PHILADELPIHA – A baseball season has its fair share of ebbs and flows. The Phillies are not immune to that. After a woeful first week of June dropping five of the first six games to open up the third full month of the season, the Phillies have turned it around thanks to a 5-1 homestand this week.
Taking each of their last two series winning two of three against the Cubs and fresh off a sweep of Toronto, the Phillies will look to keep the winning ways going down in Miami beginning a four-game set against the last-place Marlins on Monday before a gigantic home series against the Mets this weekend.
The Phillies enter the week just 2.5 games behind New York for the top spot in the NL East.
Pitching Matchups
RHP Mick Abel (1-0, 2.35 ERA) vs. RHP Sandy Alcantara (3-7, 7.14 ERA)
Abel is coming off the worst start of his young big-league career taking on a daunting Cubs lineup. The 23-year-old had to battle his way through four innings, limiting the damage, giving up three earned runs on six hits with three walks and three strikeouts. All of the runs he surrendered were on three solo home runs.
Certainly, that will be something Abel will look to fix heading into pitcher-friendly LoanDepot Park in his fourth start. Miami does not have nearly the same firepower that the Cubs have in the lineup hitting the fifth-fewest home runs this season (61) while 19th in OPS (.699). This could be a nice bounceback spot for Abel.
Alcantara, who has been a potential trade target for contenders in need of a starting pitcher, will look to impress potential new employers if he can stymy the Phillies. The 29-year-old looks to make it three straight quality starts after tossing six shutout innings against the Pirates in his last start while allowing just two earned runs in six innings against the Rockies two starts ago. Prior to the two solid starts, the righty had given up four earned runs or more in each of his previous six outings.
LHP Jesús Luzardo (6-2, 4.23 ERA) vs. RHP Cal Quantrill (3-7, 5.61 ERA)
Was Luzardo tipping his pitches when he allowed 20 runs in those two historically bad starts? Perhaps. However, the southpaw made necessary changes to ensure he did not have another poor outing in his last start. Instead, he dazzled against the Cubs racking up 10 strikeouts over six innings yielding just one run to earn his sixth win of the season.
“There’s a lot of things that we tinkered with,” Luzardo told Matt Gelb of the Athletic. The biggest thing was attention to detail.“
Now, he has his confidence back and gets to face his former team for the second time this season. He first faced the Marlins back on April 20 where he spun seven strong innings allowing one earned run while scattering eight hits. He did not walk a batter while striking out seven.
He’ll battle against Quantrill who has been much better over the last two months, pitching to a respectable 3.58 ERA over his last seven starts opposed to his 8.10 ERA through his first six outings of the season. One of those rough starts during that stretch includes getting battered by the Phillies on April 19 where he was tagged for seven earned runs on eight hits and did not strikeout a batter in 3.1 innings. The Phillies ended up winning that game 11-10.
The right-hander has allowed three earned runs or less and has gone at least five innings in each of his last three starts against the Pirates, Rockies and Giants.
LHP Ranger Suárez (5-1, 2.32 ERA) vs. TBD
Suárez has been fantastic for the Phillies since returning from his injury that forced him to miss the first month of the season. The lefty has gone seven innings in each of his last two starts, including seven scoreless in his last time out against Toronto allowing just four hits to go with six punchouts.
Over his last five starts, Suárez has pitched to a sterling 0.83 ERA across 32.2 innings with 27 strikeouts and just eight walks. He will face Miami for the first time this season, but in his career, he is 6-2 with a 3.24 ERA in 21 appearances against the Marlins.
LHP Cristopher Sánchez (5-2, 3.05 ERA) vs. RHP Edward Cabrera (2-2, 4.10 ERA)
Sánchez has been extremely reliable this season and will look to continue that trend in the series finale on Thursday night. How consistent has he been? Sánchez has allowed two earned runs or less in all but one of his 14 starts this season. He ranks inside the top 25 in MLB in ERA and strikeouts.
Cabrera has electric stuff when it is on and he has confidence coming into this start after racking up seven strikeouts in five innings against the Cubs in his last start. That was after he punched out 10 hitters against the Angels two starts ago in 5.2 scoreless innings. Cabrera has not faced the Phillies yet this season but has had some success against them in his career posting a 3.60 ERA in six starts highlighted by his best outing against Philadelphia last year on September 8 where he threw seven shutout innings and whiffed six batters.
Otto-Mania returns
After creating quite the buzz with his impressive start to the season in Triple-A, Otto Kemp has been quite the feel-good story and he has done his part so far helping the team win games. On Sunday, he racked up four hits, drove in two runs and stole a base in the 11-4 win. So far, the undrafted free agent is 10-for-29 at the plate which is good for a .345 average to go along with four RBIs. He has certainly held his own at the plate while defensively, he will look to continue to learn and improve at first base until Bryce Harper returns. If Kemp keeps delivering with the bat, he may force his way to remain on the roster once Harper returns.
Mr. June is back
After a slightly sluggish start to his favorite month of the season, Kyle Schwarber is back to living up to his moniker of “Mr. June.” After homering just once in the first nine games of the month, the slugger as crushed two homers in the last four contests.
Schwarber enters the Miami series with 64 career home runs in June to go with 143 RBIs in 194 career games.
Down in South Beach
This is the first of two trips to Miami for the Phillies this season. Since 2018, Philadelphia has had mixed results playing the Marlins on the road posting a 27-32 record during that span. However, each of the last three seasons the Phillies have had winning records at Miami going 4-3 in 2023 and 2024 while posting a 6-4 record in 2022. From 2018-2021 the team played below .500 baseball in each season going 3-6 in 2018, 4-5 in 2019, 2-5 in 2020 and 4-6 in 2021.
The Phillies want to keep the momentum they have winning four in a row and are the better team. However, this series has the making to be a trap series with the rival Mets due in South Philly this weekend for a potential battle for first place in the NL East.
Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
