Phillies High-Priced Reliever Reveals What Caused Brutal Start To Season

The Philadelphia Phillies lost a heartbreaker in extra innings on Thursday night against the Atlanta Braves on an 11th inning walk-off home run to drop the series ahead of the road trip continuing this weekend against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Though losing a series -- especially to a hated rival -- is never ideal, there was a major silver lining to take from the rubber match loss.

This offseason, the Phillies addressed the significant losses in their bullpen in free agency by taking a considerable risk and signing former Toronto Blue Jays All-Star closer Jordan Romano.

The right-hander was one of the best in all of baseball for four consecutive seasons from 2020 to 2023, but 2024 was a major road bump.

Romano dealt with a major elbow injury which held him out from the beginning of July through the end of the season, and on top of that he was dreadful in the 15 appearances he did make with a 6.59 ERA and a strikeout rate that plummeted.

Despite that, Philadelphia took the chance that he would be able to get back to his prior form after undergoing surgery and handed him a one-year deal worth $8.5 million.

To start the season, that risk looked like it had backfired severely, with Romano struggling with a dip in velocity and pitching to an ugly 15.75 ERA over his first five appearances.

However, when speaking to media before the game on Thursday, the right-hander told media -- as relayed by Todd Zolecki of MLB.com -- that the team discovered a mechanical issue which both he and they believe had led to his drop in velocity and struggles.

Hours later, Romano responded with his best outing of the season by far in a high-leverage situation with a tie game in the eighth inning.

Getting his velocity back up to a peak of a 97 mph range and averaging nearly 96, Romano came in and threw a scoreless, hitless inning in which he threw just 12 pitches, 10 of them being for strikes.

Romano will still have to prove that he has put the struggles behind him after a rough showing last year and an even worse start to the season this year, but if he is correct and it was simply a correctable mechanical issue causing his problems, it is a massive development for the Phillies.

A massive part of the team's best regular season and first division title since 2011 last year was relying on a bullpen that was borderline elite, and Philadelphia will need it to be that way once again.

Getting Romano back to his form of two years ago would go a long way towards making that happen.

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