WASHINGTON -- As the Phillies look to fill the void in their rotation without Andrew Painter, righty Alan Rangel will be given the opportunity to claim the spot.
In Monday’s series opener against the Nationals, Rangel passed his first test.
Hours after his recall from Triple-A Lehigh Valley, Rangel tossed a career-high five innings, limiting the Majors’ highest scoring team (in runs per game) to one run and five hits, with four strikeouts and no walks. The Phillies, though, were unable to give Rangel the necessary run support and ultimately fell to Washington, 4-1, on Monday at Nationals Park after an hour and 32-minute rain delay.
“He was in the strike zone,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “It was good to see. He had a little bit of traffic, but he seemed to work out of it. Didn’t rattle him at all.”
Rangel was making just his second big league appearance this season, tossing three innings of relief against the Cubs on April 22. But Mattingly said pregame that Rangel will get an extended look with this promotion.
“At this point, we’ve kind of made a commitment to that spot,” Mattingly said. “I’m not saying we’re making a commitment to a full start every time -- it could be an opener, it could be starting.”
But at the very least, the 28-year-old, who has spent parts of 12 seasons in the Minors, will get his shot.
“I’m mindful of the process that I’ve had to go through to get here,” Rangel said via team interpreter Diego D’Aniello. “My mindset is whenever the team needs me, I’ll be ready to go and if a spot like this comes up and they need me, I’ll be willing to help the team win any way that I can.”
Against the Nationals, the Phillies went with lefty Tim Mayza as an opener. James Wood led off the first with a double and scored two batters later when Dylan Crews ripped a single to right.
Rangel came on for the second, with Luis García Jr. belting an 80 mph changeup deep to right field for his 11th home run of the season. The one-out blast gave the Nationals a 2-0 lead, but Rangel held the Nationals in check from there.
Relying primarily on off-speed offerings, Rangel threw 51 of his 72 pitches for strikes and delivered first-pitch strikes to 13 of the 21 batters he faced. He avoided any sustained rallies and worked out of traffic with the Nationals putting a runner on base in each of his five innings.
Rangel said postgame that he believes he can seize the opportunity and that his repertoire is built for sustained success.
“I think it’s consistency in attacking the hitters and being able to attack the hitters early, especially first-pitch strikes,” he said via D'Aniello. “That consistency of attacking hitters and with the mix that I have- I can throw my fastball up and then come with my changeup -- I think that mix, and being able to stay consistent, is something that can help us.”
Rangel faced Wood twice with a runner on first and struck him out swinging on changeups both times. With a runner on second and two out in the sixth, Rangel finished his night striking out Nasim Nuñez on three pitches.
Brandon Marsh got the Phillies on the board in the seventh with a solo homer to right off Nationals lefty Foster Griffin. Marsh’s 10th homer of the season snapped a personal 1-for-18 funk and came moments after a pep talk from Bryce Harper.
“That’s just him being the leader that he is,” Marsh said of Harper. “He could see that I may have been overthinking a little bit up there, so he just came and put his hands on me and told me, ‘Stop thinking so much and go be you.’ Super thankful for that. It definitely brought me back. … He was just talking to me from experience and being the leader that he is. It was a special moment.”
Marsh’s homer, though, was the only scoring the Phillies could muster against Griffin, who threw a career-high 7 1/3 innings, allowing one run and four hits with nine strikeouts and no walks.
The Nationals added insurance in the last of the seventh with Curtis Mead’s two-run homer off Seth Johnson.