The Philadelphia Phillies are making up serious ground in the NL East and find themselves entering Friday four games out of first place, behind the Atlanta Braves.
The Phillies’ excellent starting pitching at the top of their rotation has been a key reason why they have been among the best teams in baseball since Don Mattingly took over as manager. However, their bullpen beyond star closer Jhoan Duran has become a bit of a concern.
Now, a former Phillies general manager has an outside-the-box idea for addressing potential issues in the Phillies bullpen.
Set Up Man Situation
The Phillies’ bullpen, on paper, appears solid, ranked 11th in baseball with a 3.85 ERA according to Inside the Pen; that ERA is largely driven by Jhoan Duran’s 1.69 ERA on the season. Of the Phillies’ other five relief pitchers with the most innings pitched on the team, three of them have an ERA above 4, and two have an ERA above 5.80.
The Phillies will need more reliability out of their bullpen to make a serious playoff run, and former Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr has suggestions on how the Phillies can improve their pen. Amaro made his creative suggestion on MLB Tonight.
“Right now, they are really struggling with taking the baseball and handing it to Jhoan Duran,” Amaro said. For me, I’m starting to look at some bullpen guys. Alvarado has been struggling. Kerkering had an opportunity to pitch in the eighth; he’s struggling. He gave it up yesterday. Brad Keller is on the shelf right now, and he’s sort of struggled. Who’s gonna hand the baseball to Duran? If you want to win a World Series, over the last couple of years, it’s not just not being able to come up with a base hit, it’s really about whether they can shut down the game, cause you have to get elite starting pitching.”
Amaro believes the Phillies need to make one drastic move to truly improve the bullpen for a World Series run.
Getting Creative
Ruben Amaro Jr., while trying to solve the Phillies’ bullpen dilemma, described his “creative” solution to improving the Phillies’ bullpen from within the team.
“If I had one move to make, I would consider a big bullpen piece. How do you do that? There’s a couple of different ways to do that,” Amaro said. “You can either do it conventionally by going to get an Arnoldis Chapman or a Garrett Whitlock or someone like that to build that bridge to Duran. But you could also be a little intelligent, a little sneaky, and try to go get a stud starter and slide Luzardo into the bullpen with a big, big left-handed arm. Maybe he could be your eight-inning guy.”
In the meantime, as a starting pitcher, Jesús Luzardo is making history.
Bizarre Statline
Jesús Luzardo had about as up-and-down a season as a starting pitcher can have. On some appearances, he appears to pitch like a third ace in the Phillies rotation, and in other outings, he’s prone to a big blow-up inning where he gives up three, four, or five runs. Luzardo has a 4.39 ERA, which is 53rd in the league, but he is also sixth in baseball in strikeouts with 110. Now, in some cases, he combines the good with the bad.
Against the Washington Nationals on Tuesday, Luzardo put together one of the most bizarre stat lines a pitcher has ever produced. NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Cole Weintraub wrote about the stat on Twitter.
“Jesús Luzardo is the first pitcher to record 13+ strikeouts, allow 5+ earned runs and not surrender an extra-base hit in a start since ER became an official MLB stat in 1913,” Weintraub wrote.
Whether the Phillies follow Ruben Amaro Jr’s advice and make Luzardo an elite setup man, or the Phillies follow conventional wisdom and keep Luzardo as the number three in the rotation, he will be a vital part of the Phillies’ success this season.
Former Phillies GM Believes Jesús Luzardo Should Go to Bullpen