The Philadelphia Phillies have been particularly resilient in recent weeks.
Jesus Luzardo and his teammates will try to continue that stretch Saturday when they open a three-game interleague road series against the Kansas City Royals.
After both teams had a rare Friday off, Philadelphia aims to forget their sluggish 6-1 home loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday. The Phillies had won seven of their previous nine games, but they only managed four hits as the temperature rose above 100 degrees in the series finale.
Philadelphia has won 12 of its last 13 games following a defeat. The team has only dropped consecutive games once since late May.
“It seems like we’re the same team every day,” said Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly, whose team will play its next nine games on the road. “Guys are coming to play. They’re going to work. I think we’ve kind of hit some sort of a stride where we’re pretty even with the way we’re playing. If we lose a game, it doesn’t seem to affect us the next day. And if we win a couple, we still play the same way. I’d like to see us play well through this trip and go from there.”
Luzardo (6-4, 3.88 ERA) has been impressive of late, going 2-0 with a 1.85 ERA over his last four starts. He gave up one run in five innings Sunday against the New York Mets, although he needed 96 pitches to record 15 outs. The Phillies have won each of his last seven starts.
“He kind of battled all day long,” Mattingly said. “Used a lot of pitches to get there, through five, but he did a nice job of hanging in there for me.”
Luzardo has appeared in three previous games against Kansas City — with one start — while going 1-0 with a 5.59 ERA. He has not faced the Royals since 2023.
Kansas City will give the ball to Michael Wacha (5-5, 3.31), who is coming off back-to-back one-run starts. The veteran right-hander struck out seven over 7 2/3 innings in a 2-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox last Saturday.
“Every time his name gets called, or his start comes up, the bullpen is in a tough spot,” reliever Daniel Lynch IV said. “And he has delivered time and time again. He goes out, he’s a pro, he fills up the zone and is giving us seven or eight innings. I don’t know what kind of spot we’d be in without him.”
Wacha, who celebrated his 35th birthday on Wednesday, has made 11 previous appearances (nine starts) against the Phillies, going 4-3 with a 4.89 ERA.
He has been a bright spot for the last-place Royals, who have dropped seven of their last eight, including a three-game home sweep by the Tampa Bay Rays this week. They were not particularly competitive in the series, getting outscored 19-6.
Carter Jensen and Isaac Collins each hit a solo shot in the series finale Thursday as Kansas City managed only five hits.
“We’re just not getting the results that we want,” Jensen said. “We want to win games just as much as everybody else in the league. So we’ve just got to make an adjustment.”
–Field Level Media
