Phillies ‘expected to acquire at least one leverage reliever,’ new target emerges

The Philadelphia Phillies may have made their big outfield acquisition in acquiring Austin Hays from the Baltimore Orioles Friday, but in doing so they traded Seranthony Domínguez, furthering the need to add to the bullpen before the July 30 trade deadline.

According to Jon Morosi of MLB.com, the Phillies “are expected to acquire at least one leverage reliever by Tuesday’s deadline.”

Morosi says that the Phillies are interested in Toronto Blue Jays reliever Chad Green, who has a 1.82 ERA in 29 games this season, and did have some overlap with Phillies manager Rob Thomson with the New York Yankees in 2016 and 2017.

Scott Lauber of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote Thursday that Carlos Estévez of the Los Angeles Angels, Kyle Finnegan of the Washington Nationals and Tanner Scott of the Miami Marlins have “piqued the Phillies’ interest.”

While both Jeff Hoffman and Matt Strahm were All-Stars, José Alvarado and Orion Kerkering have struggled of late. Gregory Soto has the tendency for occasional blowups, which makes it hard to count on him even if he has late-inning reliever stuff.

“Yeah, well, we haven’t had a good six games out of the bullpen, but it’s not the first time that’s ever happened,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said Friday.

“We still like our guys a great deal out there. We think Alvarado is going to straighten out very quickly. … Strahm has given up some runs, but he was gonna give up some runs at some point. Soto, other than the other day, has thrown the ball really well for us for an extended period. Hoffman has been very good. Kerkering has hit a little bit of a wild spot. I think we’ve found some things in his delivery that will help him. He’s been outstanding, and also his stuff is really good.

“So it hasn’t been quite as good, but we still feel good about our bullpen guys.”

Still, the Phillies were looking at the relief market even prior to trading Domínguez, Dombrowski acknowledged. The Phillies don’t expect to wake up on July 31 with one pitcher entrenched as the closer, but it seems to be a safe bet that they will add another arm capable of taking down high-leverage innings.

“But again, you can still get better,” Dombrowski said. “That’s one area that I’ve always felt that. You never have enough good bullpen arms, especially if you get into a shorter series at some point.”

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