Philadelphia Phillies Season in Review: José Alvarado

Philadelphia Phillies lefty José Alvarado arguably went from the worst reliever in baseball by the end of May, to MLB's best by the end of the regular season.

The hype when Ken Giles debuted was inescapable, well, as inescapable as the 2014 Philadelphia Phillies could possibly be, which is to say, very escapable.

The Phillies were finally going to have a fireballer of their very own, a reliever who could throw 100 mph. Citizens Bank Park sat with bated breath whenever he was brought into a game during his rookie season, and in 45.2 innings that year he pitched to a 1.18 ERA out of the bullpen.

Just eight seasons later, 100 mph is commonplace, in fact, fans and coaches alike needed one thing from José Alvarado: to throw slower.

On May 25 of 2022, Alvarado was demoted to Triple-A. His ERA was a dizzying 7.62 and he'd walked 10 batters over his 13.0 innings pitched on the season. Eight of those walks came in his last 5.1 innings.

Something changed at Lehigh Valley for Alvarado. Perhaps he finally understood his career could be fading, or maybe someone came to him with a new plan for the first time, but Alvarado finally decided to throw the cutter as a primary pitch.

Over his final three appearances before his demotion, Alvarado threw his cutter 18%, 11% and 27% of the time, respectively, on May 21, 22 and 25.

In his first appearance back in the Majors, things looked more of the same as Alvarado surrendered two runs on two walks and two hits in 1.0 inning, but then the streak began.

Over his next three appearances he threw the cutter 25%, 73% and 67% of the time, respectively. 

Now, setting up his sinking fastball with superior command, Alvarado became the dominant relief force he always should have been.

From June 16 to July 17, he pitched 12.2 innings, walked six and struck out 24, yielding not a single earned run.

From the least reliable arm in the Phillies' pen, José Alvarado had climbed to the most dominant in the span of just one month.

Hitters hate this one simple trick!

Though he did have a blowup outing on July 23 in the 10th inning against the Chicago Cubs, Alvarado surrendered no walks. The Phillies defense betrayed him as bleeders got past the Phillies infield for two hits. The three earned runs he allowed that night were more than he would give up for the next two and a half months combined.

By Oct. 7, and the end of the season, Alvarado's ERA fell from 5.19 to 3.18. In his final 24.0 innings he had 39 strikeouts and six walks, yielding just two runs, only one of which came on the long ball.

By September, Alvarado was manager Rob Thomson's go-to high-leverage reliever, his role becoming ever more important after the late-August injury to Seranthony Domínguez.

Alvarado had redeemed himself. . .

But the postseason followed, and so too the nightmares for the Phillies best second-half reliever.

In Game 1 of the NLWCS, Alvarado came into a high-leverage situation in the seventh inning and surrendered a two-run, go-ahead home run to Juan Yepez. Thankfully that incident is less remembered than the Phillies six-run ninth inning comeback, but that wasn't the only back-breaking incident of Alvarado's postseason.

A week later on Oct. 15 Alvarado gave up a meaningless home run to Travis D'Arnaud during NLDS Game 4 at home. But, the first true disaster came in World Series Game 4 against the Houston Astros.

After avoiding calamity closing out Game 1 of the NLCS in San Diego after a costly error, Alvarado reverted to his old self. Entering a tie game in the fifth inning with the bases loaded and no outs, Alvarado hit Yordan Álvarez to drive in a run. Four more Astros crossed the plate that inning and it was all the offense the Astros needed that night to tie up the series at two games a piece.

Of course, that's not the postseason moment Alvarado will be remembered for.

Now, standing next to Joe Carter for the most heinous moments in Phillies World Series Game 6 history is Álvarez, who crushed a go-ahead, three-run home run off Alvarado to take the lead and win for the World Series for the Houston Astros.

Alvarado's 2022 shouldn't be boiled down and remembered for that one moment. He ended the season with a 1.92 FIP, his Baseball Savant page as red as Citizens Bank Park in October.

Just because Thomson put Alvarado in a bad spot, having faced Álvarez one too many times in that series, doesn't mean that his season wasn't a resounding success.

Final Grade: A-

The Phillies found a gem in Alvarado, who became the best reliever in baseball for the second-half of the season. If he can keep it up through 2023 the Phillies will be hard pressed to let him walk in free agency.

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