The Phillies open up the season in just four days against Jacob deGrom and the Texas Rangers. It’s the second consecutive year they’ll start the year against an AL West team, having faced the Oakland Athletics a year ago.
These two teams met once before on Opening Day, back in 2014, where the Phillies took the first game but lost the series.
Despite deGrom leaving the NL East this offseason, the Phillies find themselves facing the two-time CY Young Award winner. Nathan Eovaldi awaits them in the second game of the season, and Martín Pérez will finish the series for Texas.
Two of the three pitchers in this series for the Rangers, deGrom and Eovaldi, have spent time in the NL East, giving them relatively large sample sizes against the Phillies. Here’s how the Phillies have fared in the past against their upcoming opposing pitchers.
Jacob deGrom
Fans of the past decade probably don’t need a reminder of deGrom’s dominance against the Phillies. Across 20 games and 120 innings, deGrom has silenced the Phillies’ bats to the tune of 2.18 ERA, striking out 136 (10.2 K/9) and a WHIP of just 0.96.
His most recent appearance against the Phillies came last August. He gave up just two baserunners over six innings, and the Phillies took a frustrating 1-0 loss.
The name of the game for the Phillies is getting deGrom’s pitching count high, early. He’s pitched more than six innings 11 times against the Phils, and the Phillies are 1-10 in those games. Texas’ bullpen has some respectable names, but doesn’t rank among the game’s top. It benefits the Phillies to get deGrom out quickly, which might be doable given the Rangers’ cautionary approach to deGrom’s health so far.
For those looking for some optimism, the Phillies have lit up deGrom one time, in September of 2017. Somehow, they broke through for 10 hits and nine runs (six earned) in just 3.2 innings, winning a meaningless late-season game against two bad teams. Making that game extra bizarre was a home run for mid-2010s Phillies pitcher Ben Lively, off deGrom.
Nathan Eovaldi
Eovaldi has put together a long-lasting, solid career that has crossed paths with the Phillies 11 times. He’s proven to be a thorn in the Phillies’ side, posting a 3.36 ERA, but just 43 strikeouts in 61.2 innings. Lots of these outings came during his time with the Miami Marlins, from 2012-2014. The Phillies weren’t a very good team during that time, which may inflate some of Eovaldi’s numbers.
His only starts against the Phillies in the last four years came in May of 2022, when he was pitching for the Boston Red Sox. He went 5.2 innings, gave two runs, five hits, and two walks, earning the win. That was Eovaldi’s best career year. He finished fourth in AL CY Young voting.
Eovaldi has experienced late career success heading into his age-33 season. 2020 and 2021 were his two best seasons in terms of ERA+ (129 and 125, respectively). In 2022, he was nine percent better than a league average pitcher. Not the generational talent deGrom is, it should present an easier matchup than Opening Day, but far from an easy one.
A pitcher in the AL for his entire career, Pérez has run into the Phillies a surprising amount since he entered the league in 2012. In seven games as a member of the Rangers, the Minnesota Twins, the Red Sox, and the Rangers again, Pérez rounds out a trio of pitchers with strong career numbers versus the Phillies. He has thrown 43 innings of 3.14 ball, with 40 strikeouts, 20 walks, and 41 hits against him.
Pérez dominated the Phillies last year in two starts. No runs crossed the plate in 13 innings. The Phillies lost both of those games. There were plenty of baserunners (seven walks and 10 hits, combined), but no execution with runners in scoring position.
The Phillies will look to duplicate the success they had against Pérez during his Red Sox tenure. Ten runs scored in just 14.2 innings, over three starts.
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