Phillies Trade Deadline Discussions, Pitchers Can't Throw Strikes in Loss

The Phillies made a couple of solid trades on Monday that seemed to revive the club on Monday and Tuesday, but the relief pitching failed to fire strikes in Wednesday's difficult loss, after Jose Alvarado again couldn't find the strike zone. #RingTheBell #PhiladelphiaPhillies #MLBonX

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Welcome back in, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the Six Ten Podcast. I'm your host, Jay Hollihan, as we welcome you back in as the Philadelphia Phillies. We last spoke on Sunday, so we'll talk about some of the moves that they made at the trade deadline. We'll touch on it a little bit. We'll talk about kind of my personal feelings about things, and then obviously we'll get into the series thus far, and specifically, of course, we're going to talk about last night's debacle. Now, we'll start with the trade deadline. We'll go in the order of events. The Phillies won out and they made moves that I think. If your goal is to just have a shot at the postseason, they made the right moves that put them closer to that. They made some right moves that put them closer to that. Trading for Luisa Rise, I think that's a home run move. I think that's a move that truthfully you could argue, one could argue, was about two years too late, maybe, in terms of getting a guy who can just get base hits, be a table setter, allow the bats behind him to help uh push runs across. Now, obviously where he was at the time with his other stops, you know, in San Diego, obviously they were in contention for the postseason, so of course you're not gonna get a guy like that, but there were I think avenues that the Phillies maybe could have even taken in the in the offseason that could have brought a rise to Philadelphia. But that's neither here nor here nor there in that regard. Now, with the bullpen pitching, getting Brooks Rayleigh from the New York Mets, solid trade. Now, interesting to see an interdivision trade between the Phillies and the Mets, and we'll talk about obviously last night's debut for Rayleigh that was not good. And then coming over with Lou Luisa Rise, over from the Giants, Caleb Killen, bullpen pitcher, right-handed arm. Again, we'll get in the last night, but it's a fine ad, you know, just to put another body in there, I suppose, but we'll get in the last night. Now, what did the Phillies not do? Well, they didn't add a right-handed bat. They seemed confident in Brian DeLacruz, Derek Hill. Again, we'll get in the last night. A lot of a lot of things here to really, you know, pull back on, but they feel confident in those two right-handed bats moving forward. They've swung it pretty well at times throughout the summer, but if you wanted a legitimate right-handed bat that can be in the lineup every single day, and a guy who could be a threat all the time, and also someone to back cleanup, protect Harper in the lineup, be the type of right-handed bat that you haven't had since Reese Hoskins or even Jason Worth. The Phillies did not get that. And I think that was a mistake. They also didn't add to their starting pitching. And you'll hear from Dave Dombrowski in a moment on his thoughts on the trade deadline. But we'll play for you first his overall feelings about the starting pitching and where he thinks the Phillies are at from that outlook.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Now, compared to some other clubs, and I've said this all on, you always want to get better at every position. But we feel that if we if we can make it to the postseason, our starting rotation's in really solid shape. Other people are looking to add to their top three. Uh, in our situation here, that really wasn't a necessity. So if we were going to do it and add somebody, they would have had to be significantly better, in our opinion, than Andrew just acquiring just another option.

SPEAKER_07 4:46

Did you start acquiring starting?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Oh, we talked a lot of stuff about starting pitcher ships just to see who was out there on a consistent basis and what the cost would be. Um, we we did. Well, uh a little. Um, but I that's really the the choice came in to you end up getting a guy that's a a fifth starter that you don't think is as good as your guy that you have now, an option, the guy that you think is a better chance to win to help your depth, or do what we're doing, and we figured we'd do what we were doing.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

