The next time Zack Wheeler pitches in a game, it will be for the Phillies on Saturday in Atlanta against the Braves. And even though Wheeler’s velocity didn’t impress during his five-start minor-league rehab assignment, there are reasons to believe he can still thrive with lesser velocity.

Wheeler’s final rehab assignment numbers were not great. He posted a 5.85 ERA and allowed 19 hits across 20 innings. He racked up 23 strikeouts to five walks. His velocity varied.

On April 14, Wheeler sat 92.5 mph to 95 mph against the Somerset Patriots at TD Bank Ballpark in his fourth rehab start, a minor-league source told Phillies Nation’s Ty Daubert. On Sunday, Wheeler faced the Patriots again, this time in 47-degree weather. Wheeler’s fastball sat in the low 90s, a source told Daubert.

Those velocities are not “normal” for Wheeler. He throws two fastballs: a four-seamer and a sinker. His four-seamer averaged 95.7 mph between 2023 and 2025. The sinker averaged 95 mph.

Wheeler threw 77 pitches in a four-inning, four-run performance Sunday.

“Considering how cold it was, I thought that was pretty good,” manager Rob Thomson said.

But nearing 36 years old and coming off major surgery — thoracic outlet decompression surgery to be exact — Wheeler’s velocity may not return, in the short- or even long-term. He should be fine either way.

Wheeler does rely heavily on his fastballs. Between ’23 and ’25, 60 percent of the pitches he threw were either a four-seamer or sinker. Hitters had a hard time against them. Velocity was certainly part of that.

Wheeler held opponents to a .211 batting average and .351 slugging percentage when throwing his four-seamer and sinker between ’23 and ’25 — very much above-average numbers. Against those pitch types, major league pitchers allowed a combined .263 batting average and .432 slugging percentage in that same time frame. Wheeler induced a 26.3 percent combined whiff rate when throwing his fastballs. The league average was 19.4 percent.

While Wheeler’s hard stuff is a main reason why he’s been one of baseball’s best pitchers since becoming a Phillie, he has developed an expansive arsenal that’s also been part of that equation. He throws six pitches. His secondary pitches are a sweeper, curveball, splitter and cutter. They are weapons.

Against Wheeler’s four secondary offerings, hitters had a .201 batting average and .340 slugging percentage between ’23 and ’25. Wheeler induced a combined 33.5 percent whiff rate with those pitches; league average was 29.1 percent. When batters made contact against Wheeler’s secondary stuff, it wasn’t the best.

Wheeler limited opponents to a 31.3 percent hard-hit rate and 6.4 percent barrel rate when throwing his secondary pitches over the last three seasons. Those were better than the combined league averages, which were 35 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively.

It is possible as Wheeler continues to get back into the swing of things his ability to sit in the mid 90s returns. He could get stronger. Warmer weather could also help. But, as some would say, the right-hander is a pitcher, not a thrower. He may not need his old velocity to have success.

Velocity has been important for Wheeler throughout his career. He has also become a more polished pitcher with the Phillies. If hitters get to his four-seamer and sinker more often because it doesn’t sit 94 mph to 96 mph, then he could increase the usage of his secondary stuff to counteract that.

And, if that’s the case, Wheeler’s performance could still be really good because that secondary stuff is so good.

The Phillies’ fight was not enough on Thursday as their losing streak reached nine games in an 8-7 walk-off loss to the Cubs in 10 innings. After scoring in the seventh, eighth and ninth, not driving in Brandon Marsh from second base in the 10th inning haunted the Phillies.

Marsh, the automatic runner at second base to start the extra frame, was eventually stranded at third after three straight outs: a popout by Edmundo Sosa and back-to-back groundouts by Alec Bohm and Justin Crawford.

The Cubs plated their automatic runner, Ian Happ, with relative ease against Tanner Banks in the bottom-half of the inning. After Seiya Suzuki was intentionally walked to start the frame, a bloop single by Carson Kelly loaded the bases. Two batters later, Dansby Swanson drove an 0-2 fastball from Banks out to right field for the game-winning hit.

The Phillies also had the go-ahead run 90 feet away in the ninth in the form of Trea Turner, but Marsh went down looking on three pitches to end inning. A leadoff, pinch-hit home run by Adolis García earlier in the ninth tied the game after Brad Keller gave up a game-tying homer to Suzuki to leadoff the bottom of the eighth.

García’s pinch-hit success was the second of the game for Rob Thomson’s club. Edmundo Sosa delivered a game-tying, pinch-hit single with two outs in the eighth after a walk by Marsh extended the inning.

