And here comes kerkering who can't even find the strike zone

And Kerkering sucks which was a problem before alvarado’s suspension.

Credit to Bohm for catching that horrific throw by Kerkering

Kerkering is an accident waiting to happen

3 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

And Kerkering sucks which was a problem before alvarado’s suspension.

Boom another reverse jinx

Just now, John Blutarski said:

Kerkering is an accident waiting to happen

Got out of that inning but man he’s fortunate the pirates bunted that ball (poorly i may add) and Bohm hung on. With how wild Kerkering was they should’ve tried to make him throw strikes. Normally I’m for bunting to get two runners over and scoring position in a one run game late in the game with no outs. But with how Kerkering was all over the place you’re giving him an out which could settle him down when he couldn’t find the strike zone consistently.

lol 8 pitch inning by skenes against Castellanos, Kepler and Bohm

Abel will come back down to earth with more starts and more visibility. So no one is crowning him anything he isn’t.

But why the hell send him back down after this start?

2 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

Abel will come back down to earth with more starts and more visibility. So no one is crowning him anything he isn’t.

But why the hell send him back down after this start?

Because DD signed Walker to 4 years, $72M

3 more outs to go. Here we go Romano

4 minutes ago, RoadToHell said:

3 more outs to go. Here we go Romano

So 79 games til Alvarado is back…

1 hour ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

I look at it this way, I think even before the Alvarado news came out, they were showcasing him. When you look at the Phillies rotation going forward wheeler is here for at least two more years. Luzardo is here and they’re probably gonna give him a massive extension. You have Christopher Sanchez. Nola is not going anywhere whether we like it or not. And you have painter coming up. There’s really no room for Abel in the rotation.

Then you got a factor in that they purposely put him out there against the Pirates. They know the Pirates are not a very good hitting team. So there’s a chance he was going to look good in the start where he’s already looked good in the minors this year after being off the radar the last couple. Try to trade him at a peak and a showcase game against the pirates. He’d be a main piece in a deadline deal.

Not saying I would do it. I’d keep him cause eventually wheeler is retiring and you could have Luzardo, Sanchez, painter and Abel. Frankly, if I’m the Phillies and he looks good, I can move him into the rotation instead of Walker. And eventually, when you bring up Andrew painter, I can move Ranger Suarez to the bullpen. I think Ranger Suarez would be fine as a left-handed reliever. The problem is, I can’t imagine Ranger Suarez is going to be thrilled to be in the bullpen when he’s a free agent at the end of the year with boras as his agent. He wants to be paid like a starter. It’d be much easier for the Phillies to make that decision if they paid Ranger Suarez and he was already making good money because then he probably wouldn’t care as much as he got his contract and helped the team out for a year. then move him back into the rotation.

I don't trust them to get good value, they'll trade Abel for a 32 year old bat who will come here and do nothing for half a season.

Keep him in the bullpen if you have to until wheeler leaves, he can jump into the rotation as people get hurt (nola) or suck ass (walker). And if he continues to look good they don't have to give Luzardo a huge extension. Idk i don't trust this team to do anything right, moving him is not smart

Can not believe we won today. Abel was outstanding and so was the pen except for Kerk. We will take this win for Abel.

4 minutes ago, devpool said:

I don't trust them to get good value, they'll trade Abel for a 32 year old bat who will come here and do nothing for half a season.

Keep him in the bullpen if you have to until wheeler leaves, he can jump into the rotation as people get hurt (nola) or suck ass (walker). And if he continues to look good they don't have to give Luzardo a huge extension. Idk i don't trust this team to do anything right, moving him is not smart

Hey i didn’t say I’d do it. I frankly wouldn’t. They did get Luzardo for a top 100 prospect. But they also traded O’hoppe for marsh. I much rather keep him as Ranger is likely gone at the end of the year. Painter slots in but nola who knows what he’s going to be going forward and wheeler has 2 years left after this year. I much prefer to keep him.

