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You have a better chance of getting into the Philadelphia Club than the Phillies’ rotation.
Plus: A couple of starters are returning after long layoffs, I pre-emptively make myself accountable for baseball’s pranks and Ken tells us about Pete Crow-Armstrong’s Cubs heritage. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!
Anomalies: Phillies pitching? It’s a tough club to crack
The best context I can give you for what the Phillies did in April is to let you read this paragraph from Matt Gelb’s story:
Half of the league entered Wednesday having used at least 18 different pitchers. The Braves, Dodgers and Orioles were tied for the most with 22 apiece. The Marlins made a roster move for a new pitcher on the fourth day of the season. The Dodgers have used almost as many different starting pitchers (11) as the Phillies have used pitchers, period.
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The rules of the sport dictate that teams can carry a maximum of 14 pitchers on their active 26-man roster. On Opening Day, the Phillies went with 13. As of this morning, they still have those 13.
No, like, the same 13 guys.
That’s about to change, and it’s actually a good thing for the Phillies, as Ranger Suárez is set to return from IL on Sunday. Suárez was one of three Phillies starters to make last year’s All-Star Game (Zack Wheeler, Cristopher Sánchez), and another (Aaron Nola) finished 11th in NL Cy Young voting.
The Phillies also traded for Jesús Luzardo (3-0, 1.73, 1.6 bWAR) over the offseason, Taijuan Walker has been much better this year, and — oh, by the way — 22-year-old Andrew Painter should be back at some point this summer.
Gelb dives into the options for dealing with such a surplus of pitching, but if you’re going to have a problem in 2025, “too many good pitchers” is certainly one you don’t want to brag too much about. Just sshhhhhh let it ride; don’t let the baseball gods notice.
Ken’s Notebook: PCA’s breakout marks full-circle moment
From my latest column:
Pete Crow-Armstrong was 9 when his father Matt threw down the gauntlet. Not about school. Not about sports. About the Chicago Cubs.
Matt, 51, grew up a Cubs fan in Naperville, Il. Both he and his wife, Ashley Crow, were actors, raising Pete, their only child, in Southern California. And Matt sensed the Cubs, after hiring Theo Epstein as president of baseball operations and Jed Hoyer as general manager, soon would be on the rise.
“I said to Pete, ‘They’re bad now. But they’re going to be good eventually,’” Matt recalled. “And if you’re not on board by then, you’re not on the bandwagon, dude. You have to suffer in order to join.”
Matt said Pete originally rooted for the Boston Red Sox, growing enamored with the team during its run to the 2004 World Series title. Just 2 1/2 at the time, Pete would pluralize Johnny Damon’s last name, calling him, “Johnny Damons.”
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For a time, Pete was a fan of the Cubs’ biggest rival, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Chicago Bears’ biggest NFL rival, the Green Bay Packers.
“I’m convinced there was some part of him that was — I won’t say sadistic, but he wanted to screw with me as much as possible,” Matt said. “He was trolling me, at a very young age.”
Little did either of them know how the story would turn out.
Crow-Armstrong, 23, is one of the breakout stars of the 2025 season, playing electrifying defense in center field, using his dynamic blend of power and speed to serve as an offensive ignitor, captivating fans with his charismatic personality … and doing it all for the Chicago Cubs.
As with so many baseball stories, Crow-Armstrong’s journey could have been quite different. PCA, as he is known, was not drafted by the Cubs. The New York Mets selected him out of Harvard-Westlake H.S. in Los Angeles with the 19th pick of the 2020 draft.
Entering 2021, Crow-Amstrong’s first full pro season, The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked him the 94th-best prospect in the game and Mets’ fourth-best, behind catcher Francisco Alvarez, infielder Ronny Mauricio and right-hander Matt Allan.
In May of that season, after playing only six games at Low A, Crow-Armstrong underwent season-ending surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder. When the Mets, leading the NL East, sought help from the Cubs at the trade deadline, he was rehabilitating at their spring training site in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
“We were really fortunate. If he’s playing, we’re never getting him,” Hoyer said. “His defensive numbers would have been great, and they probably would have said no.”
