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PHILADELPHIA — By the end of Thursday night, Orion Kerkering is hoping to have been a part of as many big-league clubhouse celebrations as he has regular-season innings pitched. He’s already tossed as many innings in the playoffs as in its 162-game prologue.
To his manager, who cut his teeth overseeing minor league players cutting theirs, all that math adds up.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with young players because I spent a lot of time in the minor leagues,” Rob Thomson said Thursday before Game 4. “So I tend to trust them. I can see the talent that we have in our young players. In order for them to get confidence, you’ve got to use them. You’ve got to show confidence in them.”
Thomson has shown that confidence in Kerkering, the 22-year-old slider artisan. He needed just three innings in the regular season, the capstone on Kerkering’s four-level climb through the minors in 2023, to earn a spot on the postseason roster. He tossed a clean eighth in Game 2 of the NL Wild Card series, earned a hold in a 2-0 game in Atlanta in Game 1 of this NLDS, then worked an uneventful eighth in the Game 3 rout Wednesday.
“I don’t think anything is different,” Kerkering said of his postseason approach. “Just keep going. It’s the same mound every time. Just keep doing what I can do best at, help this team win.”
The depth that Kerkering provides the bullpen, especially against a right-handed heavy Braves lineup, was part of what allowed Thomson to be so aggressive with Ranger Suarez in Game 1. Kerkering is in play if Thomson wants to do the same Thursday.
Kerkering, the fifth-round pick in 2022 out of the University of South Florida, is just riding the whirlwind that has deposited him in red-washed Philadelphia for October. He’s performing like he enjoys the moment.
“Everyone is super welcoming, and it just doesn’t feel like I’m a new guy,” he said. “It just feels like I’ve been here all year. So they have always been teaching me and learning new things every single day and just been super helpful with it.”
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It might have gotten lost in Wednesday night’s offensive extravaganza, but Michael Lorenzen performed a service. He mopped up the ninth inning against the top of the Braves order, allowing a walk and a hit, in his first postseason appearance as a Phillie.
Anyone who pitched Wednesday would’ve been available Thursday, Thomson said. But Lorenzen’s inning lessened the risk of a reliever facing three outings in four days, a workload Thomson guards against. For example, Jose Alvarado and Jeff Hoffman each worked both games in Atlanta, but they were fresh for Thursday.
“It’s huge,” Thomson said after Game 3. “Even if those guys pitched tonight, they’d be available tomorrow. But just giving an extra day is better for them. And those added runs in the eighth inning were really big for us.”
Lorenzen, who wasn’t on the wild card series roster, may not project to a higher-leverage role. His velocity was down, maxing out at 94.5 on his four-seam fastball with an average of 93.8. He had topped out at 97.7 on Sept. 28 against Pittsburgh, one of three straight scoreless relief outings to cap the regular season.
Right now, Lorenzen said, he’s “refining a couple of things” in terms of mechanics and his consistency with his curveball to complement the changeup that made him an All-Star in Detroit.
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Brandon Marsh went 3-for-4, a triple shy of the cycle in Game 3. He scored twice and went deep back-to-back with Nick Castellanos in the eighth.
You don’t need reminding of what Marsh did in Game 4 of the last NLDS, his 3-run home run in the second inning off Charlie Morton kick-starting the clincher against Atlanta.
The two players immediately following him in the order are struggling. Johan Rojas is just 1-for-17 this postseason, empty in his last 16 at-bats entering Game 4. Kyle Schwarber is 4-for-21 with a .286 slugging percentage and no home runs. So Marsh’s contributions out of the eight-hole, where he started again Thursday, are magnified.
“It’s huge because with Schwarber leading off, you want those guys at the end of the lineup to get on base so that he only leads off the game once,” Thomson said. “When those guys at the end of the lineup get on base, we got a chance to put up crooked number.”
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