June 29, 2025
Mady Mertens/Imagn Images
Ranger Suárez contributes to the Phillies' elite starting rotation, which has been keeping the club afloat.
Ranger Suárez took his start deep through seven innings on Sunday in Atlanta, just as he did in his previous outing on Tuesday in Houston, when he went for 7.2 frames.
Across both games combined, the lefty got just two runs of support, with both of them getting scored in the fifth on Sunday.
That proved enough to get the Phillies by this time, as they took a 2-1 win and two of three for the weekend series from the rival Braves, but to anyone who has followed this club for the past several years, they know it won't be later.
The Phillies' starting pitching has been among the very best in baseball as the calendar pushes into July.
Suárez, who improved to 7-2 with Sunday's victory, has been excellent since returning to the fold from late spring and early season back issues. Zack Wheeler has remained as the Cy Young-caliber ace at the top, Cristopher Sánchez keeps finding new heights as a breakthrough lefty, and even though Aaron Nola is down with injury (and was struggling mightily before it), winter trade acquisition Jesús Luzardo has done a lot to counterbalance the veteran's absence and, for a stretch, so had rookie Mick Abel.
Entering Sunday's game, the Phillies' starting rotation had a combined 3.35 ERA, per FanGraphs, which was the third-best mark in the majors behind only Texas in second (3.26) and the Mets in first (3.23).
That's an elite stat, and one that has so far shown to be more than good enough to carry the Phillies back to the postseason.
The thing is, great starting pitching alone won't save them once they're there again.
Ranger Suárez struck out eight in Sunday's Phillies win over Atlanta. The lefthander's ERA stands at 2.00 on the season after 11 starts.
Suárez put in two quality starts this week, and so did Wheeler and Sánchez against the Astros (they went 6.0 innings each), along with five solid frames from Luzardo on Saturday night.
The Phillies only went 1-4 across those appearances, and could only muster a total of four runs through them.
They did have that rain-delayed 13-0 outburst to beat Atlanta in the series opener on Friday night, but that seemed an exception.
Their bats are mostly cold again, and ever-frustratingly invisible with runners in scoring position, having gone 0-for-7 in those scenarios during Sunday's series finale – an Otto Kemp double that scored Bryson Stott from first accounted for the Phillies' first run, and then a Trea Turner sac fly brought Kemp home soon after.
As for the bullpen, well, their relievers can get the job done in spots, but fans are rarely left breathing easy with them taking over, and of course, when they blow up, they blow up big – see the grand slam Jordan Romano surrendered in Saturday night's 6-1 loss as the latest example.
And that fans have seen this story before is the biggest issue in all of this.
Nick Castellanos went 2-for-4 in Sunday's win over the Braves, but he and the Phillies went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
Mady Mertens/Imagn Images
The Phillies' starting pitching dominates and holds everything together, but at the plate, the bats go flailing, suddenly can't hit a thing, and don't have the means to adapt. Then, they're in the seventh or eighth, pitch counts are up, and manager Rob Thomson has to make a reach into the pen in a scenario with next to no room for error. And that's where their opponents take advantage.
It happened in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Mets last October, with Wheeler on the mound. He was lights out, but wasn't going to get through the entire game, and everyone in Citizens Bank Park knew it.
Meanwhile, a Kyle Schwarber lead-off homer was the only damage the Phillies' offense could deal for a 1-0 lead that was never going to hold, and everyone in the ballpark knew it.
The Phillies reached into the pen, and it melted down and blew Game 1. It was the first, and highly ominous, sign that the club was in real trouble, and that fear was fully realized not long after in a 3-1 series defeat that played out in roughly the same fashion as it started.
Now here the Phillies are, months later, looking almost the same way.
Their hitting shows glimmers of being able to switch into playing smarter, more methodical small ball over the boom or bust approach at the plate that has left them short for the past three years now, but then you see them revert right back into their comfort zone, which either has runs scoring in bunches or leaves them in offensive droughts like it did this past week.
Their bullpen is suspect and short on dependable arms to regularly call on – losing José Alvarado to a PED suspension really didn't help – and now has a month left to the trade deadline to find whatever reinforcements it can.
And then there's the starting pitching, easily leading the charge and compensating, heavily in a few cases, for a roster struggling elsewhere.
It's a good rotation, good enough to get the Phillies back to October, but it won't get them much further than that if the rest of the club can't get it together.
And the fans watching know that, because they've already seen this story before.
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