It's probably the biggest, in my opinion, adding to the starting pitching would have been the biggest need for me. For me, that was a decision that could end up really coming back and haunting the Phillies because one guy goes down, again, we'll get back to last night, but one guy goes down, and it's back to Alan Ron Hell and Tim Mesa as your number five starters. Aaronola, who knows what he'll look like. He's kind of up and down and all around. He's pitched better of late, but pitching better of late for Aaronola is what you expect out of the number five starter in your rotation. And then to hear at the end him say that he's a little concerned about the depth, well, there was an opportunity to add to the depth. There was an opportunity to take someone on and stash them as a long man out of the bullpen. And if there were moments where it was like, eh, I don't, you know, love the way Painter's been throwing the ball, well then Painter goes back to the bullpen because at this point, we're at the time of the year, you put feelings aside. It doesn't matter. That's all out of the window. We don't care about well in the development of this player. This isn't April. This is August now. We are at the point in the season where we need to win ball games. Every game now matters. So you cannot go into it with that type of an approach. That's an extremely, extremely horrid approach to have when you talk about on one breath, well, we wouldn't want to add someone to have two number five starting pitchers, but at the same time, I'm concerned about our depth. Then you're gonna then you know what? If anyone's out there on the free agency wire, you gotta add them. If you feel like, well, we have this guy down in our farm system, like I know they had Colby Aller down there at one point, and I assume he's still yeah, he he is still down there in Lehigh Valley. Although uh he's having a pretty horrid season thus far. 5-5-4 ERA in the minors and a 6-7-5 in Lehigh with seven starts this year. You need like when they got Walker Bueller last year, a perfect example of bringing someone in to stash them. That's what they needed to do, and they failed to do that. Now, Dombrowski's thoughts on his other deadline moves.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Well, I feel very good about our ball club. So um I like the moves that we made. You look at how you how you match up with everybody. Our first goal is to make the playoffs. So I hope we're dealing with other people, other clubs in the postseason. But um when you look at we we think we helped our offense, um we added the leading hitter in the league to the offense, and a different type of hitter than we have. Somebody that gets on base sets the stage for um some of our big guys uh doesn't strike out as often, can do things with the bat. So we really really like that addition. We also like his personality, his makeup with the ball club. So um I think it helps our ball club and improves us, and then we get an outfielder and we can move Bryce out to right field.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Like I said, the Luisa Rise move, I think, is a home run get, but just Brooks Rayleigh and Killian, the rounded out, is just not at all gonna make me feel like, well, if you get number one, you make the postseason. Number two, you get into a series with the Brewers or the Dodgers or the Braves. I don't feel confident that the and even heck, even the Cubs for that matter, I don't feel like you're gonna come out on the other end advancing throughout the postseason. Now, there were other moves that were made internally and specifically to get Luis Arise. Bryce Harper moving from first base out to right field. Bryson Stott, who's a gold glove caliber second baseman, moving from second to third for a Rise to play at second base, and then Alec Bohm moving from third across to first for Stott to go over to third, and then Harper obviously making the move out to right. Now, Bryce Harper said he texted Dave Dombrowski the night before, so Sunday evening telling him, hey, whatever you need to make the deal, I'll move to right field if it's what makes sense. I'm willing to move out there and get the deal done. Now, here was Bryce Harper and Bryson Stott putting it in their own words about the positional move.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

I've said in years past, I mean, I know everybody thinks it's crap when I say it, um, but it's not. You know, I think uh any chance that we have an opportunity to win, um, I'd do anything for this organization, and they know that. Um, so I texted Dave late last night and you know told him, hey, if anything you know pops up, you know, make the move and you know, we'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_07 10:34

Uh not really.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

I mean we all want to win, so uh whatever. It's gonna happen. Umstar, first baseman. It's willing to move. Um you're on the team, so you gotta do that. You're what are we gonna say? So um, I think that just shows who we are as a team that that we're willing to move around and do certain things to to win games, and um, like I said, we all want to win the world series. So if this is the move to do it, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna do it to the best of our abilities and and not complain.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

