Thursday, October 1, 2026
79 ° Clear
79 ° Clear
The bullpen doors opened before the top of the ninth inning at Citizens Bank Park on June 29 to reveal Chase Shugart, coming in to protect a one-run deficit. Going back to May 7, the 29-year-old righty had given up 12 earned runs—and five homers—in just 17 1/3 innings.
The other right-handed option in the Philadelphia Phillies bullpen, Jonathan Bowlan, had allowed just two earned runs across 15 2/3 innings, striking out 18 and walking only two. So it was he who watched on from the bullpen as the Phils' comeback hopes withered away when Shugart gave up a three-run home run to Endy Rodríguez.
Following the game, Phillies manager Don Mattingly told reporters, “I didn’t really feel like where we were at with everything, we could keep chasing a win with another guy that’s our back-end guys, and lose another one. Felt like we had to get through that with [Shugart].”
So does Bowlan qualify as a back-end guy for Mattingly? Jhoan Duran, who had pitched three of the last five days, and Kerkering, who had pitched three of the last four, had been used extensively on the Phillies’ Washington D.C. and New York City road trip, but Bowlan had pitched only once against the Mets. Had he come out of the bullpen Monday night, he would be available again Tuesday.
Perhaps it’s wrong to style Bowlan as a shutdown reliever just yet. Despite his low ERA over the past two months, he’s allowed more than his fair share of inherited runners to cross the plate. Though he only surrendered one earned run in his two most recent outings, three inherited runners scored.
Since coming off the injured list on May 1, Bowlan’s ERA has fallen, but at a cost to his peripherals. In April, he pitched with more authority, throwing more strikes but allowing more bleeders and gorks to find the outfield grass. He was unlucky.
Recently, Bowlan’s dealt with more hard contact, but closer to league-average batted-ball luck. His FIP is still only 2.69, his xERA is 2.67, he boasts a 97.3 mph average fastball velocity, and a slew of secondary offerings far more varied than most middle relievers around the league.
Nevertheless, it is unclear how Mattingly considers Bowlan. He has only pitched 1 1/3 innings in the month of June when the Phillies were leading by three or fewer in the seventh inning or later. Otherwise, Bowlan’s been relegated to the 6th inning or earlier or mop-up duty. It is an especially puzzling development given the team’s dearth of right-handed bullpen depth since Brad Keller went to the injured list on June 16.
In fact, since Keller was placed on the injured list over two weeks ago, Bowlan has pitched only 2 2/3 innings. For a team that ranks No. 21 in MLB in bullpen ERA since that date, it makes Bowlan's limited appearances even more strange.
Why go to a clearly substandard reliever in Shugart in the ninth inning of a tight game when Bowlan has seen such a small workload?
Perhaps he’s dealing with a nagging injury. Perhaps he’s working on changing his delivery, or increasing/decreasing specific pitch usage, or he was just feeling ill. Maybe even after allowing those four inherited runs last week in New York and D.C., Mattingly will consider him part of that back-end bullpen core. After all, Orion Kerkering was a mess on Sunday against the Mets, loading the bases with walks despite authoring an escape act worthy of Houdini.
Bowlan certainly has the raw talent to take on a higher-leverage role going forward. If the Phillies were comfortable trading away 2024 All-Star Matt Strahm for the big 29-year-old righty, and his peripherals are anything to go by, then Bowlan should have a second half worthy of his walk-in song.
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