ATLANTA \u2014 Jes\u00fas Luzardo, scratched from his scheduled start against the Atlanta Braves with shoulder stiffness, received encouraging news Saturday after an MRI revealed some inflammation but no structural damage to his shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of what we thought,\u201d interim manager Don Mattingly said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t feel like there was anything truly going on other than the inflammation just causing stiffness, things like that. I do think it was the right thing to do (scratching him) last night. He would have taken the ball, but we just didn\u2019t know what that pushes to the next one, then we\u2019re doing this the rest of the year. It was better to take care of it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club and Luzardo remain in wait-and-see mode to see if three days without throwing eases the stiffness, but are optimistic about the pitcher\u2019s prognosis in the meantime. They have no choice. Luzardo, who ascended to stardom this summer, is invaluable to the Phillies\u2019 plans as the postseason looms. He has been one of the best starters in the sport since June, boasting a 2.01 ERA \u2014 best in the National League and second in all of baseball. Any lingering issue with Luzardo would be a devastating blow to the Phillies\u2019 postseason outlook \u2014 particularly given his strength as a starter and reliever.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Luzardo said he\u2019s dealt with soreness for a bit, but it worsened days after his complete game on Monday. He felt good during the outing, he said, as well as the next day. Then, the feeling worsened. He has struggled to get loose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of an up-and-down thing,\u201d Luzardo said. \u201cOne day I feel really good. One day I don\u2019t feel too good. So it\u2019s just kind of been bouncing back and forth. But again, I think we\u2019re making strides in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Luzardo threw a relaxed bullpen session Friday in Atlanta, the Phillies convened and decided to scratch him from his scheduled start on Saturday. In that conversation, Luzardo told his coaches, \u201cIf today was Game 7 of the World Series, I\u2019m throwing no matter what.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut to get to that point,\u201d Luzardo said, \u201cit\u2019s probably better to be smart now than it is to throw today and see my body getting worse throughout the next couple weeks. We\u2019d rather get it (solved) right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Luzardo said he is more frustrated about the timing of the inflammation, but he isn\u2019t worried about it long term. He views this as something that will go away on its own. He dealt with shoulder problems as a young pitcher, including a shoulder strain that kept him from starting the season in the Athletics\u2019 rotation as a rookie in 2019, but said his current situation is much better.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Luzardo will take a few days off, then reevaluate things after Monday\u2019s off-day. How he feels is of the utmost importance with the postseason just two weeks away; the Phillies will need him to anchor one of the sport\u2019s top rotations should they hope to make a deep run in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to put a timetable (on it) right now \u2014 like, when is going to be his next start? Where\u2019s he going to be in three days? \u2014 just seems silly to try to do that,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cIt\u2019s more, (let\u2019s) listen to his body. We\u2019ve gotten good news. Let\u2019s take care of it and see where we\u2019re at.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 Jes\u00fas Luzardo, scratched from his scheduled start against the Atlanta Braves with shoulder stiffness, received encouraging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[21850,363,480,99],"class_list":["post-845841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-fantasy-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}