Vince Velasquez goes six solid innings, Héctor Neris records 40-pitch save in Phillies’ nail-biting 4-3 win over Brewers

To anyone who has wondered why the Phillies brought back Vince Velasquez this season — and let’s be honest, that’s pretty much everyone with even a passing interest in the team — he authored an open letter Monday night.

Then, closer Héctor Neris saw to it that it wouldn’t be crumpled up and thrown in the trash.

Making his third start since reentering the rotation, Velasquez allowed one run in six solid innings against the Milwaukee Brewers in a performance the Phillies can’t be sure to get from any of their triple-A starters. But now it was the ninth inning, the lead had been cut to one run, and Neris gave up a two-out single on a full-count pitch to Kolten Wong to load the bases.

“He kind of walked toward the [first-base] line and he was like, ‘I got it. I got it,’” manager Joe Girardi said. “I gave him the chance, and he came through big for us.”

Indeed, Neris struck out Lorenzo Cain on a down-and-away splitter to finish a five-out save in a 4-3 nail-biter between cloudbursts at Citizens Bank Park. It stopped the Phillies’ two-game losing streak and drew their record to within a game of the .500 mark with ace Aaron Nola scheduled to start Tuesday night.

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“It’s a gutsy performance by Héctor,” Girardi said after Neris threw 40 pitches in game for the first time since 2015, his rookie season. “I don’t ever like letting a pitcher go that many pitches. Just really gutsy. Obviously he did a heck of a job.”

If Neris was gutsy, what was Velasquez?

Resilient? Sure. He recovered from a 27-pitch first inning in which he allowed a long home run to Cain and not only completed six innings for just the 34th time in his 102-start Phillies career but actually got better as the game went along. He threw eight pitches in the fifth inning and 12 in the sixth and walked off the field having thrown 98 pitches.

“I settled in and retired 10 in a row and just came to show that I was locked in,” Velasquez said. “Once you’re in that mood, man, it’s a great feeling.”

Velasquez picked up his first win since last Sept. 19 and only his second in 12 starts dating to 2019. And although performances of this quality have been few and far between during his six enigmatic seasons with the Phillies, at least there have been others like it. For an organization that lacks major-league-ready pitching depth in the upper minors, that isn’t insignificant, even if it doesn’t happen often enough for a pitcher who is making $4 million and occupies a hard-to-define role when he isn’t starting.

Playing without Bryce Harper, who aggravated his sore left wrist in Sunday night’s game, the Phillies once again generated little offense, at least beyond J.T. Realmuto’s two-run homer into the second deck in left field in the first inning and Roman Quinn’s RBI triple in the second.

But Velasquez dialed up his fastball to 94 mph and retired 10 hitters in a row between Avisaíl García’s two-out single in the third inning and Daniel Vogelbach’s groundout to end the sixth. It was his best start yet since moving into the rotation two weeks ago when lefty Matt Moore had to be placed on the COVID-19 injury list.

Moore rejoined the team last week and was reinstated to the active roster, although he hasn’t pitched. The Phillies aren’t rushing him back into the rotation, and after this start from Velasquez, they may not want to.

“I have to see what happens and see what we need,” Girardi said. “Vinny threw a good game.”

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Velasquez said he “100 percent” wanted the opportunity to start again and figured he would get it sooner than later in the first full season after baseball’s pandemic summer. He didn’t complete five innings in either of his first two starts. But at least he kept the Phillies in the game in Colorado on April 23 and St. Louis five days later.

Against the Brewers, he turned a 4-1 lead over to the bullpen. There were gut-churning late-inning moments, as there almost always are for a team that hasn’t won a game by more than two runs since April 16. The Brewers loaded the bases against rookie reliever Connor Brogdon, pressed into eighth-inning duty with José Alvarado serving a two-game suspension and charged with two runs.

Girardi was forced to turn to Neris, who picked off García at first base to end the eighth inning. Neris gave up a leadoff double to Vogelbach in the ninth. After striking out the next two batters, he walked pinch-hitting Billy McKinney and gave up a single to Wong off shortstop Didi Gregorius’ glove.

At last, Neris struck out Cain to send a rain-soaked announced crowd of 10,651 home and preserve the victory for Velasquez.

“My job is to pitch. If it’s in the rotation or the bullpen, that’s Joe’s decision,” Velasquez said. “But when you have performances like this, it’s just going to kind of settle in and it’s going to marinate. At the end of the day all I can do is keep pitching. and that’s all I want to do. I want to help this team win.”