Marsh started the Phillies’ late surge with a home run in the seventh to make it a 6-3 game. It was his second home run of the day. His first gave his team an early 1-0 lead. The Phillies scored two more runs in the seventh — one on a throwing error by Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman and another on a sacrifice fly by Garrett Stubbs — to make their eighth- and ninth-inning runs important but ultimately wasted.

Now at 8-17, the Phillies head to Atlanta for a three-games series against the division-leading Braves.

Veteran pitcher Taijuan Walker will not play out the end of his four-year, $72 million contract in Philadelphia.

On Thursday morning, the Phillies announced that they released Walker after a five-outing struggle to start the season. The right-hander had a 9.13 ERA in 22 2/3 innings so far in 2026.

Walker had a solid first season with the Phillies in 2023, posted a disaster 2025 and bounced back with a decent showing in 2025. Still, he never made a postseason start for a team that qualified in all three of those years. Walker then regressed hard to start 2026. The Phillies used an opener in his outing on Wednesday night to try to mitigate the first-inning issues he’s dealt with; Walker entered in the second and allowed four runs on eight hits in four innings.

With Zack Wheeler set to return from the injured list this weekend, the ace will take Walker’s spot in the rotation. Phillies manager Rob Thomson said earlier this week that he believed Walker still had a spot on the pitching staff, even with Wheeler in the fold, because he and the team thought Walker would get better. Another rough pitching performance later, the Phillies opted to release Walker altogether instead of keeping him as a long man in the bullpen.

The club also optioned right-hander Alan Rangel, who allowed one run in three innings after Walker on Wednesday, to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Reliever Nolan Hoffman was recalled to the big-league club. Since the Phillies sent out two pitchers and brought in one, it appears they will be operating a player short on the 26-man roster for their series finale against the Cubs on Thursday afternoon at Wrigley Field.

The Phillies are currently 8-16 and have lost eight games in a row.

CHICAGO — The Phillies’ losing streak has become so prolonged — now at eight games, or one-third of the season to date — that there are not many more original ways for things to go wrong, because just about everything that can already has. 

But Wednesday found a way. The Phillies had nine hits, their most since April 13. And yet, they struck out 12 times, tied for their most of the streak and their second-most of the season overall. 

Even more incredible: They walked zero times. It’s the first game this season they haven’t drawn a free pass.

The Phillies scored in one inning, the second, on Wednesday. That move is far from original: It’s the 13th time in 24 games their scoring has been limited to a single frame (or fewer).

“I think,” Trea Turner said postgame, “we can do everything better right now.”

The Phillies are 2-10 against left-handed starters this season. Their two wins were against openers, with a righty bulk arm in relief. 

“It’s kinda weird at this point,” Turner said. “I know we faced some good lefty arms in [Chris] Sale, [Shōta] Imanaga, [Matthew] Boyd and stuff, but we’re good enough to put runs up against those guys. We gotta find a way to make adjustments and get to that point.”

The Phillies made decent contact in the first three games of the four-game set at Wrigley Field, when they did make contact. They had 11 hard-hit balls (95.0 mph or above) each game. 

They have very little to show for it. They have five extra-base hits this series. They have not had four extra-base hits in a game since April 13, their last win. 

“That’s why this game’s tough,” Turner said of the hard-hit misfortune. “Just ‘cause you do something right doesn’t mean you’re gonna get rewarded for it.”

That April 13 game, a 13-run showing, was a major anomaly in an offensive output that looks like this, dating all the way back to April 4 in Colorado, the eighth game of the season: 2, 1, 6, 0, 0, 4, 4, 3, 13, 4, 2, 0, 1, 2, 1, 4, 2. 

It’s bad.

“Yeah, it sucks,” Turner said. “Not having much fun in here, which is tough. This is a great game; we’re lucky to play it. And when you are expected to win, and you want to win, and it’s not happening, it’s tough and not fun.”

There were small signs of life on Wednesday from some corners of the lineup. Edmundo Sosa had two hits, including an RBI double, after going 2-for-15 beforehand. Alec Bohm had two two-strike opposite-field singles. “Hopefully that’s the start of a good swing,” manager Rob Thomson said of Bohm, who entered the game with an unsightly .128/.205/.179 slash. Adolis García missed a home run by a couple of feet foul and smacked a single at 107.2 mph (but struck out twice).

It will be comforting to few. The nine hits — again, a comparative outburst — might only be more frustrating when it amounts to so little.

“Feel like we get one guy on base and then the inning kinda dies, for whatever reason,” Turner said. “That’s just not good enough.”

