One game into season, signs of relief
PHILADELPHIA » Until another theory can make more sense, and it likely never will, the failure of Phillies of 2020 forever will have been easily explained.
Their relief pitching. It was unacceptable.
For that, among other reasons, Matt Klentak was demoted. For that, Andy MacPhail was retired. For that, Dave Dombrowski had to find arms. For that, Joe Girardi, would have to make it work.
On, then, to the Phillies of 2021, and their story, one game deep, that a 3-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves Thursday at Citizens Bank Park. That was easily explained, too.
The relief pitching. It was tremendous.
“They shut it down,” Aaron Nola said. “They gave us a chance to win.”
Nola gave the Phillies a chance to win, striking out six in 6.2 innings, allowing two runs. But he allowed pinch-hitter Pablo Sandoval to plant an 0-2 pitch into the unoccupied right-field upper deck, wasting a 2-0 lead in the seventh.
A year ago, that would have just about have been that. Girardi would have dialed his bullpen and resisted dragging his mask over his eyes. The Phillies would have been one bad pitch closer to 0-and-1.
Instead, they were able to spill onto the field to mob Jean Segura, whose hard chopper over third plated Bryce Harper in the 10th. Instead, Nola’s performance was celebrated, not overanalyzed. Instead, there was a new narrative: Dombrowski, known for his talent evaluation, picked the right pieces to supplement Hector Neris in the bullpen. And Girardi, long having built a reputation for his bullpenuse expertise, knew just who to use where, when and how.
Just a day after outlining his plan, which would be to set Neris up in the ninth with newly acquired Archie Bradley and Jose Alvarado, Girardi’s iniatative unfolded on script. Bradley, signed for a year at $6 million to provide such professionalism, relieved Nola and closed the seventh, walking Ronald Acuna but coaxing Ozzie Albies into a harmless fly ball to center.
Next was Alvarado, the lefty, who
walked Freddie Freeman and was booed by the 8,529 who’d been waiting almost a year to express their displeasure at the relief pitching. But the more Alvarado pitched, the more he looked overpowering, unloading a 95-mile-an-hour cutter for a strike, catching the fans’ attention, creating a roar. Could it be? Had Dombrowski found a winner in Alvarado, fished from Tampa Bay at age 25 in a sneaky three-way deal involving the Dodgers? By the time Alvarado fanned Cristain Pache to end the inning, he was already half-a-fan-favorite.
In the ninth, though not in a save situation in the tie game, it would be Neris, who’d been assured Wednesday of that niche. Three up. Three dismissed.
From there, it all went to the new overtime carry-on, with innings beginning with a runner on second. Connor Brogdon needed a strong throw from Roman Quinn and an All-Star plate-block and tag from J.T. Realmuto to catch Albies for an inning-ending 8-2 double play. But by the bottom of the inning, Segura would have driven home Harper and the Phillies would have driven home a new image.
“Three and a third innings,” Girardi said, almost in an exhale. “Bradley came in and got an out. It’s encouraging. Brogdon does a tremendous job. Alvie gets in a little mess, but when you have that kind of power and strikeout ability, you can get out of it. Hector did a nice job at the top of their order.
“Aaron made one mistake and it cost him. But there was just really good pitching today.”
The Phillies are going to waste leads and lose games and have a summer’s worth of problems from the Braves. But they didn’t win Thursday because the wind was blowing in or any other baseball accident. They won because of the way Dombrowski designed them to win. Bradley was somewhere deep behind Realmuto on the list of significant offseason signings. But he was known to have a winning edge and a willingness to pitch in multiple situations. Alvarado has a chance to be special. Neris is, well, Neris. But he has pitched well enough as a Phillie to have been in an All-Star Game conversation or two.
Last year, Klentak was just taking chances on relief pitchers, and Girardi was assigned to try to make sense of that. This year, there can be a seventh-inning guy, a set-up man, a closer and even some depth.
“Last year was pretty rough,” Brogdon said. “So it was nice to start off on the right foot.”
Brogdon showed a little something as a rookie last season, appearing in seven games, not allowing a run. In more ways than one, he found Thursday that things could be different for the Phillies this time.
The fans: They have a certain way about them.
“Just sitting in the bullpen, I had forgotten the heckling you get during the game,” he said, in the spirit of the moment. “It was even kind of nice to get back to that.”
There is no way to measure how bitter that heckling may have been last season, when the Phillies kept building leads and the relief pitchers kept losing games anyway. The fans were made of paper, yet the leads were still more flimsy.
That had to end.
“That was a big boost for our club,” Girardi said. “It would have been tough to lose that one today, Opening Day, the first time we’ve had fans, after what we went through last year. A big boost.”
It took one sharp offseason, one game, and four good relief pitchers Thursday, but 2020 had already been forgotten.