Ranger Suárez has grown into a crucial role with the Phillies by keeping his cool

The unflappable Suárez has been instrumental for the Phillies in the playoffs and in the World Series.

Ranger Suarez pitched five scoreless innings in Game 3.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

Published Nov. 2, 2022, 2:48 a.m. ET

Sal Agostinelli pulled up an old scouting report on his phone on Tuesday night while watching Game 3 of the World Series in a suite at Citizens Bank Park. It belonged to Game 3 starter Ranger Suárez, and it was from 2012, when Suárez was just 16 years old.

Agostinelli, the Phillies director of international scouting, scrolled through until he reached the very bottom.

This kid could surprise. I see him as a back end of the rotation lefty who you could look up one day and is a go-to guy.

Agostinelli has worked on the Phillies scouting staff since 1993. He’s evaluated thousands of players, and would be the first person to tell you that he’s written those same words both before and after he came across a lanky lefty with an interesting first name. But in baseball, the stars don’t always align.

Sometimes, a player gets hurt. Or his makeup isn’t right. Or his delivery isn’t right. Or he’s healthy, and his delivery is right, and his makeup is right, but he just can’t throw harder.

Agostinelli has seen so many players with so much promise not reach the big leagues, let alone the World Series. So, to see Suárez, a mid-range prospect who signed for just $25,000, give the Phillies five scoreless innings on Tuesday night, was special.

“When a guy pitches in the World Series, and pitches that kind of game, it makes all of the bad nights worth it,” Agostinelli said. “All of the nights away from home.”

Agostinelli first met Suárez at the Phillies’ academy in Venezuela. He came from a northwest city called Carora, which is known more for cattle ranching than it is for producing young ballplayers. But three scouts — Rogel Andrade, Carlos Salas and Jesús Mendez — brought him to a tryout.

Initially, the Phillies were thinking Suárez could play the outfield, but it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to hit. He had a strong arm, so they tried him out as a pitcher. Suárez threw the ball free and easy, both in his delivery and in his mind. He could spin a breaking ball and had a feel for a changeup, but more importantly, he had “ice in his veins,” as Agostinelli puts it.

Suárez is still that way. He says he has always been that way. He needed just nine pitches to retire the top of the Astros’ lineup in the first inning on Tuesday night. After allowing two, two-out singles in the second inning, he struck out his next batter to curtail any momentum the Astros had going.

After that, he didn’t allow a hit until the fifth inning. He walked off the mound with just three hits, one walk and four strikeouts on his line, mere days after the Phillies’ No. 1 and No. 2 starters had given up five runs apiece.

Suárez now has a 1.23 ERA in five postseason appearances this year. Those haven’t all been starts. The Phillies have twice called upon Suárez to pitch in relief, in Game 5 of the NLCS and in Game 1 of the World Series. Both were high-leverage situations — it’s hard to imagine anything being low-leverage at this stage of the playoffs — but Suárez maintained his slow heartbeat throughout.

It’s guided him through eight minor league seasons and five big league seasons. It’s guided him through a slew of role changes — from set-up man, to closer, to starter, and everything in between — and now, it’s guided him to the World Series.

“Ever since I signed with the Phillies, I dreamt about making it to a World Series, and look at us now,” Suárez said. “We are here.”

They aren’t just here; they are thriving. The Phillies are two wins away from a World Championship. And if that happens, Suárez will be remembered as a player who stepped up, no matter what was asked of him.

But even if they don’t win, Agostinelli knows that ten years after he scribbled those words onto Suárez’s scouting report, he is certainly looking up at a “go-to guy.”