GDT 6/7/22 Philadelphia Phillies (Suárez, R) @ Milwaukee Brewers (Alexander)

[kikutaro]

Jace Peterson

Mound Visit.
Offensive Substitution: Pinch-runner Lorenzo Cain replaces Victor Caratini.
Ball in dirt (96.2 mph four-seam fastball)
Foul (95.9 mph four-seam fastball)
Foul (96.2 mph four-seam fastball)
Ball (96.1 mph four-seam fastball)
Foul (96.9 mph four-seam fastball)
Ball (95.4 mph four-seam fastball)
Foul (96.3 mph four-seam fastball)
Foul (95.9 mph four-seam fastball)
Ball (96. mph four-seam fastball)

Jace Peterson walks. Andrew McCutchen to 3rd. Lorenzo Cain to 2nd.

[LoneStarPhan]

Third walk.

First 2-2 pitch was a foul tip off JT’s glove. So close.

[kikutaro]

Pablo Reyes

Called strike (94.8 mph four-seam fastball)
Called strike (96.4 mph four-seam fastball)
Swinging strike (95.5 mph four-seam fastball)

Pablo Reyes strikes out swinging.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Philadelphia Phillies	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	3	9	0
Milwaukee Brewers	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	7	1

---

Current Batters

Philadelphia Phillies

Hitters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	HR	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Kyle Schwarber LF	3	0	0	0	2	1	0	.194	.323	.450	.773
Rhys Hoskins 1B	5	0	2	0	0	2	0	.221	.307	.392	.699
Bryce Harper DH	3	0	1	1	0	0	0	.309	.367	.623	.990
Nick Castellanos RF	4	0	2	0	0	0	0	.249	.306	.411	.717
J.T. Realmuto C	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	.247	.322	.376	.698
Didi Gregorius SS	3	0	1	0	1	0	0	.302	.357	.397	.754
Alec Bohm 3B	4	1	1	1	0	1	1	.262	.303	.366	.669
Bryson Stott 2B	4	0	0	0	0	2	0	.152	.212	.239	.451
Mickey Moniak CF	3	1	1	0	0	0	0	.188	.235	.188	.423
Matt Vierling CF	1	1	1	1	0	0	1	.188	.273	.292	.565
Ranger Suarez P								.000	.000	.000	.000
Connor Brogdon P								.000	.000	.000	.000
Corey Knebel P								.000	.000	.000	.000

Milwaukee Brewers

Hitters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	HR	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Luis Urias SS	4	0	0	0	0	2	0	.234	.331	.383	.714
Tyrone Taylor CF	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	.225	.276	.417	.693
Christian Yelich LF	4	2	2	0	0	0	0	.224	.316	.363	.679
Andrew McCutchen DH	3	0	2	1	1	1	0	.224	.275	.316	.591
Hunter Renfroe RF	4	0	0	0	0	2	0	.259	.296	.490	.786
Rowdy Tellez 1B	4	0	2	1	0	0	0	.254	.316	.481	.797
Victor Caratini C	3	0	0	0	1	0	0	.208	.326	.389	.715
Lorenzo Cain PR	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.169	.227	.223	.450
Kolten Wong 2B	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.228	.321	.389	.710
Keston Hiura 2B	2	0	0	0	0	1	0	.213	.330	.413	.743
Jace Peterson 2B	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.230	.314	.434	.748
Pablo Reyes 3B	4	0	1	0	0	1	0	.286	.333	.286	.619
Jason Alexander P								.000	.000	.000	.000
Hoby Milner P								.000	.000	.000	.000
Brad Boxberger P								.000	.000	.000	.000
Devin Williams P								.000	.000	.000	.000
Josh Hader P								.000	.000	.000	.000

Current Pitchers

Philadelphia Phillies

Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	P-K	ERA
Ranger Suarez	7.0	6	2	2	0	5	0	92-62	4.42
Connor Brogdon	1.0	1	0	0	0	1	0	16-10	2.38
Corey Knebel	1.0	0	0	0	3	1	0	32-17	3.38

Milwaukee Brewers

Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	P-K	ERA
Jason Alexander	5.0	7	1	1	2	1	0	78-47	2.25
Hoby Milner	1.0	0	0	0	1	2	0	18-11	2.82
Brad Boxberger	1.0	0	0	0	0	1	0	11-9	2.53
Devin Williams	1.0	0	0	0	0	0	0	13-9	2.86
Josh Hader	1.0	2	2	2	0	2	2	21-15	0.96

[xogfog]

_The right handed Wild Thing.