So the one guy I did not mention in all of this was Trey Turner, and it's been a big talking point about whether or not Trey Turner himself said he did not want to make the move to the outfield. A lot of people have speculated whether they're conspiring on this one just a little bit too much because we have not heard for sure from Trey Turner him saying I don't want to make the switch to the outfield. Now people may have I've na I've not even seen anyone say, Well, I have sources that are telling me this, not none of that. It's just pure speculation. And I'm not gonna sit here and necessarily do that and speculate about whether or not a player and his character is going to take a hit. But I will say it doesn't necessarily make the most sense that he wouldn't make the move to the outfield because of the errors that he has this year to move start to short. But the other thing, too, and this is what would have made the move Turner to the outfield make more sense because it would have been less shuffling around. Bohm could have stayed at third, arise at second, start at short, and then Harper doesn't have to move to the outfield, he stays at first, because someone would have to move to the outfield. And honestly, I think from the standpoint of a lot of people, you would want to put just your worst defender, you'd hide him out there. Now, the way that the outfield then would have been constructed would have been fascinating. Because I think you would have gone Martian left, Turner in center, but then it would have to create kind of this weird right field, slash even left field, debacle for Justin Crawford, who most likely is more of a center fielder than anything, so it would have to be then Trey moving over to left. Then there's Derek Hill and Brian DeLacruz. Now De La Cruz is a corner outfielder, right field, left field makes sense for him. Hill can play I feel like Hill could play any outfield position. I think he's a better center fielder than anything. So I think the outfield would have been really messy. But in terms of guys fitting into certain roles, like for example, if you bring a guy in, like say they got another right-handed bat that could play the outfield, that right-handed bat, you're not taking it out of the lineup, which would have meant, okay, it doesn't matter. We need this guy to play here, we need Trey to play center, and we need Marsh to play in left, and then we'll have to figure out when we can get Justin Crawford A B's. Now that's the other part of this that I think came into factor here. They did not want to take Ed Bats away from Justin Crawford, they didn't want to take Ed Bats away from Derek Hill. And I I don't think to a lesser extent, though, Brian De La Cruz. Or I think to a lesser extent, Brian de la Cruz. So that was the trade deadline. Now let's get to the actual important stuff. Well, Monday saw Aaron Nola take the hill, give up three runs in the first two innings, Phillies offense does nothing through six, they're blanked. Then you get into the Nationals' bullpen. Bases are loaded off of guys just from the Phillies just passing the baton along, Nationals relievers unable to throw strikes, and then Derrick Hill comes up, and funny enough, the one of the strikes that was thrown, he deposits it over the left center field wall for a go-ahead grand slam, an inning later after Orion Kirkering got you through the top of the eighth. A good a solid inning by Kirkering, and then Harper hits a two-run blast, makes it a three-run game. Duran gives up a base runner, but comes back, gets the final out, and the Phillies win their third straight. Now Tuesday, we got back to our we've won three in a row, we need to win four in a row. Let's go out there and dominate. Jesus Lazardo dominated the Nets, and the offense put it together. Luisa Rise in his first start had an RBI single to get the party started. He followed with another RBI knock. Phillies played three in the third to take a four-nothing lead. They added another in the seventh, five-nothing, and that was all she wrote as the Phillips go out and beat the Nationals five to nothing, and now are at a four-game win streak. Then we got to yesterday, and we knew probably heading into yesterday's game, seeing Andrew Painter on the mound could get a little shaky. Well, funny enough, Painter actually did a fine job. He gave up the RBI single in the top of the first, but then Luisa Rise just hit his fifth home run of the year. Now, when Dave or rather Don Mattingley spoke about how he feels like Luisa Rise as a player is more like this generation's Tony Gwynn. Number one, the batting titles speak for themselves. He's a throwback kind of guy. Number two, he doesn't hit for power, kind of like Gwynn. And it's kind of ironic that in what his fifth at bat as a member of the Phillies, he hits his fifth homer of the year off the right field pole. Phillies get some more traffic on. Justin Crawford with a sack fly to center. Uh felt like now he hit it 98.3, felt like he just missed maybe getting a hold of one, and the Phillies could have even have uh gotten a bigger lead. But in the time being, Andrew Painter was solid through four innings. Pitched four pretty good innings, gave up just the one run, three hits, a walk, and four strikeouts. The problem as to why he was taken out, felt some discomfort in the hamstring. And here he was, and here was Don Mattingley after the game as they talked about the injury.

SPEAKER_07 17:55

Injury obviously uh strained a hammy on um, or what do you say, hamstring tightness? Not sure strain's probably not the right word, but just slipped on that. I think the pitch to Lyle seemed kind of give out a little bit and look on his face. Uh obviously pitched a couple innings after that and just started to get you know get tight on him. So uh obviously we're gonna be careful there and and get him out of there. Yeah, I thought I thought he was okay and and hung in there. Uh obviously the leg is something that you don't know if it really affects him, but I think he was gonna be fine. You could tell the way he was going after guys, it was the same same look uh that we saw in Baltimore.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

I'm not too worried about it. Um like I said, I I I felt like I could have gone out there and still competed. Um they felt like they didn't want to um reset, so that's that's why we made the decision. It's better. Um just for some treatment. Um treatment than take away.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Fresh trading is trading.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

