PHILADELPHIA — For a team that essentially has run through a two-season ascent while embracing the “closer by committee” mantra of manager Rob Thomson, the Phillies showed Saturday how seriously they’re taking the turn toward dominant championship contender.
Club President Dave Dombrowski not only successfully pulled off a trade for a valid closer Saturday, he sent two pitching prospects to the Los Angeles Angels for reigning American League Reliever of the Month Carlos Estevez.
“He was one of the best relievers in baseball this year,” Dombrowski said during the Phillies’ 8-0 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Saturday night. “Last month he was (reliever) of the month. He’s retired 53 of his last 58 hitters. He’s a guy that can pitch the ninth inning. He’s got 20 saves.
“How (Thomson) decides to use him we’ll see, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he gets a lot of ninth innings.”
Wouldn’t be a surprise at all, since Jose Alvarado has had trouble of late — until a clean inning Friday, anyway — keeping sight of the strike zone. Besides, Alvarado always seemed like a guy who was equal parts eighth-inning stage-setter and ninth-inning bleeding warrior.
But in Estevez, who at 31 is in the process of having the best season of his eight-year major league career, the Phillies have added a true closer and now have a frightfully balanced back end of the bullpen.
That will be Estevez, Jeff Hoffman and Orion Kerkering from the right side, with Alvarado, Matt Strahm and Gregory Soto coming from the left. All have mid-high 90s fastballs that can give batters pause.
Estevez is 1-3 with a 2.38 ERA and 0.74 WHIP. That latter number is third-best in the majors. To show the 6-foot-6, 270-pound righty’s emergence this season, his career ERA is 4.29. Yet over his last 15 appearances he’s won one game and saved 10 more, allowing no earned runs over 15 innings with 14 strikeouts against two walks.
Besides that he has the same (real) name as Charlie Sheen. Hopefully the comparisons end there.
“He’s got an above average fastball. He’s got a plus slider. He’s a bulldog on the mound,” Dombrowski said of this Estevez. “He’s a guy that has developed an above-average changeup. He’s a guy we like all the way around.”
Dombrowski said he tried to sign Estevez two winters ago right before signing Strahm.
“We ended up losing out on him at that time but we really liked him,” Dombrowski added.
The Phillies did give up two highly regarded pitching prospects in George Klassen and Sam Aldegheri in the deal. But it’s not like they were top draftees.
“They’re good pitchers. We like them,” Dombrowski conceded. But then he added, “We are trying to win, and (Estevez) is a guy that (can be) a significant piece of that. It’s not guys we wanted to give up but we also knew that we were going to have to give something up because it’s definitely a seller’s market.”
Klassen was a sixth-round draft pick last year, Aldegheri an international signing out of Verona, Italy. Both have made significant progress to this point.
“So we give up two highly regarded guys,” Dombrowski said, “but they’re a sixth-round pick and an international signing. That’s a real tribute to our scouting.”
Both trades for Austin Hays — who singled in his first Phillies at bat Saturday night — on Friday and now Estevez loom large in taking what appeared to be a Phillies team listing southward partially due to ill-timed injuries, to one that now can attack from all angles offensively and in the bullpen.
And for starters … how about a local minor league grad like Tyler Phillips pitching a complete game, four-hit shutout against one of the best teams in the majors Saturday night to overshadow all the trade talk?
“Um, I’ve never done that before,” said Phillips, who was raised in Lumberton, N.J., and again had a bevy of family members and friends in the stands watching his memorable moment. “It felt pretty awesome.”
As he went out to face Cleveland in the ninth, Phillips got a standing O … from a crowd he was a part of not long ago.
“My body has never felt that before,” he said. “You’ve got chills. You’re trying not to laugh. You want to tear up. You’re choked up … I didn’t know what was going on. But I felt like I could throw 100 mph at that point. All I wanted to do was sit those guys back down on the bench.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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