Phillies earn redemption with big win over Diamondbacks, but injury forces Bailey Falter from game

PHOENIX — With one out in the bottom of the seventh inning, Bailey Falter motioned to the Phillies dugout. Interim manager Rob Thomson rushed to the mound with assistant athletic trainer Aaron Hoback, and in an instant, the best start of Falter’s big league career came to an abrupt and unfortunate halt.

The early diagnosis was right groin tightness, and Falter said after the game that once he got treatment, he felt “100 percent better” and wouldn’t have to miss his next start. Nevertheless, it was a scary moment both for the Phillies — who have four pitchers on the injured list — and Falter, who was at a career-high 6 and one-third innings pitched, and had allowed only five hits and one earned run with six strikeouts in the Phillies’ 18-2 win over the Diamondbacks.

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What Falter has done over the past few months is not easy. Since April 26, he’s been shuffled between triple-A and the big league club seven times. Wednesday marked the first time this season that the left-handed pitcher made his third straight start with not just the Phillies, but any team.

He’s been used as a reliever. He’s been used as a starter. He’s been asked to go one inning, seven innings, and everything in between. It’s a lot of inconsistency for a young pitcher, and not all of those outings have gone well. Falter entered his start on Wednesday with a 4.41 ERA over 51 innings pitched in 2022.

But Falter has recently shown an ability to step up to moment when his team needs him the most. Take his Aug. 20 start against the Mets. The Phillies put Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler on the mound to take games one and two, and lost. But under Falter, they got their only win of that four-game set. He went six innings and allowed only one earned run against a Mets lineup that had scored a combined nine earned runs against the Phillies’ two veteran aces.

That performance did not earn him an extended look in the big leagues. Falter was the 27th man in game two of the Phillies’ doubleheader that night, so he was back in triple-A Lehigh Valley 24 hours later. But he did the job that was asked of him and on Wednesday night in Arizona, he did the same.

After the Phillies dropped two straight to the Diamondbacks, the 25-year-old southpaw took the mound, tasked with saving his team from a three-game sweep. The Phillies starters who preceded him, Nola and Ranger Suárez, had failed to pitch deep into their starts, forcing interim manager Rob Thomson to rely on his bullpen more than he would have liked to. But Falter was locked in. There was more life on his fastball, so he didn’t have to use his off-speed pitches as much. He hit his spots and kept the Diamondbacks off balance.

For Falter, Wednesday was not just a career night, but also the byproduct of a shift in his mindset over the past few weeks. He says he has learned how to adapt, thanks in part to some of the Phillies’ more veteran pitchers.

“Just being up here more for a couple of weeks now, being around the guys, talking to them, them talking to me, it has kind of settled me down,” he said. “There are a lot of guys in this locker room who have gone what I’m currently going through right now. So it’s nice to have those guys in my corner. (Zach) Eflin, (Aaron) Nola, Ranger (Suarez), (Zack) Wheeler. All of these guys, they’ve been keeping my head on straight.”

Falter will face more uncertainty in the future. Zack Wheeler will return from the 15-day injured list on Sept. 6, and all of a sudden, Falter won’t have a regular spot in the rotation. He doesn’t know when his next start will be. But whenever it does come, he says he will be ready.

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Every hitter in the Phillies’ starting lineup recorded at least two hits on Wednesday night. They went 15-for-29 with runners in scoring position — yes, you read that right — and scored a season-high 18 runs and 22 hits. Interestingly enough, they did not hit a home run. They drove in most of their runs via singles and doubles. But the steady stream of offensive production was a promising sign, especially after a quiet night on Tuesday.

“It was a good offensive night,” Thomson said. “Played good defense. Falter was outstanding again and [Nick] Nelson finished it off. We ran the bases really well, too.”

Thomson and Hoback went out to see infielder Edmundo Sosa between innings. Sosa remained in the game afterwards. Thomson said that Sosa was experiencing some back tightness, but said it was feeling better later in the game. Thomson doesn’t think it’ll be an issue.