Ranger Suárez beats the Braves, continuing his dominant run for the Phillies

Scott Lauber, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Jun 29, 2025

Published in Baseball

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ATLANTA — Ranger Suárez signed with the Phillies when he was 16 years old. And if these are, in fact, his last months with the team, he still has a few things left to accomplish.

Check back in October for a status report.

But let’s pause, just for a moment, in the midst of another midseason grind, to appreciate what Suárez is doing. Because who needs to hire super-agent Scott Boras to fuel a salary drive when you’re flooring it like Dale Earnhardt?

To recap what happened here Sunday: Suárez shut down the Atlanta Braves in a series-clinching 2-1 victory. Using his mix of cutters, sinkers, changeups, curveballs, and slider — and rarely topping 90 mph — the lefty scattered four hits (three singles), struck out eight, and finished off his day with a yawn of a six-pitch seventh inning.

“I was surprised at how easy that last inning was because usually as they go they get a little more tired and the last inning sometimes is a little more stressful,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said. “But I was almost asking [manager Rob Thomson] to send him out for another one.”

If the whole thing looked familiar, it was only because Suárez has been rinsing and repeating now for, oh, six weeks. Check out the numbers from his last 10 starts:

— 1.19 ERA

— 68 1/3 innings

— 0.92 walks/hits per inning

— .195 opponents’ batting average

Now, consider this: Suárez is the only pitcher in the majors this season to complete seven innings in five consecutive starts. (Tigers ace Tarik Skubal had a chance to join him Sunday night.)

Suárez is also the first Phillies pitcher since Cole Hamels in 2015 to throw at least seven innings and allow no more than two earned runs in six consecutive starts. His streak of 10 quality starts in a row is the longest by a Phillies pitcher since Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee in 2013.

All together now: "Cha-ching!"

“He’s changing speeds, he’s using all his pitches, he’s landing them, he’s keeping people off balance,” Thomson said. “I think he’s pitching better than I’ve ever seen him pitch.”

Somehow that includes even the first three months of last season, when Suárez won his first nine decisions, carried a 1.83 ERA through 16 starts and got selected to the All-Star team.

Only a back injury derailed Suárez in the second half. He worked only 36 2/3 innings after the All-Star break and had a 5.65 ERA in eight starts.

But when Suárez is healthy and pitching, he has a Jimmy Key quality (Google him, kids). Key, an underrated lefty with primarily the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees in the ‘80s and ‘90s, didn’t throw hard, but hit his spots with precision and got hitters to make weak contact, often on the ground.

Sounds like Suárez, doesn’t it?

“This is close to, if not the best that I’ve felt pitching,” Suárez said through a team interpreter. “I’m just thinking about going out there to pitch and try to enjoy it a little more. That makes me not think so much about pitching itself, but just so I can execute and just feel good on the mound.”

Added Realmuto: “He’s doing everything you want a pitcher to do, essentially, to be successful. It feels very similar to what he was doing last year.”

Suárez is making himself a rich man in the process. But before teams line up their best nine-figure offer in the offseason, there’s still the matter of going on another World Series run with the only club he has ever known.

After losing a 1-0 decision in his previous start, earlier in the week in Houston, it seemed Suárez might suffer the same fate. He gave up a towering homer to Sean Murphy in the second inning, and once again, the Phillies’ bats were muted, this time by hard-throwing Braves ace Spencer Strider.

But they tied the game in the fifth inning on an RBI double by rookie Otto Kemp, then took the lead by playing small ball. Brandon Marsh bunted Kemp to third base, and Kemp scored on Trea Turner’s sacrifice fly.

Suárez took it from there, at least until the eighth inning when the bullpen took over after his 96 pitches.

“It was a hot day,” Thomson said, “and I thought he was pretty much done.”

Orion Kerkering pitched a scoreless eighth, Matt Strahm survived a hard-contact, white-knuckle ninth, and the Phillies (49-35) closed a 2-4 road trip while still increasing their division lead to 1 1/2 games over the swooning New York Mets.

For that, they can thank the starting pitchers, who allowed a total of six runs on the six-game trip. Suárez, in particular, gave up two in 14 2/3 innings over two starts, full speed ahead in a NASCAR-style drive for a mega-contract.

“There’s been multiple times in the last couple weeks where we’ve kind of felt bad about how well [the Phillies] pitched and us not scoring any runs,” Realmuto said. “Hopefully we get hotter and hotter and give them a little more breathing room.”