills. He did more work Friday. On his way off the field, Bohm stopped to see his friend Moniak, who is enjoying a career season at altitude with the Rockies.

“Things can go up just as fast as they can go down,” Moniak said. “He’s too talented of a baseball player for me to panic.”