All this goes back to what I said in the off-season that the bullpen was relying on way too many question marks and a high leverage bullpen arm short to begin the season even if Romano and alavardo panned out. you shouldn’t be relying on the trade deadline to complete your roster with multiple holes on the roster. With the extra wild card team it’s much harder to complete a team at the deadline. The Phillies continue to come into the season with an incomplete roster and knowing they are gonna have to use the deadline to bolster it. It should be go use FA to make your roster as complete as possible so you don’t have to trade away prospects. We don’t have the farm system that continuously churns prospects. Really want to deadline to be a last resort or if you need the deadline to make acquisitions it’s either for a minor pickup.

The real harrowing thing about the future is the lineup. They don’t have any truly big bats in the pipeline. Stott and Bohm are the only established young bats in the lineup…and let’s be honest, they aren’t lineup carriers and they aren’t going to be anything vastly different or better in 2 years.

But 2 years from now…this lineup is going to suck. Unless they buy or trade for 2 huge bats (which is likely logistically impossible).

2 hours ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

So 79 games til Alvarado is back…

I hate the stupid "ineligible to pitch in the post season.” Makes no sense.

23 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

I hate the stupid "ineligible to pitch in the post season.” Makes no sense.

i dislike that. I’m guessing it’s cause when the suspension occurs that some guys would be back before and some would want postseason to count to the total time missed and less the following season.

Tbh I actually don’t think this kills them in the postseason if Romano stays being good. If you get to the deadline and you make a trade for a reliever that’s a left handed, I think you’re gonna be Ok. if Aaron Nola starts looking better than what he has, I’d bet he is going to be there fourth starter in the playoffs behind Wheeler, Luzardo and Sanchez. So that means Ranger Suarez is gonna get moved to the bullpen. At that point I’m guessing Andrew painter is also gonna be in the bullpen. So if you get that LHP RP acquisition then i still think the bullpen is going to be ok in the postseason if Romano pitches like he has since April 20th.

That said the Phillies should have signed another high leverage reliever in FA. The fact that you were relying on Romano and Alvarado to just be good after an injury season and really down year was a mistake to begin with. You should’ve been happy with one if them was good. And if only one of them was, you were still in need of another high leverage arm. You were always high leverage arm short going into the season cause you really only had 4 and you were hoping Kerkering would make the jump and the other two were just pan out. there were guys available into February and they just didn’t want to do it. This goes all back onto Dombrowski just sitting there not making the move and just saying what if we need one at the deadline we do it. Meanwhile, you don’t have the prospect pool to keep giving away prospects. So you should’ve signed another one regardless. Also wasted $10 mil on Kepler who’s basically an older worse version of 2024 marsh

I’m guessing the guys at the deadline we hear about are Bautista, Fairbanks and finnegan. O’s make sense cause I’m guessing the Phillies would also be interested in Mullens even though he’s a LH hitter

5 hours ago, devpool said:

This team is going nowhere. Offense sucks, #2 starter blows so bad they had to fake an injury to get him out of the rotation, and now probably their best bullpen guy busted for doing PEDs.

Nola is not he No 2

1 hour ago, Joe Shades 73 said:

Nola is not he No 2

Oh no.... he IS #2.... just not the one you are thinking of...... then again....

This whole season is just another letdown in process..... they are going to get to the post season...... but they are not good enough to win it all

from the top down......

Ownership..... trusting management.

Management.... for coaching and player evaluation.

Coaching..... dont have to say much...

Players..... $$ talks... right dudes ?

Phillies going to be a .5 game back going into a 4 game series with the Rockies. Imagine if they didn’t get swept by the Mets they’d be in 1st.

I’m down and bearish on the future of any prospect from the Phillies pipeline until someone proves I should think otherwise. Abel specifically wiped himself off the Phillies’ top prospect list last year.

But this wasn’t your typical ordinary AAA pitching debut where a pitcher gets a little lucky and hitters aren’t familiar with him en route to a flukey quality first start.

The velocity, the variation in velocity, movement, offspeed break, location….he looked really, really good. He may still crash and burn, but there aren’t many pitchers even throughout the majors with the raw talent to do some of that.

With Alvarado out I think the Phillies have to go after Miller from the A’s