Game 22 - Nola Flounders; Phillies Bolster Bullpen with Trades

2019 Bowman Heritage
#53P-122

Braves 11, Phillies 2
Game 22 - Friday Night, August 21st in Atlanta
Record - 9-13, Tied for 4th Place, 4 games behind the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  Aaron Nola had his first rough outing of the year and the offense  stayed mostly quiet again in this 11-2 shellacking by the Braves.

What It Means:  At least help is on the way for the bullpen.  The Phillies acquired David Hale (rhp) from the Yankees before the game and then Brandon Workman (rhp) and Heath Hembree (rhp) from the Red Sox during the game.

What Happened:  Nola was chased after 2 2/3 innings, and his final line wasn't pretty - 6 hits, 4 runs, 3 walks, 2 home runs.  Costly errors from Alec Bohm at third led to three more unearned runs.  Reggie McClain and Cole Irvin contributed to increase the bullpen's ERA with a combined 3 2/3 innings, allowing 7 runs (4 earned).  Scott Kingery made an acrobatic leaping catch in center in the second to save a few more runs.

Featured Card:  JoJo Romero made his impressive big league debut in the bottom of the 8th, striking out the side on 12 pitches.  Adam Duvall, Austin Riley and Johan Camargo went down in order.

Transaction:  The Phillies made a few bullpen moves prior to his game.  First, and more painfully, Jose Alvarez (lhp) was placed on the injured list with a testicular contusion suffered in Sunday afternoon's debacle.  Romero (lhp), the 29th man from the double header remained on the roster.

In the first of hopefully a few trades, the Phillies acquired Hale from the Yankees for Addison Russ (rhp).  It's tough to see Russ go, and we first met him back at a BlueClaws game in 2018.  He's been pitching in Lehigh Valley at the team's alternate training site since July.  He appeared in 55 games last season for Double-A Reading, all in relief and as the team's primary closer, and had a 2.54 ERA with 22 saves.  Russ has exactly 200 minor league strikeouts over 152 2/3 innings pitched.

2019 Grandstand Reading Fightin Phils #30

2014 Topps #363

Hale has pitched for the Braves, Rockies, Yankees, Twins and Yankees again in parts of seven seasons dating back to 2013.  He had appeared in five games for the Yankees so far this year, and had a 3.00 ERA over 6 innings, with 7 strikeouts and 3 walks.  He was designated for assignment on August 17th, who needed his roster spot for the recently activated Aroldis Chapman.

To make room on the 40-man roster for Hale, Austin Davis (lhp) was designated for assignment.  I'll write about the Red Sox trade in a separate post.

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