CHICAGO — The Phillies had nine hits, their most in nine days. There was other good news on Wednesday, but if you don’t care about hockey, that’s about it.

The Phillies lost their eighth consecutive game, a stinker at Wrigley Field featuring: a rough outing that could be Taijuan Walker’s last “start” for the foreseeable future, underwhelming defense and another one-inning scoring output by the offense.

The Phillies are 8-16. They’re tied for last place in the entire National League with the Mets, who just snapped a 12-game losing streak. Their -50 run differential is MLB’s worst — by 15 runs.

The Phillies used Kyle Backhus as an opener. Ideally, Walker’s first-inning woes would be avoided by avoiding the first inning altogether. In theory, it worked; in practice, bad defense sank it.

A leadoff chopper skipped off Alec Bohm’s glove in the first and eventually led to a run. In the second, Justin Crawford couldn’t secure the third out on a hard-charging pop to shallow center, the ball glancing off his glove for an error, and Pete Crow-Armstrong capitalized with an RBI double to right-center (which Crawford didn’t get a good jump on).

“He called it too early and got Sosa out of there,” manager Rob Thomson said postgame of the Crawford error. “And really that’s Sosa’s ball. And I think that just comes with experience playing in this ballpark, with the wind. You gotta really make sure that you get there. He just called it a little bit early.”

Walker’s biggest stumbles came in his second and fourth innings of work. In the game’s third inning, Alex Bregman led off with a triple that was inches — or maybe just one inch — from sneaking over the basket in left field. He scored, as did Michael Busch later in the inning on his first homer of the year, a solo shot. Seiya Suzuki cranked a two-run homer to left in the fifth.

“He hung some splits, left them up, and they got hit hard,” Thomson said of Walker.

It gave Walker eight home runs allowed in his last four appearances — 18 total innings. He has a 9.13 ERA.

“At the end of day,” Walker said, “I just didn’t do my job again.”

So, with Zack Wheeler returning to the rotation on Saturday, what’s next for Walker?

“We want to get to the off day,” Thomson said. “We haven’t even discussed anything yet, really.”

Does Walker have an idea?

“No,” he said. “Just show up tomorrow. Keep doing my work.”

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Caleb Ricketts picked the right day to have the game of his life.

After walking into the batter’s box to lead off the bottom of the ninth already 3-for-3 on the day with a home run for Triple-A Lehigh Valley, Ricketts only needed two pitches to break the tie. The 25-year-old pulled an 86.9 mph cutter off Durham pitcher Cam Hill for a solo shot, the dagger in an 8-7 win for the IronPigs on Tuesday night.

“I’m glad I was able to help us win tonight,” Ricketts said. “We had a good team effort, glad it turned out that way.”

Ricketts has slowly but surely been finding his stride since being assigned to the IronPigs ahead of the 2026 season. The prospect has collected eight hits in the last four games, boosting his batting average from .189 to .254 on the year. Tuesday’s performance put the exclamation point on the hot streak, as he homered and doubled twice and drove in three runs from the nine-hole to put the offense on his back.

“Showing up and doing the same work I do every day, no matter the results at night,” said Ricketts, who endured an 0-for-13 drought prior to the four-game stretch. “Just trust in the work I put in earlier in the day to yield some good results come game time.”

Down 3-2 to lead off the third inning, Ricketts made the most of his first opportunity at the dish. After going down 1-2, he worked a full count and located a slider in the bottom inside corner of the zone, launching a 404-foot rocket over the right field wall to tie the game.

“Just looking for a good pitch over the plate,” Ricketts said. “Looking for a fastball at least timing wise, just getting ready to hit, and then I ended up being able to put the barrel to slider.”

Leading off again in the fifth — this time down 6-4 — Ricketts got on base with a right-field double off a changeup down the pipe. He would be driven in by a single from Steward Berroa shortly after, cutting the Bulls’ lead to one.

Another six-pitch at-bat in the seventh resulted in Ricketts’ second double of the contest, this time going opposite field to score Carter Kieboom, who reached on a leadoff walk. Sergio Alcántara followed suit with a single to drive in Ricketts, knotting the game at seven apiece and later setting up Rickett’s walk-off homer.

“It was the same the whole night,” Ricketts said about his approach at the plate in high-leverage situations. “Getting on time, getting a good pitch to hit over the heart of the plate, no matter what it was, and trying to drive the ball to a big part of the field.”

