Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips caught too much of the plate with a full-count fastball to Junior Caminero on Saturday night, and the Tampa Bay slugger drove the 96-mph pitch 418 feet over the center-field wall for a game-tying home run in the ninth inning of a 9-8, 10-inning loss to the Rays.
Phillips then struck out the next three batters, Christopher Morel, Dylan Carlson and Jonny DeLuca, all looking at perfectly placed pitches, knee-high, 84-mph sweepers on the outside corner to Morel and Carlson and a knee-high 95-mph fastball to DeLuca.
The four-batter sequence was a microcosm of the past two months for Phillips, who pitched so poorly in July that he lost the closer job he held for 2023 and the first half of 2024, but has been so dominant in August he’s back near the top of the “trust tree” that manager Dave Roberts uses to describe his bullpen hierarchy.
“I think Evan is commanding the fastball,” Roberts said when asked to describe the differences between the July and August versions of Phllips. “He throws 96-97 mph, sometimes 98 mph, and when he’s really good, he doesn’t walk guys, he gets ahead of guys, and then he can get guys to chase.
“When he wasn’t good, he was ball one, working from behind. I felt he was trying to be too fine or to nibble. And now … he’s working both sides of the plate, he’s mixing in the slider, and he’s able to get left and right out. This is the guy that I’ve counted on.”
Phillips, 29, was dominant in his first 14 games of the season, giving up one earned run in 13 ⅔ innings for an 0.66 ERA, converting all eight of his save opportunities, holding opposing batters to a .196 average and .470 on-base-plus-slugging percentage and giving up just one home run through May 3.
The right-hander missed the rest of May because of a right-hamstring strain, and he was effective for 11 games after his June 1 return, giving up three earned runs in 10 innings for a 2.70 ERA and converting all five of his save opportunities. But under the surface, trouble was brewing.
“Coming off the hamstring issue, I was fighting to get my lower body back a little bit, and that alone can lead to some inefficiencies in my delivery,” Phillips said. “I was a little bit out of sync, and what we talk about around here is, ‘Hey, if it’s 10% out of whack, then that 10% can make a big difference in executing a pitch or not.’ ”
Phillips was nicked for single runs in three of five games from June 30 to July 12 and suffered a ninth-inning meltdown at Detroit on July 13, when he gave up a two-out RBI single to Matt Vierling and a score-tying two-run homer to Carson Kelly. The Tigers went on to win 11-9 in 10 innings.
But it wasn’t until his next game, when he gave up a two-run homer on an 83-mph sweeper middle-in to Tyler O’Neill in the 10th inning of a 7-6 victory over the Boston Red Sox in Dodger Stadium on July 20, that alarm bells started ringing.
“I gave up a homer on a slider in the zone, where my hope was to get it out of the zone, and the red flags started to go off in my head,” Phillips said. “That alerted us to the fact that something’s not syncing up here. If my brain is expecting this, and my result is this, that’s a problem. So we got under the hood and started working on it that day.”
There was an increased emphasis on his lower body in the weight room — Phillips had shied away from lower-body lifts fearing he might re-injure his hamstring — mechanical adjustments to better align the upper and lower body in his delivery and greater attention given to game-planning and pitch sequences.
The results were not immediate. Phillips entered with a 9-3 lead in the ninth inning of the following night’s game against the Red Sox and gave up three runs and three hits, including Jarren Duran’s two-run double, and walked two before being replaced by Daniel Hudson, who got the final two outs of a 9-6 win.
By the time Phillips gave up two runs and four hits without recording an out in the sixth inning of a 7-6 loss at Houston on July 27, he had been rocked for 11 earned runs and 16 hits — four of them homers — in 8 ⅔ innings for an 11.42 ERA in 11 games from June 30 to July 27, his season ERA jumping from 1.52 on June 29 to 4.18.
“That game in Houston was probably a good turning point for me because I had made adjustments, I had made better pitches, and I just couldn’t get an out,” Phillips said. “That’s like the baseball gods working against you. But I was able to flush that out, move on to Oakland and put up two good outings, and those rolled into the next one.
“I had a very clear plan of what I was trying to do in the weight room. We started to do some more precise game-planning with certain hitters so there was no confusion on the mound. There have been instances this year where I’ve had doubts about what pitch to throw, so there are meetings with coaches and catchers to address that doubt.”
Phillips lost the closing job to Hudson in early July, but he reclaimed a high-leverage role by going 1-0 with an 0.96 ERA in 11 games since Aug. 2, a stretch in which he has allowed one earned run and six hits — one of them a homer — struck out 16 and walked one in 9 ⅓ innings.
Hard-throwing right-hander Michael Kopech, who is 2-0 with a 0.79 ERA and two saves in 11 games since he was acquired from the Chicago White Sox on July 29, and Hudson, who is 6-2 with a 2.61 ERA and 10 saves in 53 games after missing most of the past two seasons because of knee injuries, will continue to close games.
But Roberts said he is “confident” that he can summon Phillips to nail down the final three outs of a game when Kopech or Hudson aren’t available or if they pitch in higher-leverage, eighth-inning situations. No matter what inning he pitches, Phillips believes he is primed for success.
“I’m not getting too caught up in the highs of this positive stretch, where the box scores are prettier,” Phillips said. “As long as I put myself in the best position physically and mentally, and I’m clear and convicted out there on the mound, the results are going to be what they are.”
Short hops
Scans on Shohei Ohtani’s left forearm were negative after the Dodgers slugger was hit by a 92-mph sinker from Rays left-hander Richard Lovelady in the eighth inning of Sunday’s 3-1 win over Tampa Bay. Ohtani remained in the game and scored on Mookie Betts’ tie-breaking two-run homer. … Veteran outfielder Jason Heyward, designated for assignment last Thursday to clear a roster spot for utility man Chris Taylor, cleared waivers and was released over the weekend, according to the team’s transaction log. He is now a free agent.
