In splitting a doubleheader on Wednesday, the Yankees secured a series victory over the Pirates, but it wasn’t the prettiest of victories. While they scored a total of 13 runs, not far off the MLB average for runs per game, they only actually scored runs in four of the 28 innings over the three games, and looked listless at points.
While Pittsburgh is having a nice season and currently sits in playoff contention, the Yankees are now going to face a step up in competition this weekend. Starting tonight,
the Yankees will be in Philadelphia for a set against the Phillies.
Record-wise, the Phillies aren’t that much better than the Pirates, but a lot of that is due to a poor start to the season that got manager Rob Thomson fired. Since familiar face Don Mattingly took over, the Phillies have gone 47-28, which is a winning percentage that would be a 101-win pace over a full season. Kyle Schwarber is hitting bombs, Bryce Harper is still Bryce Harper, and they have a very good rotation. The Yankees will have their work cut out for them.
Before the series gets going tonight, let’s take a look at the pitching matchups expected for this weekend.
Friday: Cam Schlittler vs. Jesús Luzardo (6:45 pm ET)
His overall numbers are still spectacular, but just like any other pitcher, Schlittler has his off days, and he’s coming off one of those. Last time out, the Dodgers got him for three runs and knocked him out after just 4.1 innings. As the guy who leads the league in strikeout to walk ratio, Schlittler’s off starts usually coincide with him having a somewhat worse start in terms of control, but he did walk zero against LA, so hopefully he’ll just bounce right back in this one.
Luzardo made his first ever All-Star team a couple weeks ago and is well on pace to have the best season of his career so far. His 3.4 fWAR is not terribly far off his career best 5.3, which he just set last season. He’s been especially good of late. Since the start of June, he has a 2.23 ERA and a 3.06 FIP, while striking out 65 batters in 48.1 innings. Philadelphia hasn’t lost any game that he’s started since May 19th.
Saturday: Ryan Weathers vs. TBD (6:05 pm ET)
With Max Fried now back, you’d think that Weathers will be headed for the bullpen sooner rather than later, once Carlos Rodón also returns. However, Weathers is still here for now and will try and have and “up” in his up and down season. His last start was definitely a down, as while the Yankees ended up winning, Weathers allowed five runs in 4.2 innings to Pittsburgh.
At time of writing, the Phillies haven’t announced their Saturday starter. They had highly-rated prospect Andrew Painter in their fifth starter spot to start the season, but he’s been sent down after struggling mightily. Since then, they’ve mostly been using an opener and/or swingman Alan Rangel in those spots. Rangel was recently optioned to the minors, meaning this could be an opener situation. One reliever the Phillies have used in those games has been former Yankee Tim Mayza.
Sunday: Will Warren vs. Cristopher Sánchez (7:20 pm ET)
When Fried returned in the second game of Wednesday’s doubleheader, the Yankees moved around their rotation a bit, and even used Warren out of the bullpen in that game. He was originally slater to start earlier, but he’ll now be brought back for the series finale in Philly. After a nice start to the season, Warren had been shaky in much of late June/early July, but he was decent enough in his last starting appearance against the Nationals.
Meanwhile, the Yankees will have to deal with the NL All-Star starter and likely current Cy Young leader Sánchez in the finale. Since becoming a regular big leaguer back in 2023, Sánchez has been pretty good, but he’s especially broken out over the last two seasons. Earlier this year, he had a 50.2 inning scoreless streak, getting not too far away from Oral Herschiser’s all-time record. Since that streak ended, he actually has an ERA over five, but a decent chunk of that came in one game against the Royals earlier in July.
