There is no timetable for Jose Alvarado's return to the Phillies, but manager Rob Thomson said, "Yes," Tuesday afternoon when asked if the team expected the lefty back this season.
Alvarado is dealing with an undisclosed personal matter and was placed on the restricted list just before Monday's series opener against the Astros. There is no defined timetable when a player is placed on the restricted list and Thomson said he had "no idea" Monday night when asked how much time Alvarado might miss.
Alvarado is a beloved teammate and the Phillies will obviously support him through whatever he's dealing with. His absence will be felt even though he hadn't been pitching up to his capabilities. Alvarado is one of the Phillies' late-inning weapons, particularly against left-handed sections of a lineup. A strength of the Phillies' bullpen is the flexibility Thomson is afforded with three lefties in Alvarado, Matt Strahm and Tanner Banks, along with three strong right-handed options in Carlos Estevez, Jeff Hoffman and Orion Kerkering.
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Without Alvarado, Banks and Kerkering become more important.
"I look at it like Kerkering is kind of a lefty too because he's got good splits against lefties, so we still have three lefties in the 'pen in my mind," Thomson said Tuesday afternoon. "Banks is going to have to take down a little bit of a bigger role."
The 'pen could be thin on Tuesday night. Estevez and Strahm have both appeared in back-to-back games and Thomson rarely uses a reliever three in a row. That would leave Hoffman, Kerkering and Banks as the leverage arms behind Aaron Nola. It helps that the Astros skew right-handed. Their best hitter, Yordan Alvarez, is a lefty slugger, but their other healthy threats — Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Yainer Diaz, Jeremy Peña — hit from the right side. They really miss Kyle Tucker.