PHILADELPHIA — Entering this World Series, if there was one especially obvious mismatch, it was the pitching depth.
The Astros had one of the best staffs in baseball, with rotation and bullpen alike enviably stacked, resulting in a 134 team ERA+. The Phillies, meanwhile, had … not that. Their best pitchers could certainly go toe to toe with the Astros’. But the depth simply was not comparable. That was put on full display in Game 1: The Phillies turned to one of their best relievers, José Alvarado, in the fifth inning, which meant that by the seventh, they needed to start pulling from their rotation. It worked. But it felt telling: This was the kind of aggressive maneuvering it would take for this pitching staff to win a World Series.
Or not. The Phillies flipped that formula on its head to win Game 3. They came out slugging and kept slugging some more. They got five scoreless innings from No. 3 starter Ranger Suárez. And then they turned it over to their bullpen—the rest of their bullpen. The Phillies did not use a single one of their high-leverage arms. Alvarado? Seranthony Domínguez? David Robertson? Not tonight. Instead, Philadelphia walked away with two victories in one: They got both a 7–0 win over Houston and an extra day of rest for their best relievers.
