The Phillies are banking on the notion that a couple extra days rest is all righthander Taijuan Walker needs to rediscover his velocity, which has been missing in action during recent starts.
The good news is that, if Plan A works, the Phillies have at least one scheduled off day every week but one for the remainder of the regular season. That would allow them to continue with some variation of the six-man rotation they’ve been using since Michael Lorenzen was acquired at the August 1 trade deadline.
“He said it’s August and he’s just kind of hit a wall,” the manager said. “We’ll see how he recoups here in the next couple days and then put a rotation together after that. We could go with a variation of the 6-man rotation. Or we could piggyback. Because Lorenzen’s innings are way up. Sanchez’s innings are way up. So just monitor that, too.