'Nothing fazes him': Suárez arm Phils needed

WASHINGTON -- The Phillies had called on Ranger Suárez in just about any situation imaginable for a reliever this season -- and he excelled in each of them.

Suárez piggybacked a trio of Spencer Howard starts. He came in to retire tough lefties. He recorded saves requiring as few as one out and as many as seven.

On Monday, the closer-turned-starter checked yet another box in the Phils' come-from-behind 7-5 win over the Nationals. Making his first start since Sept. 30, 2018, Suárez did not allow a hit while facing the minimum on just 33 pitches over three scoreless innings at Nationals Park.

The lone blemish on Suárez's night was a leadoff walk to Josh Bell in the second inning, which he promptly erased by getting Yadiel Hernández to ground into a double play one batter later. The southpaw, who struck out one batter, put the finishing touches on his outing with a seven-pitch third inning.

“Pretty efficient. He threw strikes, he kept his velocity up. His stuff was really good,” manager Joe Girardi said. “It's something to build off of. We can probably push him to 60-65 pitches the next time. Even though he didn't get that high today, he got his ups and downs that he needed to do. Impressive what he did tonight.”

Girardi opted to go to the bullpen for the fourth, as Suárez is being eased into the rotation after his first 27 appearances came in relief. He had topped 30 pitches just once in his last 13 outings dating to June 22, and he had thrown 38 pitches in his last three games combined.

"Everything went well. Everything went as expected,” Suárez said through a translator. “That was the plan -- to throw three innings on a low number of pitches."

Of course, utilizing Suárez to address the lack of rotation depth will also require the Phillies to further test a bullpen that -- outside of Suárez -- has largely struggled. Philadelphia's relief corps entered the night with a 4.56 ERA (21st in MLB), and that number drops to 4.99 if you take out Suárez's 1.12 mark over 40 1/3 innings.

The Phils hope that the addition of Ian Kennedy will help those figures, but the bridge to the new closer was a bit longer than usual on Monday due to Suárez's abbreviated outing. Fellow former closer Héctor Neris followed Suárez with two scoreless innings, but that left Enyel De Los Santos to enter in a 1-0 game in the sixth inning, despite the fact that each of his last seven appearances had come with the team trailing by multiple runs. The righty promptly allowed a game-tying pinch-hit homer to Andrew Stevenson.

Philadelphia then rolled out a trio that will presumably handle a lot of high-leverage innings moving forward: José Alvarado, Archie Bradley and Kennedy. Bradley inherited a bases-loaded, one-out jam from Alvarado, and even though he allowed a go-ahead two-run single to Ryan Zimmerman, he promptly induced an inning-ending double play from the next batter. Bradley then returned to pitch a 1-2-3 eighth despite the fact that he was pitching for the third time in as many days.

“I'll be the first to tell you I didn't have the start to the season that I wanted to,” said Bradley, who has a 0.69 ERA in 12 outings since July 1, after putting up a 4.50 ERA in his first 21 appearances. “For who the Phillies expected me to be when they signed me, I don't think I really performed that way until the last month or so. But I'm here on a one-year deal. I'm here to help this team win. That's why they brought me in: to help this bullpen.

"I'm a proven Major League arm. I've gone three in a row, I've gone four out of five -- and I'm ready to take on that burden and that role of pitching as much as I can to win this NL East."

By minimizing the damage, Bradley set the stage for the Phillies’ five-run ninth inning that pushed the club back to .500 (53-53), and more importantly, to just 2 1/2 games back from the first-place Mets (55-50). That five-run ninth-inning rally also came with the Mets on the verge of dropping a 6-3 decision to the Marlins -- a score that those in the Phils’ third-base dugout had a great view of on the out-of-town scoreboard in right-center field.

“I'm sure they had to see it -- it's right in front of them,” Girardi said when asked if he thought his players were scoreboard watching. “It has to be impossible. If they don't see it, I'm a little worried about them.”

With Bradley saying he’s “finally in [his] groove,” his right arm may be the extra boost the Phils need to make a run -- especially with Suárez eyeing future success in his latest role.

“He's the best, man. I'm so jealous of Ranger. He's the coolest, calmest, most-collected guy I've maybe ever been around,” Bradley said. “Nothing fazes him. You look at the season he's had -- long guy, setup man, closer, now he's going back into the rotation -- and it's just a testament to who Ranger is as a person.”