{"id":119105,"date":"2026-04-16T15:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T19:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=119105"},"modified":"2026-04-18T15:30:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:30:52","slug":"phillies-pitcher-has-concerning-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/04\/16\/phillies-pitcher-has-concerning-trend\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Pitcher Has Concerning Trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jes\u00fas Luzardo is showing a concerning trend this season. Luzardo is off to a bad start<\/a> to the regular season in a rotation missing Zack Wheeler.\u00a0This season Luzardo has a 1-3 record with a 7.94 ERA along with a 1.46 WHIP and a 2.89 FIP in four starts. Luzardo has a 6.00 K\/BB rate and a 1.19 HR\/9 allowed rate as well. Opposing batters have a .301 average and a .417 BABIP against Luzardo this year. Both of those are career worst numbers for Luzardo. Furthermore Luzardo has a career worst 23.1% HR\/FB allowed rate. J.T. Realmuto has caught every inning that Luzardo has pitched this season. Luzardo had a 3.93 ERA with Realmuto catching him compared to a 3.86 ERA when Rafael March\u00e1n was handling the catching duties in 2025.<\/p>\n

To add to that Luzardo signed a contract extension<\/a> during spring training. The pay raise in the extension does not kick in until next season though. It runs through the 2031 season with a club option for 2032. This kind of performance is extra concerning after the Phillies paid Luzardo recently. There is time to turn things around and the Phillies rotation will get help when Wheeler returns. However Luzardo is currently holding what should be a really good rotation back for the time being. Taijuan Walker has a 1-2 record with a 7.36 ERA and a 1.91 WHIP with a 6.50 FIP in three starts filling in for Wheeler. Walker also has a 1.71 K\/BB rate and a 2.45 HR\/9 allowed rate. Luzardo struggling has exacerbated the problems that were going to occur with Wheeler out.<\/p>\n

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Phillies Pitcher Luzardo Showing Concerning Trend<\/h2>\n

Issues With Runners On Base<\/h3>\n

Last season Luzardo had similar issues<\/a> with runners on base to the ones he is having in 2026. Luzardo has a 2.32 WHIP along with a 3.68 HR\/9 allowed rate with runners on base this season. Opposing batters have a .441\/.472\/.765 line and a .571 BABIP against Luzardo in those situations this year. Furthermore Luzardo has a 3.67 WHIP as well as a 6.00 HR\/9 allowed rate with runners in scoring position this season. Opposing batters have a .579\/.579\/1.000 line and a .692 BABIP against Luzardo in those situations this season. For comparison with the bases empty this season Luzardo has a 1.04 WHIP and a 0.00 HR\/9 allowed rate. Opposing batters have a .220\/.258\/.271 line and a .333 BABIP versus Luzardo with the bases empty this season.<\/p>\n

The Potential Cause Of The Issues<\/h3>\n

Luzardo has thrown his sinker 19.1% of the time this season compared to 10.1% of the time last season. 65.8% of the time Luzardo has thrown his sinker it has been in the zone, the most of any of his four pitches this season. Opposing batters are making contact against that pitch 88.9% of the time. Additionally opposing batters have a .900 OPS and a 159 wRC+ against that pitch this season. The lone pitch opposing batters are doing better against is the fastball which sees a 1.009 OPS and a 186 wRC+ against. Luzardo has decreased his fastball usage from 34.1% in 2025 to 24.1% in 2026. Of the four pitches Luzardo uses the slider is the sole one where opposing batters are not noticeably improving. Luzardo has thrown that pitch 36.6% of the time this season.<\/p>\n

Other Areas Of Trouble<\/h3>\n

In addition to struggling pitching out of the stretch Luzardo gets progressively worse as his outings go on. This season Luzardo has a 0.90 ERA and a 0.70 WHIP with a 12.00 K\/BB rate the first time through the order. Luzardo has a 7.88 ERA as well as a 1.63 WHIP and a 3.25 K\/BB rate the second time through the order. For comparison Luzardo has a 23.14 ERA and a 2.79 WHIP with a 5.00 K\/BB rate the third time through the lineup this season. Opposing batters have performed better against Luzardo later in the game for most of his career. This is why before Wheeler went on the injured list Luzardo was a candidate to move to the bullpen for the postseason<\/a> last year. Luzardo did appear out of the bullpen once in the 2025 postseason.<\/p>\n

Credit Image: \u00a9 PI via ZUMA Press Wire<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jes\u00fas Luzardo is showing a concerning trend this season. Luzardo is off to a bad start to the regular season in a rotation missing Zack Wheeler.\u00a0This season Luzardo has a 1-3 record with a 7.94 ERA along with a 1.46 WHIP and a 2.89 FIP in four starts. Luzardo has a 6.00 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":119107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":true,"sfio_embed_code":"<\/smartframe-embed>","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1071],"tags":[3425,2268,28359,701,683],"class_list":["post-119105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phillies","category-mlb","tag-jesus-luzardo","tag-jt-realmuto","tag-rafael-marchan","tag-taijuan-walker","tag-zack-wheeler"],"modified_by":"Ben Rosen, Staff Writer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119105"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119160,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119105\/revisions\/119160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}