As they square off with another team trying to recover from a disappointing start, the Philadelphia Phillies must also prepare themselves for a date with a longtime flame: Ranger Suárez.
The ace left-hander left the only team he ever knew this past offseason for the greener (Monster) pastures of Boston, inking a five-year, $130 million deal with the Red Sox to spend the next chapter of his career as the Robin to Garret Crochet's Batman.
He's more than lived up to that billing, propping up his new team with a 2.77 ERA through seven starts and 39 innings. Like always, injuries have slowed him (and the Red Sox) down somewhat, but when on the mound, Suárez remains the same unflappable presence he's always been.
With the Phillies set to visit Fenway Park this week, they'll get a chance to face Suárez as an opponent for the first time in the series finale. But just because he's now plying his trade elsewhere doesn't mean that his old teammates have lost any love for the 30-year-old southpaw.
Ranger Suárez deserves the love he's getting from Phillies fans and former teammates
“I miss him,” longtime Phillies reliever José Alvarado told NBC Sports about his good friend Suárez. “He did a lot of good things for our team. That’s why he means a lot to us."
Suárez's Philadelphia legacy is obviously secure, courtesy of a legendary postseason résumé that features a cumulative 1.48 ERA over four separate playoff runs. His signature moment was recording the final out of the 2022 NLCS, but he was as cool and collected as any pitcher in October for the Phillies during this core's window.
His calm and collected mindset on the mound never wavered, regardless of how big the moment was. Expect the same to be true when he faces his former team on May 14, even if he'll have to work a tad harder to hide some of his adrenaline.
Coincidentally enough, the Phillies will counter with Jesús Luzardo, who signed an eerily similar contract (five years, $135 million) to the one Suárez got in free agency. Neither is pitching at the absolute peak of their powers this year, but both southpaws have delivered some vintage starts already. A pitcher's duel between the two would be some poetic baseball justice, and also perhaps a likely outcome given the struggles of the respective offenses that will be playing in the game.
But just in case you're worried that the Phillies will take it easy on an old fan favorite, Alvarado made the message extremely clear heading into the series: “But this is business. He will try to beat us and we will try to beat him.”
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