Ricketts was drafted by the Phillies in the seventh round of the 2022 MLB draft after playing four years of college ball at the University of California San Diego, where he split defensive reps between the outfield, catcher and first base. He spent the past three years bouncing around the Phillies’ minor league system, but earned consistent time at catcher for Double-A Reading across 2024 and 2025, accumulating a .236 batting average in 133 games for the Fightin Phils. 

Ricketts has found equal opportunities both behind the plate and at first, making seven starts at each position thus far in 2026.

“I played there back in the day in college, so it’s fairly comfortable for me,” said Ricketts, who got the start at first base on Tuesday. “It’s been good to be able to get over there and get some reps there, as well as catching.”

Ricketts will continue to make adjustments as the year goes on, but for now, he’s loved every second of his first month with the IronPigs.

“It’s a really fun team, great group of guys, great facility,” he said “It’s been great support.”

Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto is going on the 10-day injured list with a lower back injury, Matt Gelb of the Athletic reports. Realmuto missed Sunday and Monday’s game with lower back soreness before returning to the lineup on Tuesday night against the Chicago Cubs.

Garrett Stubbs will be added to the 40-man roster. Stubbs and Rafael Marchan are expected to split time at catcher with Realmuto on the injured list. The Phillies have to make a corresponding move to get Stubbs on the 40-man roster.

Realmuto is batting .259 with a .696 OPS in 17 games played this season. He has missed some time this year with foot and back issues. His backup Marchan has only two hits in 32 at-bats this season.

In 38 at-bats with the Lehigh Valley IronPigs this year, Stubbs is batting .289 with three home runs, eight RBIs and a 1.045 OPS.

The Phillies on Tuesday batted rookie Felix Reyes cleanup in his second career game. It was an indictment of just how bad Phillies right-handed hitters have performed against lefties this year.

The numbers are absurd. They are dead last in batting average (.149), on-base percentage (.239) and slugging percentage (.236). Opposing teams are making sure their left-handed starters are lined up to face the Phillies.

The thinking behind pushing the right-handed hitting Reyes to the cleanup spot is that it’s hard to be any worse. The offensive struggles against lefties in particular are a big reason why the Phillies are 8-15 and losers of seven straight. Reyes, after going 1-for-4 with a single, could bat cleanup again on Wednesday night with Cubs left-hander Matthew Boyd scheduled to come off the IL and start against the Phillies.

Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski spoke about the early-season struggles in a radio interview with Gregg Murphy.

“We haven’t excelled at any portion of the game,” Dombrowski said pregame on Tuesday. “It hasn’t been our pitching, it hasn’t been our hitting, it hasn’t been our defense. So we need to really turn it around and turn it around quickly.”

Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, who both homered in Tuesday’s loss, have done their part. Both have an OPS of at least .900. Others around them have struggled. Trea Turner (.635 OPS) and Adolis García (.634 OPS) have not produced around them. Bryson Stott (.511 OPS) has recorded a hit in seven straight games, but his start to the season has been a disappointment. Brandon Marsh (.708 OPS) has cooled off after a hot start and is facing more lefties as a result of the Phillies’ failure to acquire a right-handed hitting center fielder. Otto Kemp (.282 OPS) was sent to Triple-A as the corresponding move for Reyes’ promotion. Edmundo Sosa (.640 OPS) hasn’t looked great defensively, but could soon be getting everyday at-bats.

Alec Bohm (.384 OPS) is in one of the worst slumps we’ve seen from a Phillies hitter in a long time.

They need someone to emerge out of that group as a somewhat productive cleanup hitter. For now, it’s Reyes’ turn against lefties.

“You really don’t have a No. 4 hitter at this time,” Dombrowski said. “Maybe some other guys will. Maybe Bohmer will step back up. Maybe García will do it, but there’s no harm trying Reyes because he’s going to get in there and he’s going to give you a good at-bat and do everything that he can to drive the ball somewhere.”

A lot of attention is on Bohm. Among qualified hitters in baseball, Bohm’s .384 OPS ranks 182nd out of 182. He is going through it all. On Opening Day, news broke that Bohm was suing his parents for mismanaging his finances. He is in a contract year. The Phillies likely would have moved on from him had they closed the deal on Bo Bichette.

Rob Thomson thought about taking Bohm out of the lineup on Tuesday, but the plan is to stick with him against the left-handed starters. At least for now.

“(Bohm’s) demeanor around the clubhouse and prior to the game is really good, and, actually, during the game it’s really good,” Thomson told reporters, including Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia. “I see a lot less frustration out of him when he doesn’t do well. He’s growing up. He’s maturing. We’ve just got to get that swing and that contact point straightened out because we need him. He can hit.”

Dombrowski also expressed confidence in Bohm.

