On September 2, the Phillies looked like a team cruising toward October. They were 79-60, one game ahead of the Cubs for the top wild card spot and 6.5 games clear of falling out of the playoff picture.
Less than two weeks later, the margin has vanished. A 4-8 stretch and a possible season-ending injury to Jesus Luzardo have turned a comfortable position into a nervous one.
The Phillies are still hanging on, sitting just a half-game behind the Cubs and 3.5 games ahead of the Diamondbacks, but they don’t own either tiebreaker. Another skid like the last one, and the season can tilt fast.
That puts the pressure on the rest of the roster to pick up the slack. Starting pitching was supposed to be the club’s biggest advantage, but Cris Sanchez’s regression and Luzardo’s shoulder have changed the math.
Help from outside the organization is basically off the table this late, aside from maybe Nestor Cortes in a limited role. So if the Phillies are going to keep September from unraveling, they need key contributions from four players already in the room.
Aaron Nola is at the top of that list. He’s been the biggest second-half surprise on the roster, posting a 3.08 ERA in 11 starts since the All-Star break while averaging nearly six innings a night.
Since August 13, he hasn’t allowed more than two runs in any outing. The turnaround is stark when you stack it against his first half, when he carried a 5.75 ERA in 19 starts.
With Luzardo now out of the rotation, Nola’s stretch run matters even more. The Phillies need him working deep into games, especially with Johnathan Bowlan and Brooks Raley becoming serious liabilities and the bullpen needing every inning it can save.
Andrew Painter is in a similar spot, only the expectations are rising with the role. He was recalled from the minors on July 31 and has answered with a 3.58 ERA, including two seven-inning outings.
On August 22 against St. Louis, he crossed the 100-pitch mark for the first time in his career.
With Luzardo sidelined, Painter is moving from the five-spot to the four-spot in the rotation, and that raises the stakes. If the Phillies reach October, he could be asked to start a game there.
The bullpen’s burden falls heavily on Jonathan Bowlan. The Phillies simply can’t survive with only two reliable relievers - Alex MacFarlane and Jhoan Duran - doing all the heavy lifting.
Dave Dombrowski’s biggest deadline miss was not adding more help for the back end, and that gap is showing now. Bowlan has allowed a run in each of his last five appearances, but he hasn’t walked a batter since August 25.
On that date, his ERA was 2.83, and he had been at a 1.62 mark since May 7. Even now, his xERA sits at 2.84.
The underlying numbers suggest there’s real pitching there, and the Phillies need it to show up more consistently. If they make a postseason push, Bowlan has to be part of it.
Then there’s Luis Arraez, whose bat has not given the Phillies enough. He’s still hitting .291, but the production hasn’t matched the expectation, especially from the cleanup spot.
His .285 BABIP with the Phillies sits well below his .327 career mark, and that gap has mattered because the bottom of the lineup hasn’t been supplying much of anything. The Phillies need him to act like a true third-best hitter, and so far he hasn’t.
The encouraging part is that he doesn’t need to reinvent himself. He just needs the hits to start dropping, because right now the runs aren’t coming from anywhere else.
In Other News...
Phillies Face A Sneaky October Catcher Decision Behind Realmuto
The Phillies have spent most of the season with the catching picture centered on J.T. Realmuto, but the discussion behind him is suddenly a little more interesting as October approaches. Garrett Stubbs and Rafael Marchn are both on the roster as backups, and neither has offered much at the plate, which usually makes the decision feel straightforward until the postseason forces teams to weigh every little edge.
Marchn complicates things because the glove has carried more value than the bat, and that matters when a club starts thinking about short series and late-inning margins. The Phillies may end up leaning on his defensive profile when they settle on the backup role for the playoffs, turning what looked like a routine depth question into one of those sneaky roster calls that can shape October more than it seems in August. [Read more 🡒]
Phillies May Already Have A Luis Arraez Problem This Winter
Luis Arraez has spent the season reminding everyone why his name stays in the middle of winter conversations. The free agent has posted a 3.2 bWAR, led MLB with a .316 batting average and even helped bolster his defensive profile along the way, all of which has only strengthened his standing as one of the more intriguing bats on the market. For the Phillies, theres also been a quieter benefit: Arraez has had a positive influence on Bryce Harper, giving Philadelphia another reason to keep him in the picture beyond the raw numbers.
The problem is that his market may be getting bigger than the clubs comfort zone. Philadelphia is interested in bringing him back, but Arraezs improved stock could draw multiple teams into the mix and make a return less straightforward than it once seemed. What looked like a manageable offseason decision may already be turning into the kind of bidding battle that forces a front office to choose between what it wants and what it can realistically hold onto. [Read more 🡒]
Phillies Suddenly Have A New Rotation Puzzle After Luzardo Injury
The Phillies moved quickly to shore up the staff after Jess Luzardo landed on the injured list, claiming right-hander Jos Urquidy off waivers from the White Sox and clearing a 40-man roster spot by moving Caleb Kilian to the 60-day injured list. It is the kind of bullpen-and-rotation housekeeping that suddenly matters more when a pitching plan gets unsettled, and Philadelphia is now trying to keep enough depth in place while it sorts out the next turn through the schedule.
Manager Don Mattingly said Urquidy is expected to arrive before the next game and could be available out of the bullpen, while Andrew Painter is lined up to start on Saturday. For the Phillies, the immediate question is how to patch together innings without overextending the rest of the staff, especially with Luzardo out and the rotation already shifting around him. [Read more 🡒]