What To Watch For As Phillies Continue Weekend Series vs. Rangers

It's always nice to get the first one out of the way, and now the Phillies look for an opening series win over the Texas Rangers.

The Phillies will start Aaron Nola on Saturday and Jesus Luzardo on Sunday, doing so to split up their two lefties in Cristopher Sanchez and Luzardo. Eventually, perhaps out of the All-Star break, the Phillies could realign their rotation to slot Zack Wheeler back in toward the front, but that's a ways away.

The first homestand of 2026 has a chance to be very fruitful for the Phils. They next welcome in the lowly Washington Nationals, who should easily lose 100-plus games. The Phils will start Taijuan Walker, Andrew Painter and Sanchez in the series, and any contending team facing the Nats this season will be disappointed not to win at least two of three.

For Painter, it will be a soft landing spot in his MLB debut. For Sanchez, it's another chance to dominate. But first, the Phillies have two more games this weekend with Skip Schumaker's Rangers. They'll face former Cy Young right-hander Jacob deGrom on Saturday and lefty Mackenzie Gore on Sunday, which will mean the first starts for second baseman Bryson Stott and leftfielder Otto Kemp.

Nola's first start

There is intrigue surrounding Nola's season debut. He impressed all throughout spring training, both with the Phillies and with Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic. Nola allowed one run over nine innings in two starts for Italy, the second coming against the eventual tournament champion, Venezuela.

The Venezuela team Nola faced was far superior to the Rangers lineup he will face Saturday at 4:05 p.m. Nola faced Ronald Acuña Jr., Maikel Garcia, Luis Arraez, Eugenio Suarez, Ezekiel Tovar, Gleyber Torres, Wilyer Abreu, William Contreras and Jackson Chourio in the Venezuela game. That's close to an All-Star team. Nola limited them to just a run on a Suarez solo homer.

Beyond the results this month, Nola showed increased velocity, maxing out at 94.5 mph. His fastball sat closer to 88-90 in his first couple of starts of 2025. And for his career, he has averaged just 91.4 on his fastball before May 1.

It's not random coincidence. Nola long-tossed throughout the winter, which he doesn't usually do. He was able to because he missed half of last season with ankle and rib injuries. It resulted in him showing up to camp with more arm strength.

As promising as the spring was for him, the games didn't count until now. There will be some groans if Nola struggles, but he really has only one way to go and that's up after posting a career-worst 6.01 ERA last season.

The Phillies don't need him back in the low-3.00s, they just need quality starts out of Nola. If he gives them 20 quality starts out of 32, he will have done his job, even if the ERA is in the 4.00 range.

Luzardo on Sunday

Luzardo will look on Sunday to pick up where his fellow lefty rotation mate left off on Thursday. Sanchez stifled the Rangers with six scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts and no walks. He retired 19 of the final 20.

Luzardo is a different kind of lefty than Sanchez. He has more velocity with different secondary weapons. Sanchez typically relies on the changeup, Luzardo on the slider and sweeper.

Like Sanchez, Luzardo signed a contract extension in the weeks leading into the season. The Phillies guaranteed him $135 million ove five years, with the deal kicking in to begin 2027. What a buy-low he turned out to be. The Phillies acquired Luzardo just after the 2025 Winter Meetings in exchange for then-18-year-old shortstop prospect Starlyn Caba.

All Luzardo did was bounce back from an injury-ravaged 2024 to post career-highs in innings (183⅔), strikeouts (216) and wins (15) with his lowest-ever home run rate. Luzardo finished with a 3.92 ERA in 32 starts but 20 of the runs came in just 5⅔ innings in two starts around Memorial Day. His ERA in the other 30 starts was 3.03.

Left-handed-hitting Brandon Nimmo has seen him the most of any Ranger and has gone 6-for-20 with a double and a homer. Corey Seager, also a lefty, is 2-for-8 with a homer and four strikeouts. The rest of the Rangers team is 7-for-30 (.233) off Luzardo with one extra-base hit, a double.