PITTSBURGH — Do the Phillies have a Jose Alvarado problem?
Not the question they wanted to ponder directly out of the All-Star break.
Alvarado blew a save Friday night in an 8-7 walk-off loss to the Pirates, allowing four of the five hitters he faced to reach base.
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The Phillies blew a pair of three-run leads and stranded 11 baserunners, so Alvarado was far from the only culprit.
Yet still, his recent issues are hard to overlook. He has allowed seven runs and 13 baserunners in his last 4⅓ innings. The Phillies won four of those five games so it stood out less than it did Friday at PNC Park.
"Things are not going the way I want to, but I feel good (physically)," Alvarado said. "Baseball is just like that. It's hard when you come into bigger moments and you lose the game, but that's the game.
"What I think is it's not about how we start, it's how we finish it. I've always had in my mind that it's how we finish. I'm just going through a rough time right now but I'll keep working and giving the best of myself and we'll see at the end of the year how it worked out for me."
Philadelphia Phillies
Alvarado threw his sinker 100 mph so velocity wasn't a problem. He just caught too much plate, the Pirates put the bat on the ball and they found holes. He also didn't help himself by walking Andrew McCutchen on five pitches to put the winning run on base and then losing track of both baserunners, who executed a double steal.
"It looks like the stuff's there, velocity's there, the shapes are there, he's just not getting much swing-and-miss so he must be missing over the plate," manager Rob Thomson said. "I've seen a lot of guys go through this during the course of the year and they fight out of it and he will."
The Phillies have been here before with Alvarado. In 2022, he struggled early and was optioned to the minor leagues just before Memorial Day, then returned and was mostly lights-out from that point through the end of the 2023 season.
Sometimes a struggling reliever benefits from spending a week or two in low-leverage situations. The Phillies have two other effective lefties in their 'pen with late-game experience in Matt Strahm and Gregory Soto, so they could simply swap out Alvarado with one of them until Alvarado recaptures his rhythm.
"If that's what needs to be done, then I'll certainly do it," Thomson said.
The Phillies had a rested bullpen coming out of the All-Star break and Thomson managed aggressively, turning to Soto after Aaron Nola threw 80 pitches over five innings. Nola showed rust early in the game after a seven-day layoff. The Phillies scored three runs for him in the top of the first but he gave them right back in the bottom half. They staked him to another lead in the fourth and the Pirates again responded right away.
"A lot of stressful pitches early," Thomson said. "Going into the game, we were kind of thinking a 90-95 pitch limit just to back him off a little bit because he's gonna be going on regular rest the next time."
The Phillies carried a three-run lead into the bottom of the seventh inning with their usually effective bullpen formula of Orion Kerkering, Jeff Hoffman and Alvarado ready to enter. Kerkering had a rare misstep, allowing multiple runs for the first time in his 46 big-league appearances.
Hoffman followed by striking out the side in order in the eighth, but Alvarado couldn't hold down the top of the Bucs' order in the ninth.
"He'll bounce back," Nola said of Alvarado. "Strike one's the key with him. Ball squirted through the hole and a high one-hopper with the infield playing in. Just kinda unfortunate, but he'll get back, nobody's worried about him."
Except for, perhaps, a fanbase still haunted by Joe Carter, Yordan Alvarez and the idea of this juggernaut Phillies team being undone by an untimely bullpen meltdown.