[Patchmk88]

Thank god!

[Patchmk88]

Fantastic outing by Ranger. Really kept us in the game.

[HopeSpringsEternal]

Had em all the way, Harry!

[bkox]

Alec Bohm: 0 XBH in 2 weeks
Matt Vierling: 2 XBH all season in 54 PA
Josh Hader: 0 runs, 0 HR, 1 XBH all season to 64 BF

And then that happened?

Baseball!

— Jayson Stark ( @jaysonst ) June 8, 2022

[EDmuch]

Clearly Tomson is the greatest manager in the history of baseball. How did he know that as a PH Vierling would hit the game winner ?

[LoneStarPhan]

Have to give credit to Knebel for the save. His 10th of the season.

Yes, closers have sometimes been hard to watch. Three walks in the closedown inning will blow a one run lead more often than not.

It’s really great to see a pair of home grown youngsters come through with home run in the ninth. Especially great against a successful closer.

The Phillies are making baseball fun again.

[bkeich]

For a week (+) it seemed like this team found every way to lose, now they seem to win every game that can be won.

LSP is right, making baseball fun / interesting.

[zambonir]

I really did think tonight was gonna be the reality check. But the vibe shift feels real, and the soft schedule for a while is too.

[Philsmania]

As Phillies phans, how did we even get the idea that closers should be easy to watch? I mean, we had Lidge, but he would still put guys on base even in his perfect season. Did I miss the part where instead of Mitch Williams or Jose Mesa we had Mariano Rivera at some point?

The sad thing is Wagner and Papelbon were both very good, but on not good enough teams. Madson too, briefly, on slightly better teams (Giles as well, but he's been a mess more years than not since then). And then from Jeanmar Gomez to now, not-great closers on never-great teams.

Yeah, closers with rocky ninth innings does seem to be the Phillies Way. See also, McGraw in the '80 Postseason and even Holland and Bedrosian in their best seasons. All of them averaged more than a baserunner an inning.

[zambonir]

Yeah McGraw's actual performance statisticallly always blows my mind, but we don't have to remember anything but the ending now. Of course his role was very different then too.

When your closer is a strikeout pitcher there's always also gonna be walks. You just can't be hittable as well. Unfortunately Knebel isn't exactly dominating with anything this year. And that's a risk the Phillies took signing someone with his history.

We will debate this once again come fall, if not before - should the Phillies go out and get the high-end closer (Hader himself may still get traded one year shy of free agency) or is that just gonna mean even more pain/dead money.

[Patchmk88]

Knebel’s problem right now is that his curveball is unusable. That means all he has is his fastball. Dangerous recipe when that is all the other team has to look for.

[EDmuch]

I don’t understand how Thomson can continue to go to Kneble when it is painfully obvious his curveball is useless at this time. Somebody needs to take him out if closer role, at least temporarily, and work with him until he has his curveball going again. This should not be an issue of “confidence” in him. It is a d matter of a simple physical fact, he has no usable curveball right now.

[zambonir]

It seems so simple doesn't it? (Also, imagine if Girardi was still managing!) But is this version of Knebel still good enough to be trusted with important outs in the 7th or 8th, or no important outs, or no outs at all? Unlike Alvarado (or the Hector Neris of yore) I assume he can't be optioned to work on some things (and he is probably still the Phillies' second or third-best reliever even with this issue).

[andyb]

The issue is that we really don't have a closer capable of being consistently good AND handling a heavy workload. Knebel threw 39 innings over 3 seasons (2019-2021) as he recovered from injury. Now we are asking him to do more.

Seranthony is probably our best option now but he probably should not have the workload either and Hand's selective use is probably the best choice for him given how it fell apart last year.

I think they stick with Knebel but lighten the workload which probably means a few Seranthony save situations. We'll need more time to figure out if Knebel really needs to be replaced in his primary role. He is walking a few too many now but he is also not giving up many home runs. He needs to be better, but he is also not a disaster out there.

[zambonir]

Seems like those are two different issues though - Knebel's usage, vs. him having trouble with one pitch. The latter should be fixable with a few off-days or maybe even a low-leverage appearance.

Of course another good way to manage your reliever usage issues is to have fewer save situations, and stronger starts. Which has been happening, lately.

[andyb]

And it is not as if Seranthony's clean innings in the 7th and 8th are unimportant. Brogdon's been better lately which is good and we know there is nothing wrong with Alvarado's stuff. Nothing on the Coonrod front recently unfortunately.