Stop me if you've heard this one before: The Philadelphia Phillies have a bullpen problem. Manager Don Mattingly doesn't trust most of his guys to get outs in high-leverage situations, putting immense pressure on closer Jhoan Duran and rookie set-up man Alex McFarlane to be near-perfect every time they step onto the mound.
That strategy has worked well enough in the regular season, but October is a different beast. The best teams have deep bullpens with numerous relievers than bring different skills to the table. The Phillies have two hard-throwing right-handers and a lot of question marks behind them.
Thus, a new plan is taking shape behind the scenes, one which is designed to the play to the roster's strengths. In other words, they're going to try to win games with as few pitchers as possible, per Matt Gelb of The Athletic.
What exactly does that mean? Well, from the sounds of it, Mattingly is going to dig deep into his old-school roots, giving his elite starters long leashes while trying to mitigate the exposure the middle relievers will see. Will it work? That depends on how McFarlane and Duran respond to the pressure and workload.
Tasking Alex McFarlane, Jhoan Duran with multi-inning outings in playoffs could spell trouble for Phillies
The reasoning behind this choice is clear to anyone who's been watching Phillies games recently; since the start of September, the team ranks 27th in bullpen ERA (5.34). Though that includes some valuable contributions from Chase Shugart (0.00 ERA) and José Alvarado (1.13 ERA), nearly every other reliever has struggled. Orion Kerkering was demoted after his struggles, while Brooks Raley looks broken beyond repair. At this point, it's unmistakably clear that Mattingly's faith lives and dies with Duran and McFarlane.
The strategy of eliminating the bridge between starters and closers is fine in theory, but it's going to require multi-inning outings from McFarlane and Duran to pull off, especially if Zack Wheeler or Christopher Sánchez runs into trouble before the sixth or seventh inning.
For reference, McFarlane has handled more than three outs just twice in his brief major-league career to this point, including his most recent outing on September 22 against the Brewers. He did toss two innings twice in Double-A this season, but those came back in June and July. Considering he's already blown past his previous career high in appearances (he's up to 53 between the majors and minors this year), it's a dubious proposition at best to assume he'll hold up with an increased workload in the playoffs.
Duran is slightly more experienced in longer outings, covering two-plus innings in 20 career appearances, though only five of those have come since 2024. He's a true ninth-inning fireman for the Phillies, and asking him to record more than three outs in the postseason when he's only done so once this year is just asking for trouble.
Maybe this problem is met with a solution when Jesús Luzardo returns from injury as a bulk reliever, but losing him from the rotation only weakens the Phillies' overall pitching staff. As such, a game might come down to Mattingly's willingness to trust literally anyone else in his bullpen -- you can only rely on two relievers so much, after all.
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