Suárez stellar (again) ... minus one costly mistake

HOUSTON -- No big league team hits left-handed pitching better than the right-handed-heavy Astros.

"Well, our lefties get righties out, too," Phillies manager Rob Thomson pointed out prior to Tuesday night's series opener. "It's a challenge, but ... "

It was one Ranger Suárez was up for -- until his 99th pitch.

Suárez cruised through seven innings before his one mistake proved costly in the Phillies' 1-0 loss at Daikin Park. With one out in the bottom of the eighth inning, Suárez left a cutter out over the plate for Cooper Hummel, who hit it into the bullpen in right-center field for the only run of the game.

"It's just baseball," Suárez said via a team interpreter. "You can't miss pitches at this level, and I paid for it. You saw what happened on that pitch."

Suárez took a no-hit bid into the sixth inning, needing only 50 pitches to navigate those first five frames -- and Houston's only close calls for a hit were both snuffed out by Suárez himself.

After retiring the first 10 batters, Suárez walked Isaac Paredes with one out in the fourth. The left-hander promptly erased the Astros' first baserunner when he snagged Jose Altuve's line-drive comebacker and tossed to first for a double play. One inning later, Suárez quickly ducked his head out of the way and snared a liner off the bat of Cam Smith.

"I mean, both plays were really tough and I got scared on both," Suárez said. "First play, it's going right toward my crotch, and then the next one to the face. It's a little scary."

Making those plays even more impressive is the fact that Suárez made them both with teammate Cristopher Sánchez's glove.

Why, you ask?

"I just forgot my glove back in Philly," Suárez said with a smile.

Glove aside, Suárez looked exactly as he has for the past six weeks. He allowed just one run over 7 2/3 innings while striking out seven and walking two.

Since his rocky season debut after missing the first month of the season, Suárez is 6-2 with a 1.17 ERA over 61 1/3 innings in his past nine starts. Going back to when the mound was lowered in 1969, the only other Phillies pitchers to throw that many innings with an ERA that low over a nine-start span are Cliff Lee (2011) and Hall of Famer Steve Carlton (1972).

Oh, and Suárez also did it himself last year.

"He's been huge," manager Rob Thomson said. "You can pretty much book six or seven innings every time. He's just been incredible, he really has."

Suárez has gone at least six innings in each of his past nine starts -- and he's completed seven in six of those. Tuesday night, however, marked the first time this season he's recorded an out in the eighth.

With Suárez's pitch count at just 91 pitches and the bottom of the order due up, Thomson felt confident trying to get one more inning out of him.

"He was phenomenal," Thomson said. "... I felt good about sending him back out for the eighth. He still had pitches left, I thought he was in command of the game. He just left a cutter up in the zone, middle of the plate. That's the way it goes."

Suárez's latest gem came against a Houston lineup consisting entirely of right-handed hitters. The Astros entered the night with an MLB-leading .811 OPS against left-handed pitchers.

While teams have attempted to adjust to Suárez by loading their lineups with righties, he's countered right back. In 2023, righties hit .278 with a .775 OPS against him. Last year, they hit .240 with a .668 OPS.

Even before his stellar outing on Tuesday, right-handed batters were hitting just .230 with a .612 OPS against Suárez.

"I'm used to not having lefties against me any more," Suárez said. “I just try to locate every single pitch and go for it."

With Suárez proving previously he can be just as dominant out of the bullpen, some pundits have floated the idea that he could be moved to the ‘pen in October given the Phillies’ rotation depth. That seems almost impossible if Suárez is pitching anything like he is right now.

“That was never brought up to me,” said Suárez, who is in the final year of his contract. “I always wanted to be a starter -- that's my usual role and that's what I wanted to do.

“That being said, what I want is for this team to win and I think I'm open to do whatever it takes to help this team win. If that's relieving or whatever, I'm just always open and willing to help this team.”