More Cubs: Chicago’s hitting coach talks about what has worked so well for the club this year.
They’re Back: Giolito, McCullers return
Speaking of pitchers returning from the IL …
Before last night, the last time Lucas Giolito had pitched in a big-league game was Oct. 1, 2023. For Lance McCullers Jr., it was Oct. 3, 2022.
Giolito made his Red Sox debut last night against the Blue Jays, and McCullers is scheduled to return to the Astros on Sunday against the White Sox
- For Giolito, it’s hard to imagine a return going much better. Sure, he probably would have preferred not to give up back-to-back home runs in the sixth inning, but it was a quality start — exactly six innings and three runs allowed — with seven strikeouts.
He left with the lead, but the bullpen coughed it up as the Blue Jays finally got that offensive breakout and won 7-6 in 10 innings. For Boston, a healthy and effective Giolito, 30, would be a real shot in the arm. For playoff hopefuls, their rotation has been absolutely middle-of-the-pack in … well, pick your favorite stat.
- McCullers, 31, missed the 2023 season recovering from flexor tendon (elbow) surgery, then missed 2024 as setbacks abounded. He’s been with Houston for longer than anyone not named Jose Altuve — those two are the last remaining members of the 2017 World Series team.
When he’s been healthy, he’s been good; he has a 3.28 ERA over 130 big-league games (127 starts). But who knows if he’ll be the same guy after such a long layoff? If so, it would make the Astros rotation even scarier — they entered play last night with a 3.0 fWAR mark from their starting pitchers — good for a tie (Cincinnati) for sixth-best in the sport.
More Astros: Chandler Rome has the story behind “honey guy” AJ Blubaugh’s big-league debut, and the people who stuck by him on the journey.
My Bad: Ignore me, actually
Baseball, as an old friend once said, exists to mess with you. Here are a few things that baseball has done to make me, personally, look foolish in the last 24 hours.
- In yesterday’s Windup, we praised the Padres’ bullpen, who had a collective 1.66 ERA. A few hours later, they gave up two runs in 3 1/3 innings.
- We also talked about how historically bad the Rockies are this year. They beat the Braves 2-1 yesterday.
- Three days ago, I said “The Dodgers aren’t dominating,” and praised the first-place Giants. The Dodgers dropped 34 runs on the Marlins in three games, and the Giants were swept into third place by the Padres.
- On April 11, the Angels were in first place and I (rhetorically) asked if I was going to have to stop making jokes about them. They are currently dead last in the division, and yesterday, two different pitchers went to the mound at the same time. (!)
- At least I’m not alone. On the same day I wrote that, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times posted this: “When Mike Trout suffered a season-ending injury last year, he was leading the majors in home runs. He is now tied for the MLB lead in home runs. Kid can still play.” Trout left yesterday’s game with knee soreness.
This would not be funny at all if it were the second consecutive year in which Trout’s season ended after 29 games. But the outfielder said after the game that he’ll try to play today, so I’ll take the company on the S.S. Windup Curse. Welcome aboard, Bill.
Of course, you could choose to look at these things the other way: The Padres still have the best bullpen in baseball; the 5-25 Rockies just had one of the worst months in MLB history; the Giants are still better than the (division-leading) Cubs, Yankees and Mariners (they’re tied with Tigers); and Trout is one homer shy of the league lead, with nine.
So you could say yesterday wasn’t so much a curse as a small sample. But where’s the fun in that?
More Rockies: Chad Jennings takes a look at the team’s history. It hasn’t been great, but until recent years, it wasn’t terrible. That has obviously changed.
Handshakes and High Fives
With fewer four-homer games than perfect games, why is one revered, and the other a quirk? Zack Meisel investigates.
The Yankees are in first place, and Aaron Judge is having a turbo-mega year. Chris Kirschner takes a look back at the team’s first month.
Most-clicked in our last newsletter: Daulton Varsho’s incredible catch.
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(Photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck / Imagn Images)
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