Phillies, Brewers Series Preview
The Philadelphia Phillies will stay at Citizens Bank Park to take on the Milwaukee Brewers in a four-game series. The Phillies are coming off of a series loss to the Mets. Pitching struggled in that series, and the top of the fence screwed the Phillies. However, the Phillies will turn their fortunes around as the Brewers are coming as one of the hotter teams in baseball. Let’s take a look at the pitching matchups for each game.
Monday’s matchup will provide two starting pitchers that are having two completely different seasons. Adrian Houser will go for the Brewers, and Vinny V will go for the Phillies.
Houser originally was scheduled to start Sunday's series finale against the Dodgers, but the Brewers opted for a late change that pushed Houser back a day, which means he'll face the Phillies instead on an extra day of rest. He currently holds a 2-2 record with a 3.65 Earned Run Average and 19 strikeouts. Houser is a pitch-to-contact type pitcher. He gets a lot of ground ball outs.
Velasquez will get a third consecutive start in place of left-hander Matt Moore, who has not pitched since being placed into COVID-19 protocols. Velasquez has a 5.40 ERA in his first two starts this season. Overall in the course of the season, Vinny V has a 6.57 Earned Run Average. Vinny has struggled this season to do anything. He hasn’t had a good outing yet. He needs to do something to get going again.
Tuesday’s matchup will be a good one as we see Eric Lauer going against Aaron Nola. Lauer was thrown into the starting role against the Dodgers in his first start, tossing five scoreless innings on seventy-three pitches; Lauer gets his second start against the Phillies.
Aaron Nola has been off to a great start this season; however, he has slumped a little bit in the past two games, having a 4.85 Earned Run Average in those two starts. He will look to bounce back against the Brewers, in which he has a good track record. In six starts against the Brewers, he has a 3-0 record with a 2.97 ERA.
Wednesday’s matchup, we will see Freddy Peralta of the Brewers face off against Chase Anderson. Peralta is a high strikeout pitcher, with a lot of swing and miss type stuff. The Phillies have one of the highest strikeout ratios entering this series. Peralta, who has one the highest strikeout percentages with 40.2%, will look to wheel and deal against the Phillies.
Chase Anderson will take the mound opposing Peralta, and for Anderson, he is only the fourth Philly to make it into the sixth inning. He did so in his last start against the Mets. Let’s hope that this is a step in the right direction for Anderson because he needs to step it up big time for the Phillies.
Finally, we will see Brandon Woodruff and Zack Wheeler duel it out on the rubber match of this series. Woodruff has been exceptional so far for the Brewers, posting a 2-0 record with a 1.80 ERA and 40 strikeouts. He has had a good track record against the Phillies, only giving up one run in the 18 innings he has faced the Phillies.
Wheeler has been great for the Phillies this season. He did have some poor defense in the first inning against the Mets but then would shut them down the rest of the way. Wheeler has a 2-2 record with a 3.49 ERA and 41 strikeouts to his name. In five career starts against the Brewers, Wheeler is 1-1 with a 2.90 ERA. He looks to continue his dominance against the Brewers on Thursday.
Overall, the Phillies need to start winning some series. They need to start taking control of the wide-open National League East. A series win here would put them in the right direction for games to come.