“Alec Bohm has been an almost .300 hitter at the big league level, driving in 100 runs,” Dombrowski said. “He’s not far behind. He hasn’t aged out of that process, he’s not an older player. So you really have to just hope that he keeps his dauber up and he keeps battling through it, which I know he will and that he’ll snap out of it. It’s tough when you’re going through it.

“I know that Bohmer and Stotter are both two guys that are much better offensive players than they’ve shown us at this time. We want to see it quickly, they want to see it quickly, but sometimes it just takes a while to get through. They need to know that we’re behind them and we support them and you’re going to get out of this.”

CHICAGO — About three hours before Tuesday’s first pitch at Wrigley Field, it rained on the north side of Chicago — buckets, a downpour, for all of about 10 minutes, and then it stopped. It reminded of the old adage: When it rains, it pours. The Phillies sure know.

On a night when Jesús Luzardo battled through 4 2/3 stressful innings, escaping jams in the third and fourth, backed by some of the strongest defense of the season from the Phillies, with snags by Bryce Harper and Brandon Marsh that reduced or ended those threats, the Phillies lost on two plays above all: a walk that shouldn’t have been a walk, and a 67-mph two-out bloop.

If it feels like they can’t buy a win, perhaps it’s strangely comforting that much of it was self-inflicted.

The Phillies walked 10 batters and hit two on Tuesday night. Two walks in the fifth inning (one by Luzardo, one by Orion Kerkering) preceded the RBI walk — which would’ve flipped to an inning-ending strikeout with the game still scoreless, had J.T. Realmuto pulled the ABS trigger.

“It’s tough to win a ballgame when you give up 10 walks and throw 194 pitches,” manager Rob Thomson said postgame. “We’ve got to get our starters back to some length, just to give the bullpen a little bit of rest. We haven’t done that, which is kind of our calling card.”

In all, Luzardo went 4 2/3 innings with five hits, four walks and three strikeouts. He threw 100 pitches.

“Obviously I didn’t have my best stuff. Kind of a battle for the majority of the outing, finding the zone, making pitches when I needed to. But definitely a step in the right direction with guys on base, getting out of jams,” Luzardo said postgame. “Definitely not my best day with command, and kind of struggled with finding the zone at times.”

In between the RBI walk and the bloop, the Phillies had momentary relief, when Kyle Schwarber deposited his 63rd career regular-season Wrigley Field homer just beyond the basket in right field. It was one of four runs for the Phillies on the night. The second and third came when Bryce Harper roped a two-run shot to left-center in the eighth.

It would’ve made more of a difference had Tim Mayza not surrendered three runs on two homers in the half inning before Harper’s homer. To stick with the above analogy, that represented the floodgates opening, stretching the score to 6-1. After the Harper homer, a wild pitch from José Alvarado, who exited with what Thomson said were back spasms, made it 7-3.

The Phillies fought in the ninth. They brought the tying run to the plate before Caleb Thielbar left him there.

“They’re playing hard,” Thomson said. “They’re finishing games.”

The Phillies are 8-15. They have officially lost the season series to the Cubs, which, in some universe, has tiebreaker implications. From where things currently are, a universe where that matters seems far.

“This isn’t the start that we wanted, by any means,” Schwarber said. “The effort’s always there … The want, desire, the effort, everything’s there. It’s just not coming together. As you go out there and keep playing, the more that you think about it not coming together, the more that it probably won’t come together. If you kinda trick the brain, whatever it is, saying that it is gonna come together, and you believe it, it’s gonna come together.”

“I think that we all know where we’re at,” Luzardo said. “There’s still obviously that thought that it’s early, we can turn it around. But we know how important it is to get back on track. I know that everyone in here finds it extremely important to get back on track.”

Phillies Injury Updates

• RHP Zack Wheeler (right shoulder surgery)
• Status: On 15-day IL, returning Saturday
• Phillies starter Zack Wheeler underwent thoracic outlet syndrome decompression surgery in September 2025. He has not pitched in a major league game since Aug. 15. His venous TOS diagnosis was announced on Aug. 23. Wheeler did not pitch in the 2025 postseason.
• As anticipated, Wheeler will return to the Phillies’ rotation during the team’s current road trip — taking the mound Saturday in Atlanta. Wheeler had a 5.85 ERA across five rehab outings (hurt by some bad defense in a couple of them) with 23 strikeouts and five walks. He allowed four runs in four innings his final start, with his fastball sitting in the low 90s. That will be one thing to monitor in his 2026 MLB debut, which will come against a Braves lineup that ranks second in MLB with a .789 team OPS. Whatever version of Wheeler the Phillies get right off the bat, he’ll likely be replacing Taijuan Walker, who has a 9.16 ERA this year. (Last updated on April 21 by Nathan Ackerman)

