Philadelphia Phillies: Should Ranger Suarez be in the starting rotation?
By David Esser
Conclusion: Keep on the current course.
To wrap this conversation up, vaulting Suarez into the rotation would be a premature move to make. Yes, he’s looked fantastic since rejoining the team earlier this month, but he’s also yet to stretch out as a proper starter himself.
HIs 3.0 inning performance against the Marlins this past week was his longest outing of the season.
At such a young age, I would definitely like to see Suarez continue to see a more prominent role moving forward. He’s clearly talented, and could be a difference maker for the organization looking ahead to future seasons. Continuing to “piggyback” him behind Howard or even Velasquez on occasion feels like a really good spot for Suarez at the moment, as it allows him to take down multiple innings for the team at once without jeopardizing the development of Velasquez/Howard as starting pitchers.
This in turn takes some pressure off the rest of the Phillies’ bullpen, as they’re not constantly being asked to record 12-15 outs every fourth or fifth day.
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Ultimately speaking, this is a very good problem to have. Even with the disasters that were Matt Moore and Chase Anderson, the Philadelphia Phillies have found themselves in a situation where they have options at the back-end of their rotation. Hopefully Velasquez continues to be solid, and Howard is able to go deeper into games moving forward, but if not, the team has the fallback plan of turning things over to Suarez as a full-time starter sometime in June.