Zach Eflin’s playoff-clinching first save after a long road back to Phillies was ‘really special’ to his dad

HOUSTON — Not long before the first pitch Monday night, Zach Eflin texted his father in central Florida. The Phillies were one win from making the playoffs for the first time since 2011, and Eflin figured into interim manager Rob Thomson’s game script, likely for a multiple-inning relief appearance.

Quick, somebody set the DVR.

But then, with two on, two out, and the Phillies leading by one run in the seventh inning, Thomson raised his left arm to summon hard-throwing José Alvarado. And that was when it dawned on just about everyone that the unlikeliest of scenarios throughout the summer might unfold in Houston on the third day of October.

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“When I saw Alvy coming in, I was stunned,” Larry Eflin, Zach’s father, said by phone Tuesday. “I was going, ‘Oh my, they’re going to let Zach close this game. Wow.’”

Indeed, it was a heck of a time for Eflin’s first save opportunity. In his 12th career relief appearance. After recently missing 80 days with another right knee injury.

You know what happened next. Eflin threw two sinkers and got two outs, then won a 12-pitch duel with the Astros’ Mauricio Dubón, who flew out to shallow center field.

Larry Eflin reached for his phone and fired off a short text: “That was awesome. Party hard.”

“The faith and trust that [the Phillies] handed him was just beyond belief,” Eflin’s father said. “Not that I expected anything different from the outcome. But with everything he’s been through, for them to give him that opportunity, it was just really, really special.”

To grasp the improbability of it all, you must rewind four months.

The Phillies were playing a getaway game matinee in Milwaukee on June 9, and Eflin was 10 starts into his comeback from knee surgery late last season. In the second inning, he barehanded Hunter Renfroe’s chopper to the left of the mound and made an off-balance throw to first base.

But Eflin also twisted his right knee, bruising what’s known as the “fat pad” behind and below the kneecap. Doctors assured him that there wasn’t damage to his surgically repaired patellar tendon. He tried to pitch through it, making his next three starts. Finally, he gave in and went on the 15-day injured list.

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Two weeks turned into four, which turned into six. Each time he tried to throw from a mound, when he pushed off his back leg or tried to field his position, his knee barked.

“There were times,” Eflin said this week, “when I didn’t know if I was going to be back this year.”

And this was a big year for the 28-year-old right-hander. In May, he avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $5.55 million salary and a $15 million mutual option for 2023. If he couldn’t pitch, it would be easy for the team to decline its half of that deal, sending Eflin into free agency amid injury concerns.

But Eflin’s frustration went beyond the contract. As the Phillies’ second-longest-tenured active player after Aaron Nola, he has developed a bond with the region. (He proudly says that his infant daughter, Ashton, was born in New Jersey.) After missing the second half of last season, he felt disappointment over being unable to pitch yet again.

So, when the Phillies played in Pittsburgh on July 28-31, Larry Eflin flew there for the weekend “just to be dad, just to go hang out with my son.” They even shared a hotel room.

“He gave me the bed and he slept on the couch,” Larry said, “which I thought was pretty funny.”

Well, maybe now.

“Your heart broke for him,” said Larry, who plans to travel to St. Louis for the Phillies’ best-of-three wild-card series. “Literally there were times when he wasn’t sure what was going on. Everything’s supposed to be normal, but he’s got this problem and doesn’t know what it is. I don’t want to say he was depressed. But he was anxious as to how this was going to end up.”

Eflin saw a specialist in Pittsburgh. He received treatment. The knee started to feel better. A few days later — as the Phillies were negotiating a deadline-day trade for starter Noah Syndergaard — Eflin pulled a weighted sled down a hallway adjacent to the visiting clubhouse in Atlanta. He had a long way to go, but it was progress.

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In late August, Eflin threw from a mound without pain. Pretty soon, he was throwing to hitters in live batting practice. Then, he pitched in a triple-A game.

Although there wasn’t time to build the arm strength required to start, the Phillies believed Eflin could be helpful out of the bullpen. Never mind that he’d barely done it before. He threw a scoreless eighth inning in a 6-1 victory Sept. 14 in Miami and allowed one earned run in 6⅔ innings with nine strikeouts through six appearances.

But to pick up the last three outs and record a save in the game that ended the Phillies’ playoff drought?

Yeah, nobody saw that coming.

There may be other save opportunities. At a minimum, as the postseason begins Friday at Busch Stadium, Eflin will be asked to help neutralize Cardinals MVP candidates Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. He’s done it before. Goldschmidt is 2-for-12 with four strikeouts against him; Arenado is 4-for-17. Neither has a home run.

“I’m so happy for him,” said former Phillies general manager-turned-broadcaster Ruben Amaro Jr., who traded for Eflin. “He was so gung-ho in spring training. He really was excited about finally being healthy. I thought he was going to have a hell of a year. For him to battle through it and come back, and then to pitch the last three outs, it’s just fantastic.”

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Imagine how Larry Eflin felt.

“How much better does it get than that?” he said.

If Eflin gets to close out a playoff game, the Phillies may be about to find out.