• INF Aidan Miller (low back soreness)
• Status: Seven-day minor-league injured list
• Miller did not appear in a Grapefruit League game this spring and has started the year on the Triple-A IL.
• Miller is finally swinging a bat, as Todd Zolecki of MLB.com reported on April 9. When asked by Zolecki if Miller received an injection to treat his sore back, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski declined to say, citing HIPAA.
• “We’re just happy with his progress,” Dombrowski told Zolecki in San Francisco. “He’s happy with his progress. We’re with him every single day. We watch him, we treat him. He’s doing good right now. But it’s one of those things. You don’t just go from swinging a bat one day like this, then play in a game today. You’re taking your time.” (Last updated on April 9 by Destiny Lugardo)

•  RHP Max Lazar (left oblique strain)
• Status: 15-day injured list
• Lazar left the World Baseball Classic early with an oblique issue and began the year on the big-league IL. — Last updated on March 29 by Ty Daubert

• OF Gabriel Rincones Jr. (knee soreness)
• Status: Seven-day minor-league injured list
• The power-hitting prospect Rincones Jr. also missed the Grapefruit League and has begun the season on the IL. Contreras said he battled through knee issues last year, but a “flare up” has kept him off the field. — Last updated on March 29 by Ty Daubert

• RHP Daniel Robert (cardiac event)
• Status: 60-day minor-league injured list
• Robert suffered a cardiac event on the mound near the end of spring training, triggering his implantable cardioverter defibrillator. He was released from the hospital on the same day. Robert dealt with a previous cardiac event in the fall that required the use of CPR and a defibrillator.
• Robert began to feel better shortly after the event. Thomson said Thursday that Robert is resting at home. — Last updated on March 29 by Ty Daubert

PHILADELPHIA — Jesús Luzardo said last Wednesday that he wanted to “dive deeper” into what’s been going wrong after his nine-run, 12-hit outing against the Chicago Cubs at Citizens Bank Park.

The left-hander insisted that he wasn’t tipping his pitches, but by Friday afternoon, he didn’t have an exact answer.

“I’m still looking,” Luzardo said. “I guess it could be pitch sequencing. I hate to say bad luck on some of the stuff. But I think it’s a combination of a little bit of bad luck, a little bit of pitch sequencing on my end and a little bit of execution on my end. So I think just when I do a little bit better of the execution and the pitch sequencing mixed with a little bit better luck, things will turn.”

Luzardo has a 7.94 ERA through four starts, and he’s allowed the most earned runs of any National Legue pitcher with 20. He’s an accountable guy who does not tend to make excuses after he pitches poorly, so he doesn’t like blaming the luck factor. At the same time, he’s running a 2.87 FIP and racking up six strikeouts per walk. He does not want to make large-scale adjustments that could damage him in the long run just because the early results have not been there.

“I think it’s tough to sit here and look at the ERA and not hit the panic button,” Luzardo said. “But at the same time, we’re four starts in and my stuff’s the best that it has ever been in my career. And I think a lot of things under my control, I’m not doing to the best of my abilities and I think I could do a little bit better, and then things that are out of my control are also not going my way.”

Luzardo needs to do something about the base hits he’s allowing and the problems he’s dealt with out of the stretch. He plans to “stay the course” along with a few tweaks. Both the lefty and Phillies manager Rob Thomson mentioned the usage of his sinker as one spot to monitor. Luzardo threw more sinkers (25) than four-seam fastballs (20) in his last outing. Last year, he threw his four-seamer 33% of the time and his sinker only 11%.

Luzardo said he could also do a better job throwing his new changeup for a strike, even if it’s getting swings-and-misses.

Traded to the Phillies from the Marlins before last season, Luzardo posted a 3.92 ERA in 32 starts in 2025. He bounced back from injury issues that hurt him in Miami to become a rotation weapon for Philadelphia, earning him a lucrative five-year extension this March. But the handful of blowup starts were present last year and prevented his numbers from finishing alongside the elite starting pitchers in the game.

So far in 2026, Luzardo has had three starts with five or more earned runs. He’s had innings where he can’t quite stop the bleeding. But the 28-year-old is confident he can turn it around, just as he did midseason last year after his worst stretch.

He’ll be able to showcase his adjustments in another chance to face the Cubs on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.

“I think there’s slight changes to be made,” Luzardo said. “But it’s not reinventing the wheel. I’m not pressing like the sky is falling. I think I need to make slight adjustments and that, eventually, this game will even out for me.”

