A Ray of hope denied: Rays 5, Phillies 4

The bullpen falters again

The Phillies played a baseball game in which they lost today. The final score truly doesn’t matter because these games do not matter. They’re simply tuneups for the real thing in three weeks. Viewing them as such helps your blood pressure on days when it really doesn’t need to rise anymore than it probably already is.

Save that for October.

Some notes about today:

• Max Kepler is hitting the ball hard this spring, as evidenced by his hitting another home run. His being brought to Philadelphia was a bit confusing, and quite frankly still is, but if he can offer something in the 100-110 wRC+, that makes a potentially weak outfield look much better.

• Aaron Nola with a crisp three innings thrown today, something that is always encouraging to see. We have to remember that these spring outings are usually for pitchers to work on something, be it a pitch, a tempo, a location. When the results are not up the standard that the pitchers have usually set, it causes a bit of impatience. Nola throwing well today should quell some of that.
• The bullpen threw four innings of good baseball today. Actually, the mainstays of the bullpen threw four innings of good baseball. The guys that will probably not see a major league mound were the ones that blew the game. Well, them and the shoddy infield by Bryan Rincon.
• Nick Castellanos homered. Cool! I think sometimes we forget how good Castellanos was after April was over in 2024. He was .268/.323/.470 with a 118 wRC+ from May 1. The Phillies will take that all year long if that is what he is going to give them .

• Again, these games mean nothing. The starter and main relievers were good. They got some home runs from lineup mainstays. That’s all that we should be taking away from a loss like this.