The Phillies are in wait-and-see mode with Harrison Bader after the center fielder left Saturday’s 5-3 loss to the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLDS with groin tightness.
Manager Rob Thomson said a scan showed “no major tear or strain.” Bader postgame sounded determined to be in the lineup for Game 2 at Citizens Bank Park on Monday night, but that is contingent on how things go in warmups.
“We’ll know more tomorrow, but I think after the game they stretched him out,” Thomson said on a Zoom call Sunday. “They got him moving around a little bit, and I think he felt a lot better after that. We’ll know whether he’s available to start or at least to pinch-hit. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
Bader hit a sacrifice fly in the second inning and was hit by a pitch. He was pinch-hit for in the seventh, Nick Castellanos grounding into a double play.
The game finished with Max Kepler in center field, Weston Wilson in left and Castellanos in right. Kepler, the only starter in by the end of the game, played all three outfield positions.
If Bader can’t go, the outfield rotation against Blake Snell in Game 2 will get complicated. Bader has hit both righties and lefties well, and he’d be in there if all else was equal. Kepler is 0-for-11 all-time against the lefty. Brandon Marsh entered the series 1-for-36 lifetime against Dodgers pitchers. Castellanos is no great shake at 2-for-21 vs. Snell.
Thomson pinch-hit for Marsh, who singled and scored in the third, with Edmundo Sosa against lefty Alex Vesia with the bases loaded in the eighth. Sosa flew out to center.
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Jesus Luzardo’s last postseason start came in 2023 at Citizens Bank Park. He went four innings in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series for the Miami Marlins, allowing eight hits and three earned runs in a 4-1 loss.
Luzardo is older and wiser, having recovered from injuries last season to throw a career-high 183.2 innings with 216 strikeouts this year. And he’s got the seasoning of four previous postseason games.
“I think that being here in the postseason, on the other side, has helped me a lot on how to handle the energy and the crowd,” Luzardo said Sunday. “But at the same time being on this side helps you a lot. But experience has helped me a lot. I think that this year, for the whole year we’ve had a lot of fans in almost every game at home. And I believe that’s something that prepares us for the postseason as we saw yesterday. It basically feels like how the stadium is for every game.”
Luzardo has a career 6.14 ERA in 14.2 playoff innings. He made one three-inning scoreless appearance out of the bullpen for Oakland in 2019, then two starts for the As in 2020 in which he didn’t pitch more than 4.1 innings. Given the desperation of an 0-1 series hole and the extra day of rest, he likely won’t get a ton of leash Monday against the Dodgers.
He doesn’t view the series situation as changing his outlook on the start.
“It’s just another game, I think,” he said. “In the grand scheme of things, there’s been a lot of series this year we ended up winning after losing Game 1, that we bounced back and won two in a row. I think that’s the mentality we have to take.”
Luzardo has pitched well against the Dodgers this year. He tossed seven innings of two-hit ball in April, part of his torrid start to the season. In the September series in Los Angeles, he got the loss but went seven innings, allowing four earned runs and sixth hits.
Luzardo posted a 3.12 ERA in six August starts and 3.21 in four starts in September.
“I think he’s grown, he’s learned over the course of the year how to slow it down, especially in this environment,” Thomson said. “I’m super confident that he’s going to be ready to go and he’ll be able to handle the task and handle the emotional part of the game.”
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Thomson stood by his decisions in the decisive seventh inning Saturday. He stuck with David Robertson, who recorded the last out of the sixth, so that he could get lefty Matt Strahm to face Shohei Ohtani when he came up in the seventh.
Robertson allowed two base runners to reach to start that frame, a single by Andy Pages and a hit-by-pitch of nine-man Will Smith. That extended the inning for Strahm to get two outs but then groove a fastball that Teoscar Hernandez belted for a three-run homer.
“He strikes out Ohtani, gets a pop-up from (Mookie) Betts,” Thomson said of Strahm. “And he just missed his pitch. Left it out over the plate. And Hernandez laid a good swing on it. I trust him in those situations. He’s experienced. He’s been through it before.”
Strahm started his career with seven straight scoreless postseason outings in 2023. He’s allowed runs in three of his last four playoff outings, with five earned runs surrendered over three innings, including blown leads in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Mets and again Saturday.
Robertson threw six pitches to retire Max Muncy and end a two-run rally in the sixth.
The Phillies handled the top of the order, with Ohtani 0-for-4 with four strikeouts and a walk and Betts 0-for-5.
As for the bullpen in Game 2, even before the opener Thomson elected to wait until after Monday night to declare a Game 3 starter. That leaves everyone available Monday, including potential Game 3 openers Aaron Nola and Ranger Suarez.
Thomson on Sunday shifted his verbiage slightly, saying he was holding Suarez in Game 1 for emergencies early in the game to bridge to back-end leverage relievers or for extra innings, which will not include the ghost runner.
Asked Sunday if Suarez is a leverage option, Thomson went with, “possibly, yeah.”
Source: Berkshire mont