McKinley Moore is an intriguing prospect with closer stuff. Now, Phillies need him to throw strikes.

Moore has the look and pitch repertoire of a closer. He only needs one thing: command of the ball.

McKinley Moore, a 6-foot-6 reliever, was touching 99 mph on the spring training radar gun.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

Published April 4, 2023, 3:18 p.m. ET

McKinley Moore looks like a closer. He has frame. He has the beard. He has the fastball in the upper 90′s and the slider to go with it.

He only needs one thing.

“Command of the ball, the ability to throw strikes,” Moore said a couple of weeks ago as he sat at his locker in the Phillies’ spring training clubhouse. “In college I struggled with it. First couple of years of pro ball, it went down, but I still struggled with it.”

Well, the proving ground doesn’t get much bigger than Yankee Stadium. That’s where Moore will be on Tuesday night as the Phillies look to get their struggling pitching staff in order with converted reliever Matt Strahm on the mound and an overworked bullpen backing him up. After an 8-1 loss to the Yankees that dropped them to 0-4, the organization optioned right-handed reliever Yunior Marte to triple-A Lehigh Valley and replaced him with Moore, a 24-year-old righty who opened some eyes in big league camp this March.

It remains to be seen just how long of a look Moore will get. The Phillies officially reached desperation mode Monday night, losing their fourth straight game in a season-opening skid that has seen them allow a whopping 37 runs. Marte and Seranthony Domínguez finished Monday’s loss having both thrown 46-plus pitches in three days. Lefty Andrew Vasquez threw 30 pitches in 2⅓ innings in Monday’s loss. With Strahm on the mound as a starter Tuesday night after spending most of the spring as a reliever, manager Rob Thomson needed an arm that was first and foremost available.

Still, Moore is an interesting call-up. Phillies president Dave Dombrowski has not been shy about dropping his name since acquiring him last spring in the trade that sent former first-round pick Adam Haseley to the White Sox. It’s easy to see why. Built like Jonathan Broxton and bearded like Brian Wilson, he has a fastball that was touching 99 mph on the spring training radar gun and a good looking swing-and-miss slider. Combine that with his 6-foot-6, 225-pound frame and it’s hard not to dream when you see him on the mound.

That said, Moore is coming off a 2023 season debut at Lehigh Valley in which he threw just 17 of 33 pitches for strikes, walking two and striking out one in two innings of work on Friday. He spent all of last season at double-A Reading, striking out 71 and walking 26 in 49⅔ innings (12.9 K/9, 4.7 BB/9). Rather than put him on the 40-man roster this winter, the Phillies left him exposed in the Rule 5 draft, where he went unselected.

That said, the Phillies were impressed with what they saw out of Moore this spring. In 9⅓ innings of Grapefruit League play, he walked just one of the 34 batters he faced while striking out 11. He might have made the opening day roster if not for the Phillies’ infatuation with Marte, whom they’d acquired from the Giants in a trade this January after an up-and-down 2022 season in which he posted a 5.44 ERA with 8.3 K/9 and 4.1 BB/9 in 48 innings.

Moore has plenty to prove, but he’ll be an interesting guy to watch. The Phillies could certainly use a pleasant surprise on the pitching end of things.