The Phillies’ losing streak reached six games on Monday with a 5-1 loss to the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Aaron Nola’s second-inning struggles and the lineup’s continued slump were the lowlights for Rob Thomson’s 8-14 club.

Nola’s final ledger included 4 1/3 innings, six hits and season-highs in runs (five) and walks (four). He allowed four of those runs and issued two of those walks in the second inning. He threw 88 pitches on the night, landing just 46 for strikes. Twenty-seven of those pitches came in the second.

After he set the Cubs down in order in the first inning, Nola allowed back-to-back singles to Ian Happ and Moisés Ballesteros to start the bottom of the second. The right-hander then issued a six-pitch walk to Cubs’ six-hole hitter Michael Conforto to load the bases. The Cubs scored their first run of the inning on a 5-4-3 double play off the bat of Miguel Amaya.

Nola could not settle in to end the frame after inducing the double play. He walked Pete Crow-Armstrong on five pitches, and then hung a 3-1 sinker to Dansby Swanson, who sent the pitch 424 feet over the center-field wall for a three-run homer to make it 4-0. A flyout by Nico Hoerner one batter later ended the inning.

Nola, who allowed another run in the third on a sacrifice fly by Conforto, owns a 5.06 ERA through five starts.

On offense, the Phillies continued to struggle against right-hander Colin Rea, who pitched six strong innings against them last Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park. Rea pitched 6 2/3 innings this time around, allowing one run on six hits. The lone run the righty allowed came on a Justin Crawford double in the top of the fourth.

The struggles against Rea were also a continuation of the Phillies’ season-long issues on offense, as they entered Monday 26th in the majors in runs per game (3.57). Their recent issues have been even worse.

The Phillies, who stranded 10 baserunners Monday, have now scored 10 runs over their last six games, scoring two runs or less in five straight.

The Phillies will look to turn their season around away from home.

They will face two teams they went a combined 1-5 against on the most recent homestand. Up first is a four-game series with the Chicago Cubs beginning Monday night at Wrigley Field. Philadelphia dropped two of three to Chicago at Citizens Bank Park last week. The Phillies, after getting swept by the New York Mets at Citi Field in late April of last year, went to Chicago for a series with the Cubs and won two of three en route to nine series wins out of 10.

The Phillies are hoping to follow a similar path.

Here’s how to watch this week’s Phillies vs. Cubs games:

• Monday, April 20 at 7:40 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Philadelphia+
• Tuesday, April 21 at 7:40 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Philadelphia
• Wednesday, April 22 at 7:40 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Philadelphia+
• Thursday, April 23 at 2:20 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Phialdelphia

PHILADELPHIA — The steady Rob Thomson spoke with a bit more firmness after his club dropped its fifth game in a row to complete a brutal, lifeless homestand on Sunday night at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies, swept in three games by the Atlanta Braves, are in an early-season slump, and their manager has identified one particular issue that he wants corrected.

In Thomson’s view, the Phillies have been too aggressive at the plate. The offense is struggling, and players might be trying to do too much to make something happen with the bat. Thomson believes that’s not a winning strategy.

So how do his players display a sense of urgency without letting their frustrations leak into their approach?

“That’s what you got to do as a professional,” Thomson said. “You got to take the emotion out of it. This isn’t football. It’s not hockey, where emotion can help you. In this sport, over-emotion can often hurt you. You got to take it out of it.”

The Phillies are clearly going through it right now. They’re 8-12 and have the worst run differential in Major League Baseball at -38. They threatened in the bottom of the ninth inning on Sunday, but right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. made an impressive catch on a Kyle Schwarber line drive to end the game and finish a 4-2 Braves win. Schwarber slammed his helmet to the ground as the Phillies lost their seventh game of the nine-game homestand.

“Sure, there’s frustration,” Schwarber said, “but I think you can kind of only grin at it, too, right?”

The star designated hitter echoed a similar sentiment to Thomson’s, warning against “chasing results” as a team. When things are going bad, it’s a trap to press in an attempt to turn it around.

Thomson continued to express belief in his club. This is a group that he’s found a great deal of success with, and he’s going to remain even-keeled while the Phillies try to climb their way out of the hole.

“That’s my job,” Thomson said. “There are times when you have to straighten some people out. In a way, we’ve done that, but, for the most part, you got to stay positive and you got to believe in the club, because there’s talent here. It’s not that we don’t have talent. We’ve got talent. It just hasn’t happened yet, but it’s going to happen.”

