The Philadelphia Phillies conquered their Opening Day on Thursday with a triumphant 7-3 extra-innings victory. The team is solid and still building while looking to close out their first series win of 2025 on Saturday. The team looks healthy and ready to go, but some players are lagging behind due to injury.
One of the unlucky Phillies players who fell behind was left-handed starter Ranger Suárez. The 29-year-old started the season on the 15-IL due to lower back soreness. He only made two starts this spring, the last one coming on March 9. Now Suárez, who was a vital piece of their playoff run last season, will have to work his way back up to see regular season action. The IL stint wasn't too surprising as Suárez had been dealing with back issues for multiple weeks, but what the problem is that there's no current timetable for his return.
Phillies offer annoyingly vague timeline for Ranger Suárez to begin season
Back injuries can be tricky to manage, with the explosiveness required for a sport like baseball. Sometimes they can be tough to judge and according to MLB.com's Todd Zolecki, it could be weeks from now until we see Suárez's 2025 debut. With a vague "sometime in April" as the timeline provided by president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski before the season started, all we can do is wait and see.
Ranger Suárez will open the season on the IL.
— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) March 24, 2025
Dave Dombrowski said if things continue to progress that Suárez “would pitch sometime in April.” But he needs to be built up again. “You’re talking three weeks or something at least.”
Taijuan Walker will be No. 5 starter.
Suárez can certainly take the time he needs and with the season only beginning, the damage will be limited. The problem lies with the unknown of how Suárez feels physically. The club's best hope is that he can progress along just fine, but that's assuming there are no snags along the way.
The thing we can judge Suárez off is his missed time last season, as he missed a month of action with a similar issue. Suárez, despite the injury, pitched to a 12-8 record with a 3.46 ERA and made his first career All-Star appearance in 2024. It could be a chronic back problem, but only time will tell. The most Suárez has thrown in a season for the Phillies is 155 1/3 innings, back in 2022, so there's a chance his workload can still align there by season's end.
Suárez was scheduled to be the Phillies' No. 5 starter after the team announced the rotation for the opening week. With Suárez on the shelf, Taijuan Walker will fill in as the fifth starter, per Corey Seidman of NBC Sports Philadelphia. That could mean four or more potential outings the Phillies will be asking from Walker.
Here's what the updated rotation will look like through Walker's first start of the season next Thursday:
- Jesús Luzardo at Nationals, Mar. 29
- Aaron Nola at Nationals, Mar. 30
- Cristopher Sánchez vs Rockies, Mar. 31
- Zack Wheeler vs Rockies, Apr. 2
- Taijuan Walker vs Rockies, Apr. 3
It's not what Phillies fans were hoping for after the festivities after Opening Day, but a speedy recovery will be what Suárez and the team are striving towards. Suárez is a competitor and a fan-favorite in Philadelphia, and even though he is set to become a free agent after 2025, fans will continue to support him while he's still here.
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