Um, so take that off the ball to me. Which way can just be through the ball? The chain-up is really good. Um something building on um you know, I've got some good swing and miss there. I feel like the command of it is is getting better and better um each time I go out there. Well, you're gonna re-evaluate some bar. Do you have an optimism that you'll be able to make your next start? I do. Um we'll come in and see where it's tomorrow, but um, I feel good about moving forward. I don't think it's gonna be anything too serious.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

So, from what Andrew Painter kind of is telling you there is he felt okay enough to continue to push forward. It even sounded like Don Mattingley felt okay enough to push forward. Where that probably came from was the Phillies brass, saying, Well, if he's feeling discomfort and it's not going away, we need to take him out. Now, he's telling you he's was willing to pitch through the pain. I think it's one, they didn't feel confident in him possibly injuring it some more, especially with having to push off the mound. And two, I think in terms of where the game was, they felt more confident saying, well, we figured we might have to go to a bullpen game anyways, let's bring the guys in to get the final get the final fifteen outs. And Timmeza goes out there, pitches a clean fifth, Ryan Kirkring a clean sixth, but then Brooks Rayleigh comes in in the seventh, gives up a game-tying home run to Brady House with two outs, a sweeper that just hung over middle of the plate, he deposits it over the right center field wall to tie it up at two. More traffic gets on, CJ Abrams, 0-1 pitch, a sweeper up and away. He takes it to left field, Nats take a 3-2 lead. Now the Phillies, they'd get traffic on with Alec Bome at second and Marsh at first, and Bryson Stott on a great six pitch at bat. He would send a slider out to center field, tie the game up at three, and then we'd go to extras. Now, obviously, there was the JT Rio Muto uh challenge debacle in that game, you know, as we were kind of winding things down, and a lot of people obviously not too pleased with the fact that JT used the final challenge on a pitch that was clearly a strike. I think you know, and and obviously then later on needing to leave it up to the home plate umpires clearly i it it's obviously something that if you are JT Romuto, you're the catcher. I think number one, he's frustrated with his offensive output, wanted to get ahead in the count, all that jazz. You have to be better in that situation because you know later on that could possibly come back and bite you. Unless it's a clear and obvious, like, dude, that's two inches off the plate, that's an inch, two inches off the plate. You don't, and and especially it's not strike three. And it wasn't a close pitch. It wasn't close by any means, where it's like, okay, you know, you took a gamble, it was like 0.1 in the zone, whatever. But obviously you have to know, hey, if I don't get that right, that could come back to haunt us. And that's ultimately what happened later on in the inning. So we'd go to extras, and in the top of the tenth, they bring in Jose Alvarado. Now you've already burned Kirkering, you've already burned Johan Duran, Jonathan Bolan, now Brooks Rayleigh. Those four are now your top arms. So you have to go to Alvarado, you have to get Killian in the game, you have to get Chase Sugar into the game. At some point. Now, I thought when it got to the bases loaded, and Caleb Cotham came out to talk to Alvarado, I thought, you know what? Why don't they just make a pitching change? But you make a pitching change there, you bring a guy into a basis loaded situation. Who knows how that could have turned out? Could have turned out to be even worse for all we know. But I will say this it was obvious Alvarado didn't have his command. He was so in he was so inconsistently off and around the plate, it was horrible. And he walks in the go-ahead run on four pitches, not even close pitches. He already walked the bases loaded in the inning as well. And then you see in the bottom of the tenth, Derek Hill with a great aggressive move to steal third, Kyle Schwarber, who had a great at-back going, though, unfortunately. He gets called out on strikes, and then Trey Turner with a sack fly to right that if Alvarado buckles down, gets or pitches to Nunez with the same command that he pitched, then to the next hitter in uh in house, where he was able to get House to strike out. If he pitches with the same command, the Phillies win that game. They win that game 4-3. And you know, you know what? You wouldn't have had to go to the top of the 11th and bring in Killian into the game where he gives up a hard knock by C.J. Abrams, 103.4 off the bat to center field, and a terrific attempt by Derek Hill to go after the ball. He can't come up with it, and he tried pulling the Aaron Rowan, but this time doesn't record the out and smacks into the fence. I guess him and Aaron Rowan can later meet up and have a beer and talk about playing outfield at Citizens Bank Park, going after fly balls. Derek Hill hurt, laying on his back, guys checking on him. Very rare you see in in baseball, you don't see it often, guys on one knee, you know, almost like in any other sport when someone's down. You know, you see teammates go down on one knee as they hope their teammates okay. It's being checked out by the training staff. Now Hill got up, he seemed to be in good spirits, looked like may have made a joke that made some of his teammates laugh a little bit, came off the field, looked like he was giving a gesture to the guys that he felt okay, but afterwards, I don't think Don Mattingley felt as confident. Here he was.

