The Phillies have relied on their “big four” bullpen guys to get them through the first 97 games of the season, holding down leads and locking down victories more than any team in baseball.

Two of them, Matt Strahm and Jeff Hoffman, were deservedly named to the All-Star team. The other two, Orion Kerkering and Jose Alvarado, have been very good for long stretches of the season.

Not Friday night though.

Kerkering gave up multiple runs in an inning for the first time in his big league career to allow the Pirates to trim a three-run Phillies lead down to one, and then Alvarado blew his third save of the season and took his fourth loss as he coughed up a pair of runs in the bottom of the ninth to allow Pittsburgh to finish the comeback with a walkoff as the second half of the season commenced.

From the 1000-foot view, this was just one game of 162. Relievers aren’t going to be perfect. They’re going to have their off nights, and this might have just been one of them.


But if you’ve been watching the Phillies for a bit, you know it’s never just 1-of-162 anymore. Every night the entire Philadelphia media market lives and dies with the Phillies these days, and then the next day they do it all over again.

So, fans here, and even there in Pittsburgh, as thanks to Phillies faithful making the trek across the commonwealth to give the Pirates their largest crowd to attend a game since 2015, have been seeing the slow oil drip from those guys in the bullpen of late.

And, um, they’re not handling it well.

Rational. As always.

The thing is, for Alvarado especially, it’s been all about execution.

His stuff is there. He’s still cranking out pitches at 100 MPH. His breaking stuff is still hard and nasty. What he’s doing is missing his spots. His uptick in walks is hurting him because he’s getting himself in trouble by putting runners on base with free passes, but more concerning is when he’s throwing strikes and leaving them out over the middle of the plate. When you do that, it doesn’t matter how hard you throw it, batters at the major league level can square up the nose of a fighter jet if it’s too much in the middle of the strike zone.

Since blowing the game in London against the Mets in early June, Alvarado has made 13 appearances. In those appearances he has allowed 14 hits, seven walks and hit a batter. That’s 22 baserunners in just 12 innings. That’s a lot. He does have 12 strikeouts, which is slightly below what you’re used to getting from Alvarado, but it’s not necessarily about the lower punch out rate as much as it’s the contact he’s yielding as there’s not a lot of swing and miss on his pitches.

Batters are hitting .286 against him with a .794 OPS in that time. He’s still dominant against lefties, having allowed just three singles and one double to a left-handed hitter all season, but it’s the righties that are feasting on him. Righties for the season are slashing .275/.359/.402 for a .761 OPS. Righties have a .361 BABIP against Alvarado.

What gives? It’s a combination of wildness that are uncompetitive pitches, and getting into unfavorable counts, where batters can look for a specific pitch in a specific spot and tee off on it.

Throwing strike one is incredibly important for Alvarado. When he gets ahead of hitters 0-1, their OPS against him this season is .480. When he gets behind 1-0 it jumps to .666. And when the count favors the batter at any time in the count, it jumps to .807.

In his post game press conference after the loss Friday, manager Rob Thomson was asked by The Athletic’s Matt Gelb if there was a thought of getting Alvarado out of that back end role and into lower leverage situations so he could work his way through this and figure it out.

“Sure,” Thomson said. “Sure. Yeah. If that’s what needs to be done, then I’ll certainly do it.”

As for Kerkering, he had gone 10 straight appearances without allowing a run prior to Friday, but there’s been something concerning with him as well of late – too many baserunners.

In his last 14 relief appearances he’s had three 1-2-3 innings. The other 11 have had baserunners. In his last 15 games, opponents are hitting .289 off of him, with 15 hits.

On Friday the first three guys he faced went single, double, single to score a run and a second later scored on a sacrifice fly.

Th fact that Alvarado and Kerkering haven’t been as good in the past six weeks of the season as thy were the first 11 has Phillies fans in a bit of an uproar. With the trade deadline 10 days away, the noise is out there that the Phillies need to trade for a bona fide closer to resolve this.

The Phillies want you to pump the breaks on that notion.

That’s not to say they won’t trade for bullpen help. They probably will.

But it doesn’t have to be a Mason Miller (Oakland) or (Miami’s) Tanner Scott-type, both of whom have seen their names in trade rumors for a month, if not longer.

Instead, it could be something more lower leverage. Maybe a swingman who could start if needed but otherwise could give you 2-3 solid innings of relief, if needed.

That’s because the Phillies might have internal options to consider for those backend roles, if needed.

Gregory Soto is kind of the forgotten man in that bullpen. A former All-Star closer himself, Soto has been used in more lower leverage spots since his arrival via trade with Detroit prior to the 2023 season.

Soto hasn’t really earned a spot to be one of the dudes on the backend because he’s been frustratingly inconsistent during his Phillies tenure. But Soto has shoved lately, albeit rather quietly.

The last time he let up more than one run in an appearance was May 10th. And while that’s a pretty low bar, since that game, here are his numbers:

25 Games: 21 1/3 IP, 17H, 6R, 3ER, 10BB, 29K, 1HR, 4HBP, 1.27 ERA

The walks are a little high, but beyond that, he’s been very good for more than two months now. Opposing hitters are batting just .213 against him.

If what Thomson said is accurate and Gelb’s question comes from being well-informed (as in, he was probably let in on the fact that this is something that was being discussed internally, even before blowing the game Friday), then the Phillies could flip flop these guys over the next 10 days and see if Soto can keep it going in higher leverage spots.

Seranthony Dominguez gave up two homers last Sunday against Oakland in the final game before the All Star break.

Before that, Dominguez went nine weeks (23 games) posting a 1.21 ERA and 0.90 WHIP while striking out 26 batters.

If you are willing to put aside that one outing against Oakland, maybe Dominguez gets a few higher leverage chances before the deadline as well as a trial run to see if they can feel confident in the six primary guys they have to carry though to the playoffs or not.

Either way, this is a first world problem right now. The fact that the Phillies can sit here and be thinking about the best way to set up the bullpen for the playoffs – which are still a little more than 10 weeks away – is a good thing.

And while the reason for concern is understandable, it’s not worth hitting a panic button and start screaming for replacement troops when the guys you have certainly have a proven track record.