He laughed it off. The crowd exhaled. And the Phillies exhaled too, because this wasn’t an October-ending injury. Just a bruise. Just a scare.
Suárez was pulled in the fifth inning of Saturday night’s 5-0 loss to the Twins, but the Phillies are calling it a left thigh contusion and fully expect him to line up for his next assignment — likely Game 2 of the NLDS on Oct. 6. “All muscle,” Suárez quipped afterward, grinning.
The timing meant his regular season ended on a strange note. Across 157 1/3 innings, he authored a 3.20 ERA and matched last year’s total of 12 wins, falling one shy of setting a new personal high. His final line: 4 1/3 innings, nine hits, three runs — hardly the way he’ll want to roll into October.
Manager Rob Thomson admitted the scene looked scarier than it turned out. “The way he hunched over, I thought it got his hand or something,” he said. Instead, it’s a bruise, and the Phillies will slot him right behind Cristopher Sánchez in the Division Series rotation.
As for Saturday’s game? Former Phillies top prospect Mick Abel came back to haunt his old organization, striking out nine over six scoreless innings. Byron Buxton opened with a leadoff homer, James Outman added another blast, and Ryan Fitzgerald capped it with a solo shot off Max Lazar. The Twins’ win secured home-field advantage for Milwaukee throughout the postseason and locked the Phillies into the No. 2 seed.
So the only thing that really mattered was the sight of Ranger Suárez walking off under his own power. October in Philadelphia still runs through him.
The Phillies will close out the regular season on Sunday. From there, the club will regroup and prepare for the NLDS that opens on Saturday at Citizens Bank Park.
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