Storm could move up Phillies-Nationals doubleheader to Friday

CHICAGO — Hurricane Ian could force the Phillies and Nationals to move up their Saturday doubleheader to Friday.

The Phillies travel to Washington on Thursday for a pivotal four-game series. Interim manager Rob Thomson said the series will not be relocated to an alternate site. Thomson said the Phillies should have more answers later on Wednesday.

Bailey Falter is scheduled to pitch on Friday, and if they end up playing two that day, Thomson said Kyle Gibson or Noah Syndergaard could start the other game.

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The Phillies also have minor league reserve options they can call upon — Michael Plassmeyer and Cristopher Sanchez — if needed. Among Falter, Syndergaard, and Gibson, whoever doesn’t start on Friday could potentially start on Sunday.

Syndergaard said that his relief outing on Sept. 21 went “pretty normal.” He said it was his third time coming out of the bullpen in his career, and he didn’t notice much of an uptick in his stuff. But his catcher, J.T. Realmuto, did.

“Yeah, I mean he looked pretty comfortable doing it to me,” Realmuto said of Syndergaard. “He did a good job of coming in, commanding the strike zone, getting ahead of guys. Got a lot of early contact, which is good. A lot of guys when they move to the bullpen, their stuff plays up a little bit, so it seemed to play pretty good to me. Who knows if that’ll be the case come postseason? I’m sure there will be some extra energy there and maybe the stuff will play up a little bit.

“Not only velocity though, usually what comes along with that is tighter spin on the breaking ball, stuff will be a little sharper. That’s not the case for everybody coming out of the bullpen, but I thought he looked really good coming out his first time.”

Thomson has approached Syndergaard about potentially transitioning to the bullpen full-time after he starts one of the doubleheader games against Washington. Syndergaard said on Tuesday that he is open to it.

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“I think it’s a good challenge for me,” he said. “Obviously I wasn’t expecting to be a starter in the wild-card games because of the success and the stuff of [Zack] Wheeler and [Aaron] Nola and Ranger [Suárez]. So I’m going to do whatever they ask me to do, fill a role and try to help eat some innings.”

Like Zach Eflin, who returned from the injured list in mid-September and has been pitching out of the bullpen instead of the rotation, Syndergaard is stretched out, which gives Thomson some flexibility in how he would use him.

“Obviously, he’s a guy who is built up to go more than one inning, so I think he could really do anything that Thomson asks him to do,” Realmuto said. “Similar to Eflin in that case. They can come in and pitch one high-leverage inning if we need it or if our starter has a rough start and we need two or three innings stretched out, I think he could do that as well.”