SPEAKER_07 26:27

Derek Paul called shoulder contusion, but but kind of evaluating probably everything with that play. Um hit that wall pretty good. Um so we'll see, we'll see where it goes, we'll have to see where it goes from from here.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

You gotta give Derek Hill a lot of credit for wanting to go after that baseball. May have been now he's not in the lineup, but he's also not on the I. L for tonight's game. The hope is obviously that you know what, it's just gonna be so he's got a bruised right shoulder, is what I'm seeing from Todd Zelecki. Checking to see if there's any other injuries. Walked off the field on his own, so that's good. But he got a guy there in Derek Hill. Who's in right center who's in right center field. You know he's playing in right center field on that ball that Abrams hit to dead center. Now it wasn't we didn't really get to see the track or the the path that Hill took to get to the ball. But you know damn well he was selling out to make that catch. I don't think anyone can say otherwise. Uh actually he started off maybe it was in shallow right center. I don't really see where the where he was specifically, but he came over to make the play, and I guess mid-red misread it thinking that it was gonna go over, makes the jump to try and make the catch, and it landed about maybe two inches to his right, hits that fence hard, smacks into it, I mean his head is right underneath the pad, and his shoulder is right into the right into the fence. He is going all out to make the catch, is where I'm going with this. Now he's going all out to make that play, and you got guys here who can't throw strikes. And you know who I'm talking about. So I said after the game. It's amazing you have a guy in Hill who's going after that ball, trying to make the play, but you don't have a guy in but yet you have a guy in Alvarado who couldn't buckle down and just throw a strike. He's not Alvarado is not a rookie. He's not it's not Chase Sugart, the last guy you want to see out of the bullpen. It's not Seth Johnson. Jose Alvarado should be able to make a competitive pitch. Then I have people saying to me, don't be stupid. They played two different positions. That is not at all I'm not comparing the positions. That has nothing to do with this. It has everything to do with one guy who was willing to put himself on the line to say, screw the my screw everything, I'm gonna go make the play. I'm going to give myself up to go after this ball to keep this game a 4-4 game and not allow any runs to score. And then you have a guy in Alvarado who couldn't even find the strike zone in the little bit. Killian, who couldn't find the strike zone i in the smallest version, couldn't even paint a corner, couldn't even put it over the plate, couldn't even throw it down the middle if he tried. This is what irks me about this bullpen. There are guys in this bullpen who, in my opinion, just do not have the mental fortitude to be on a postseason contender, and Jose Alvarado fits that bill. And then you have people who just I don't think can comprehend proper English, probably need to go back to sixth grade, who don't understand the fact that it's not about whether or not someone is tracking a fly ball compared to a guy trying to strike out a hitter. It's about someone just trying to I mean, if Nunes got a hit, I'd feel much more better, I'd feel a lot better than Alvarado out there walking him in. Because you know what? At the very least, you're making the hitter have to put a good swing on the ball. If you don't understand that, don't watch the games. Because you just sound stupid. Anyways, that's gonna do it for me on this episode. We will be back on uh later tonight where we're gonna recap this final game. Christopher Sanchez on the mount against Miles Michaelis. Now, a lot of people seem to think that it's a foregone conclusion the Phillies are gonna win. Sanchez did not look good his last time out against the Nationals on the road back in June. That needs to change. Phillies need to pick up a series win because you know what? You got the Diamondbacks ahead of you now. You got the Padres breathing down your neck. Obviously, you let the Marlins get back into it. Uh we have in the game between the Diamondbacks and the Padres, that's gonna be first pitch at 9.40. Marlins taking on the Braves at this point. Forget the division. You just want to make the postseason. So to keep the Marlins at bay, keep the Padres at bay, that would be perfect for the Phillies. Let's just put it that way. It'd be perfect for the Phillies, who are now five games back at the Cubs for the top spot in the wild card. They're deadlocked with the Diamondbacks who hold the tiebreaker because the D-backs took two out of three earlier in the year at CBP. So the Phillies needing to win this series tonight against the Nationals. Every game matters. Every game matters from here until the end of the year. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

SPEAKER_05 32:28

A mental job on between the people's talk. It's got to go west, let me panic in the chest. It's gotta be west, but in the chat,