if he can find a pitcher he trusts<\/a>.<\/p>\nSchwarber is expected to participate but won\u2019t fully commit until he\u2019s sure his back will hold up. He missed a game in Washington late last month when his back locked up. He has played every game since Washington.<\/p>\n
Both players are expected to finalize their decisions by mid-week.<\/p>\n
KELLER SET TO RETURN<\/p>\n
The Phillies\u2019 bullpen will receive some reinforcement Tuesday night in Cincinnati when Brad Keller comes off the injured list. The right-hander has recovered from a bout of forearm tendinitis.<\/p>\n
Keller pitched two innings of minor-league rehab for Triple-A Lehigh Valley in recent days. He allowed two runs in his first outing but pitched a scoreless inning with a strikeout on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Phillies signed Keller to a two-year, $22 million contract over the winter to be one of the primary set-up men for closer Jhoan Duran. He pitched to a 4.15 ERA in 31 games before going on the IL after allowing three hits and three runs in a game at Milwaukee on June 13.<\/p>\n
With Keller out, Orion Kerkering has taken some eighth-inning reps and will continue to get the ball in high-leverage situations while Keller eases back in, manager Don Mattingly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m definitely comfortable with Kerk anywhere back there,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cOne thing I\u2019ve tried to do in the past, when you get a guy coming off the IL, you\u2019re probably not firing him into a bases-loaded, no-out situation. You try to give him somewhat of a clean inning, a little bit of a softer landing so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Either way, the back of the Phillies\u2019 bullpen could use another experienced arm so Keller\u2019s return should provide a boost.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANSAS CITY \u2013 The All-Star Home Run Derby is a week away, but Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,259266,82],"class_list":["post-784526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}