{"id":70560,"date":"2024-04-14T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=70560"},"modified":"2024-04-14T01:27:38","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T05:27:38","slug":"orion-kerkering-return-il-forearm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/14\/orion-kerkering-return-il-forearm\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Phillies Reliever Set to Return From Injured List Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Young Philadelphia Phillies reliever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kerkeor01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-14_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Orion Kerkering<\/a> will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/phillies\/news\/phillies-injuries-and-roster-moves\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">return from the IL<\/a> on Sunday. Kerkering began his official rookie campaign on the injured list with what the team described as a right forearm strain. Ahead of returning from the injured list, Kerkering made four rehab appearances. The corresponding move to make room for him on the Phillies 26-man roster is that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nelsoni01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-14_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nick Nelson<\/a> will be optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Phillies will option Nick Nelson to Triple A to clear a spot for Orion Kerkering, who will be active tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Matt Gelb (@MattGelb) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MattGelb\/status\/1779289213436928044?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 13, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Orion Kerkering Set to Return from IL<\/h2>\n<p>Once the Phillies make the transaction official, Nelson will be out of minor league options. This means if Nelson is recalled from Triple-A Lehigh Valley later on, he will either have to remain on the Phillies roster or be designated for assignment to clear a 26-man roster spot. Nelson will be one of four pitchers who are currently on the Phillies&#8217; 40-man roster at Triple-A. The other three, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/allarko01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-14_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kolby Allard<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/castima03.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-14_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Max Castillo<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=mercad000mic&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-14_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Mercado<\/a>, have minor league options remaining.<\/p>\n<p>Kerkering missed most of spring training dealing with the flu. Last season in three major league appearances, Kerkering had a 1-0 record with a 3.00 ERA and a 162 ERA+ with six strikeouts. During the postseason last year, he had a 3.38 ERA and five strikeouts with a -5.8% cWPA. In two spring training appearances this season, Kerkering recorded two strikeouts along with a 0.500 WHIP and did not allow an earned run.<\/p>\n<p>The return of Kerkering gives Phillies manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/thomsro99.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rob Thomson<\/a> another option to close out a game. So far 15 games in this season, <span class=\"player-header--vitals-name\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/alvarjo03.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-14_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jos\u00e9 Alvarado<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=hoffmje02,hoffma003jef&amp;search=Jeff+Hoffman&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-14_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeff Hoffman<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sotogr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-14_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gregory Soto<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pintori01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-14_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ricardo Pinto<\/a> have recorded saves. Alvarado has two saves while the other three have one save each. Thomson has been using a closer-by-committee system so far this season. That is not currently expected to change, even with Kerkering returning to the bullpen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Young Philadelphia Phillies reliever Orion Kerkering will return from the IL on Sunday. Kerkering began his official rookie campaign on the injured list with what the team described as a right forearm strain. Ahead of returning from the injured list, Kerkering made four rehab appearances. The corresponding move to make room for him on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":70567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_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":[1071,23],"tags":[2760,4352,2347,303,5874,4706],"class_list":["post-70560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-phillies","tag-gregory-soto","tag-jeff-hoffman","tag-jose-alvarado","tag-kolby-allard","tag-max-castillo","tag-nick-nelson"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70560","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=70560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}