In the 2024 Phillies’ never-ending and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to find a viable fifth starter, one guy who had an extended tryout for the role was Tyler Phillips. Once thought to be a promising prospect in the Texas Rangers’ system, his progress stalled to the point where he was placed on waivers in 2021. The Phillies claimed the local kid (Pennsauken, NJ), only to see him miss the entire 2022 season due to a shoulder impingement.
Upon his return in 2023, he didn’t pitch spectacularly, but
due to the Phillies’ lack of starting pitching depth in the minor leagues, he started 2024 in the Lehigh Valley rotation. At midseason, with the Phillies facing a dearth of options in the major league rotation, the team called him up.
Early returns were promising. He struck out seven batters in a four-inning long relief stint and then turned in a solid outing against the A’s. (His stat line looks worse because Orion Kerkering allowed an inherited runner to score. Sound familiar?) He followed that up with six shutout innings against the Pirates, and then a nine-inning shutout of the Guardians.
It looked like the Phillies might have uncovered a diamond in the rough. But then regression came calling, and it called hard. He was blasted for eight runs in 1.2 innings against the Mariners and then gave up nine runs in 9.1 innings over his next two starts.
The Phillies realized it wasn’t working and sent Phillips to the minors. After a couple of weeks of all the other fifth starter candidates looking almost as bad, they gave Phillips another chance. That chance went poorly, as Phillips couldn’t even make it out of the first inning. He allowed six runs on eight hits – including two home runs – in two-thirds of an inning.
The Phillies had seen enough and sent him back to the minors.
In the offseason, they sold Phillips to the Marlins who decided to try him out as a reliever. Why didn’t the Phillies try him in relief? That’s a great question, but after an inconsistent start to 2025, Phillips has seemed to settle into the role in Miami.
He’s now pitching in late relief and has even gotten some save opportunities.
Maybe he once again regresses, but I think its safe to say, it would have been better to have him on the Phillies this year than the likes of Joe Ross or Jordan Romano.
X-Men character of the series
Wither
Wither was a young mutant with the ability to make any organic matter he touched decay. He joined the X-Men’s team of young mutants, but he was often worried about his powers harming his friends, and was often ineffective because of it.
After leaving the team, he eventually teamed up with evil mutant Selene who helped him fully embrace his powers, and he turned against his former teammates.
Additional thought about the series
I’m not saying this is a “trap” series, but it certainly looks like one. They’re coming off a series win against the best in baseball Brewers and have a very important series against the Mets next. It would be very easy for them to overlook the also ran Marlins. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time in franchise history that a September series in Miami tripped up the Phillies.
The Marlins were doing pretty well for a little while, going 29-14 from June 13th to August 3rd, evening their season record at .500.
Since then, they’ve gone 10-20, including a sweep at the hands of the Nationals this week. However, they did manage to take three out of four against the Mets during that stretch, so thanks for that! The main cause for the slump is that their pitching has been dreadful, putting up the second highest ERA in the league during that span. (Behind only the Rockies, who we know barely qualify as a major league team.)
The situation doesn’t look to improve soon. With the recent announcement that starter Edward Cabrera is headed to the IL, the Marlins are short on rotation options. It appears they’ll go with a bullpen game headed by Valente Bellozo on Friday, and no starter has been announced for Sunday. On Saturday, the Phillies will face a legit starter in Sandy Alcantara who appears to have rounded into form after a rough start to the season as he recovered from Tommy John surgery.
This seems like a great opportunity for the Phillies’ offense to put up some runs. But as I mentioned before, it also wouldn’t be the first time a Phillies team didn’t take advantage of a series against an underwhelming Marlins team.
