3 surprising Phillies players who are off to slow starts and holding the team back

Jordan Romano, RHP

Jordan Romano's unpredictability has been one of the Phillies' glaring problems a month into the regular season. He began the year by allowing two runs in the bottom of the eighth inning in the Opening Day game against the Washington Nationals.

After two solid games against the Colorado Rockies, Romano surrendered five earned runs, three hits, including a home run, and three walks in two appearances against the Los Angeles Dodgers. His start during the season's first week was alarming, especially since he is an option for manager Rob Thomson to use in the late innings.

Romano's drop in pitch velocity was a concern, as were his mechanics, he mentioned in his postgame comments following his second outing against the Dodgers on April 6.

"I'm used to [my pitches] being at 96 [miles per hour]," Romano told gathered media. When the velo's right, it helps the slider too. It could be [a mechanical thing], I'm going to look at some video, really dive in and figure this thing out really quick."

Romano and the Phillies coaching staff seemed to identify the issue to help him get back on track in the next three games he appeared in. The reliever allowed no earned runs, no walks, and only one hit in three innings against the Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants. It seemed like Phillies fans could have confidence in the right-hander being a dependable late-inning pitcher who Thomson could turn to as the organization envisioned following signing him.

The day after his third consecutive solid outing, MLB.com's Todd Zolecki wrote a piece on how the Phillies and Romano identified an issue with his delivery. The 32-year-old adjusted his leg lift when winding up to throw a pitch.

Zolecki noted in his article that Romano's leg lift was noticeably smaller in his three appearances following the series finale against Los Angeles. Phillies pitching coach Caleb Cotham commented on the pitcher's mechanical change.

"You can make a decision where you set up on the rubber," Cotham said, per Zolecki. "You can make a decision about how you enter your lift, your posture, your position. For [Romano], he’s shown a bunch of different styles of leg lifts that have worked, but when he’s at his best, it’s usually just a little tighter, a little quieter. A delivery’s job is to go toward the plate. You can overcomplicate it, but you want to be going toward the plate. But the more I’ve got going east-west with my balance, the harder it is to get going to the plate with balance. He’s just quieted it up a little bit.”

Romano entered his next appearance with a comfortable seven-run lead in the ninth inning of the April 19 game against the Miami Marlins. His velocity and mechanics appeared normal, but the Marlins got the better of Romano. He allowed a career-high six earned runs in addition to six hits, including two home runs, in 2/3 of an inning.

The reliever mentioned what the issues were after his fourth bad outing in nine relief appearances.

"When I'm up in the count, I need to make better pitches, 1-2, 0-2, I still felt great out there, [I] just got crushed," Romano said.

Based on how he has done so far, Romano will likely be up and down for the foreseeable future. With every bad performance by the reliever, it becomes more of a concern whether the Phillies will win or lose, depending on how he pitches.