Details remain few and far between on why Philadelphia Phillies’ reliever José Alvarado was placed on the restricted list less than an hour before Monday’s series-opening matchup with the Houston Astros.
In the announcement from the Phillies, they simply said that Alvarado had “left the club to deal with a personal matter.”
Tuesday afternoon, Phillies manager Rob Thomson said that the club remains unsure when Alvarado will return. Thomson did confirm that the Phillies expect to have Alvarado back this season.
Alvarado posted the following prayer on his Instagram story Tuesday morning, although it’s unclear what it’s in regards to.
The 29-year-old has struggled at times on the mound this season, with a 4.30 ERA and 8.9 K/9, both marks that are quite a bit worse than the 2.53 ERA and 14.1 K/9 he posted between the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Still, the hard-throwing lefty is an important part of the bullpen that the Phillies will need to get on track to make a deep postseason run.
Thomson was asked Tuesday whether Tanner Banks will assume a larger role in Alvarado’s absence, given that him and Matt Strahm are now the only two lefties in the bullpen for the Phillies.
“Well, I look at it like [Orion] Kerkering is kind of a lefty too, because he’s got good splits against lefties,” Thomson said. “So really, we still have three lefties in the ‘pen in my mind. And yeah, Banks is gonna have to take down a little bit bigger role.”
It should be noted that left-handed hitters are hitting better against Kerkering, righty, than right-handed batters this year:
LHP (95 plate appearances): .266/.372/.392 with 10 walks, 29 strikeouts and a .765 OPS
RHP (112 plate appearances): .208/.241/.255 with three walks, 29 strikeouts and a .496 OPS
With that said, Kerkering did pitch a clean seventh inning against the Astros Monday night, which included inducing an inning-ending groundout off the bat of Yordan Álvarez, one of the most dangerous left-handed hitters in the game.
Meanwhile, Banks has a 3.09 ERA in 10 appearances since being acquired from the Chicago White Sox prior to the trade deadline. Lefties are hitting just .219 against Banks this year.
