Phillies Starter Showing Concerning Inconsistencies So Far This Season

Following a mediocre road trip for the Philadelphia Phillies last week, the team returned home to face the Arizona Diamondbacks in a three-game set. Unfortunately, their starter on Friday did not perform well.

It was a bad ending to the Phillies’ road trip against the San Francisco Giants. While losing a series is never ideal, Philadelphia was a team that was shut out in the last two games and certainly was hoping to bounce back at home.

Coming into the matchup, it was going to be a tough matchup on paper against a red-hot Michael Soroka. Fortunately, the offense wasted little time snapping a lengthy scoreless drought with a four-run first inning.

Bryce Harper helped get things going with an RBI double, and then it was Brandon Marsh with a three-run home run. It was great to see the team waste little time snapping their scoreless drought, but unfortunately, they did see their starter struggle.

Jesus Luzardo got the ball for Philadelphia on Friday, and with a second poor start this season, there is reason to be a bit concerned with his inconsistencies.

Luzardo Inconsistent So Far

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jesús Luzardo throwing the ball — Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jesús Luzardo | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

To begin the year, there have been some noticeable inconsistencies for the southpaw of the Phillies. To start the season, Luzardo had a really rough outing against the Texas Rangers. In that matchup, he allowed six runs in six innings of work. With the left-hander giving up six hits and two home runs, it was not the start to the season that he would have liked.

However, even though it was a bad performance in his season debut, he bounced back nicely against the Colorado Rockies. In his first win of the year, he totaled 6.2 innings pitched, allowing just one run, while striking out 11 batters. Colorado is not an easy place to pitch, but the ballpark had no impact on Luzardo.

Coming off the good start, hopes were high that he would build upon that. However, the southpaw struggled against the Arizona Diamondbacks, allowing five runs on five hits and three walks in 4.2 innings of work. Luzardo wasn’t pitching badly until his fifth inning of work, and Arizona was able to rally and make him pay.

While it might only be three starts, he has shown some inconsistencies early on. Considering the team is still without Zack Wheeler, the performance of Luzardo is very important for the long-term outlook of the team. Hopefully, he will be able to shake off a couple of these poor starts early on.