At the same time, there are clear deficiencies in the lineup. Schwarber and Bryce Harper have hit near the top, and rookie Justin Crawford has been mostly solid at the bottom. The middle looks like a glaring weak spot.

Alec Bohm is batting .139. Bryson Stott is batting .207. Adolis García is batting .205. Catcher J.T. Realmuto, the club’s best right-handed hitter so far with a .280 average and a .748 OPS, sounds likely to miss a second straight game with back tightness on Monday, and backup Rafael Marchán is hitting .037.

Thomson has tried to mix up the batting order a bit. The Phillies swapped out Otto Kemp for Felix Reyes this weekend. There’s only so much a different lineup or a new short-side platoon left fielder can do. Even if the Phillies can remove the negative emotions of their underperformance, they’re missing pop in the middle of the order.

Still, it should not look this bad. And the Phillies know it.

“Nobody’s complacent,” Thomson said. “Everybody’s working their tails off. Nobody’s happy.”

But, as Thomson noted, they can’t channel that unhappiness into poor at-bats. The Phillies won’t be able to save the season with one swing or one game.

“We’re disappointed,” Thomson said. “We’re frustrated. I know they’re trying hard, sometimes trying too hard. I think guys are upset. We’re off to a slow start here, but it’s going to get better.”

PHILADELPHIA — What should have been an opportunity to stack wins turned into a rough nine-game stretch for the Phillies, who have been swept by the Braves at home at Citizens Bank Park to fall 6.5 games back in the National League East.

Is the quest for three straight division titles over before it ever really began? The Phillies have more pressing questions to ask as the club sits five games under .500 after five consecutive losses and three runs total in three games against Atlanta.

A typically mild-mannered Rob Thomson showed some frustration postgame.

“It’s not that we don’t have talent, we’ve got talent,” Thomson said. “It just hasn’t happened yet, but it’s going to happen.”

The Phillies got off to an early 2-0 lead on a first inning Kyle Schwarber two-run home run, but couldn’t add on in the 4-2 loss. They went an abysmal 2-7 on the homestand. Somehow, they are just 6-5 this season in games in which they score the first run. Last season, the Phillies finished 40 games over .500 at 64-24 in games where they scored first.

Heading on the road could be an opportunity for the Phillies to get back on track, but they will have to do so against two teams they went a combined 1-5 against this week in the Cubs and Braves.

“We’re disappointed, we’re frustrated,” Thomson said. “I know they are trying hard, sometimes trying too hard. I think guys are upset, we’re off to a slow start here, but it’s going to get better.”

Andrew Painter pitched well through four innings, but the Braves were able to keep his pitch count high. He navigated traffic and thanks to a well-timed challenge from catcher Rafael Marchan with two strikes and two on in the second inning, was able to avoid the big inning. Marchan, starting in place of J.T. Realmuto, will likely play again on Monday against the Cubs. J.T. Realmuto missed Sunday’s game with lower back soreness. They could make a call on a potential 10-day IL stint on Monday.

Painter opened the fifth inning with back-to-back base hits allowed to left-handed hitter Michael Harris II and leadoff man Ronald Acuña Jr. Thomson went to the lefty ground ball specialist Tim Mayza against the two big lefties in the Atlanta order, Drake Baldwin and Matt Olson. Mayza walked Baldwin and the Phillies couldn’t turn a double play against Olson. An infield single from Austin Riley gave the Braves the lead and a double from Ozzie Albies made it 4-2.

After the first two batters of the game came around to score, the Phillies registered only four hits through the remaining eight innings. They had the go-ahead run at the plate in Schwarber with two outs in the ninth. Schwarber nearly had a game-tying double, but Acuña reached out to make an impressive running catch near the wall for the final out. Had Acuña not made the play, the Phillies may have tied it with the speedy Justin Crawford at first base representing the tying run.

Schwarber slammed his helmet as the ball landed in Acuña’s glove.

“You can only kind of grin at it too, right? It is what it is,” Schwarber said. “Everyone in the dugout, everyone in the locker room, we’re all putting in the work, we’re all doing what we need to do. We want to keep getting better. Results, chasing the results, chasing hits, chasing all of that, that’s not the way to go about it.”

Schwarber is typically the one to deliver the message in tough times. The rest of his teammates silently packed their belongings for a week away.

The Phillies are in a hole, but there is still time to dig out of it.

“It’s inevitable. At some point, it’s gonna change,” Schwarber said. “The want is there. The desire is there. The will. And we all believe. We all believe in ourselves at the end of the day. There’s no doubt in that. Just take it on the chin and keep moving.”