Today’s Lineups
| PHILLIES | DIAMONDBACKS |
|---|---|
| Kyle Schwarber – 1B | Lars Nootbaar – LF |
| Trea Turner – SS | Corbin Carroll – RF |
| Bryce Harper – DH | Gabriel Moreno – DH |
| Luis Arraez – 2B | Geraldo Perdomo – SS |
| Bryson Stott – 3B | Nolan Arenado – 3B |
| Brandon Marsh – LF | Tim Tawa – 1B |
| Justin Crawford – CF | James McCann – C |
| J.T. Realmuto – C | Ildemaro Vargas – 2B |
| Bryan De La Cruz – RF | Jordan Lawlar – CF |
| Andrew Painter – RHP | Jose Cabrera – RHP |
The line-up above shows Cabrera as the “starter”: it’s quite possible he will end up throwing most innings today, but the actual first pitcher to take the mound today will be Taylor Clarke, in what looks likely to be a vaguely bullpen game for Arizona. There haven’t actually been too many of those this year for Arizona, compared to previous seasons. It’s hard to get an exact count, but simply looking at games where the “starter” has lasted two or fewer innings, seems to be the first bullpen game of 2026. The only <= 2 IP starts were Michael Soroka’s injury-curtailed one, and Ryne Nelson’s 0.1 IP, 8 ER outing.
There were two bullpen games last year, both with Jalen Beeks as the opener. But 2024 had six of them, starting as early as April 30 with Brandon Hughes. And if you’re thinking “who?” there, you’re probably not alone. Admittedly, there was a fairly good excuse. That was the famous “bee delay” game, which ended up icing Jordan Montgomery. But there was a genuine opener used by Arizona on May 20, when Joe Mantiply started in Dodger Stadium, and pitched a scoreless inning. It feels like it was something which was very much in vogue around the 2023-24 seasons, but has since fallen out of vogue.
There had been whispers in some circles that we might see Corbin Burnes come off the IL for this outing. But the team decided he was still not quite ready for prime-time. He would only have been able to throw about 45 pitches, and the team wants more. Torey Lovullo said, “We’re going to continue to allow Corbin to increase that overall pitch count in a setting we can control… He’s going to go out there and compete. We want to put him in the best situation possible for when he does re-enter our rotation, that he can pitch a little bit deeper into the game and not leave a little bit of a blank spot.” Should see him next week.
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