CHICAGO \u2013 The Phillies placed another important player on the injured list Wednesday as catcher J.T. Realmuto went down with lower back spasms.<\/p>\n
Realmuto first tweaked his back on a play at the plate in Friday\u2019s game against Atlanta. He exited Saturday\u2019s game early, did not play Sunday or Monday and returned to the lineup in Tuesday night\u2019s 7-4 loss to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Realmuto felt tightness in his back again late in that game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s sore,\u201d manager Rob Thomson said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a few days before he\u2019s going to be pain free. That\u2019s why we decided to put him on the IL. We think he\u2019s going to be back at the 10-day mark.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Phillies added veteran backup Garrett Stubbs to the 40-man roster and brought him up from Triple-A. He is expected to catch Cristopher Sanchez in Thursday afternoon\u2019s series finale against the Cubs. Rafael Marchan got the starting assignment behind the plate Wednesday night. Thomson said he was undecided how he would set the catching rotation for the series in Atlanta, which begins Friday night. To make room for Stubbs on the 40-man roster, the Phils transferred pitcher Max Lazar to the 60-day IL.<\/p>\n
The Phillies, mired in a seven-game losing streak entering Wednesday night and sporting a disappointing 8-15 record, have several key players on the IL. Realmuto joins ace starter Zack Wheeler, closer Jhoan Duran (oblique) and setup man Jonathan Bowlan (groin). Bowlan and Duran are both throwing and expected back soon. Wheeler, who had surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome in September, has completed his minor-league rehab and will start Saturday night in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had this in the past,\u201d Thomson said of the spate of injuries. \u201cIt\u2019s time for guys to step up and I expect that. It\u2019s why you have depth and we\u2019ve got depth.<\/p>\n
\u201cStubbs has played a lot of meaningful baseball here in Philadelphia so I feel good about that. Our relievers are getting a little bit overworked but they\u2019re doing fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those relievers, lefty Jose Alvarado, left Tuesday night\u2019s game with back spasms, but he was feeling better Wednesday and remains active.<\/p>\n
SCHWARBER LEADS OFF<\/p>\n
Thomson flip-flopped Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner in the lineup, batting Schwarber lead off for the first time this season as Turner slid down to second.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust to mix it up,\u201d Thomson said. \u201cJust split those guys up a little. The Cubs have got all those lefties. We\u2019re just trying to figure out a way to score some runs. I know we\u2019re going to at some point, but just try to help the process a little.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Phillies entered Wednesday night ranked 13th\u00a0(of 15 teams) in the NL in runs per game at 3.48. They had scored just 14 runs in the previous seven games, all losses.<\/p>\n
Schwarber likes batting leadoff. He hit there regularly in 2022, 2023 and 2024 before spending most of 2025 hitting second behind Turner.<\/p>\n
Bryce Harper was the DH Wednesday as Schwarber played the field for the first time this season, getting the nod in left field. Rookie Felix Reyes played first base as the Cubs sent lefty Matthew Boyd to the mound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2013 The Phillies placed another important player on the injured list Wednesday as catcher J.T. Realmuto went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,17086],"class_list":{"0":"post-173381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-philadelphia","9":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","10":"tag-philadelphia-news","11":"tag-phillies-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}