Dissecting Jesús Luzardo's dominant start against the Diamondbacks
Just another fantastic start for Jesús Luzardo on Tuesday night against Arizona. The Phillies Postgame Live crew takes a closer look at what made the lefty so good.
Dissecting Jesús Luzardo's dominant start against the Diamondbacks originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Video Transcript
Jesus Luzardo was absolutely the pitcher of August.
He entered this one with a 1.31 ERA in the month of August.
He is our Eye on the Mound, brought to you by PGW.
And so that's where he came in, and he did not disappoint for the, first start of the first of the month.
I mean, this guy just threw a great baseball game.
He had some strike outs, but he made, Corbin Carroll look silly.
Yep.
He had absolutely no chance against him with that sweeper.
But his strike outs, obviously most of them coming on the sweeper.
That's his most effective pitch, and it was today.
He didn't have a ton of swing and miss.
You know, typically he would have a- a- a, you know, 12 or 15 swings and misses.
He only really had eight.
But he was pinpointing his fastball, he was getting soft contact, he was getting ahead of hitters, and he was putting them away.
And, it I mean, he's starting to really become a more complete pitcher.
Every time he goes out, you can see the confidence on the mound.
He knows he's going to get the job done.
His stuff's been great and his demeanor's been excellent.
It's been a joy to watch the man.
You can see right now their record, his last 18 starts, that goes back to mid-May, 16 and two.
And, and you talk about here's a guy that started the season, his ERA was almost six, well north of five.
It was like 5.7.
And now his ERA for the season is 3.02.
Yeah, think about that.
That's a really tough thing to do.
That's really hard to do, to lower it that much.
To, to, to bring your, yeah, to bring your ERA- Almost in half down that far, that far, over the course of time.
You only get so many shots at it.
It'll probably end up with 32 starts.
But, for him to be down in that, that three range is pretty extraordinary.
Yeah, I mean, especially when you're considering where he started the season.
And you mentioned on our pregame show, right now you would have him at the top of your list as far as how the order would go for the best pitchers on this rotation.
No question.
I mean, he, he has been the best pitcher.
Yeah.
He's been the most consistent.
When your team wins 16 out of the 18 games that you've pitched, it's win day.
And when you have that kind of record and you have that, And, and you know, the, and the players know it.
Mm-hmm.
Like, when you go out there on the field and Jesus Luzardo is towing the slab, the feeling on the field is way different.
We had that feeling when, when I played with Curt Schilling.
You felt like that was win day.
You know, there, there were times when you had that with Roy Halladay, that when he was on the mound, that was the win day.
And, and you saw that a lot during Zach Wheeler's, w- his tenure here in Philadelphia over the last six or seven years.
Yeah.
Same way.
Struggling a little bit lately, but that's sort of the feeling you get- Yep as a team.
And when you have a guy like that, and in this team you have a couple of guys like that- Mm-hmm that's a really good feeling.
Well, also a good feeling is exactly where the Phillies are in the standings, because it was a good day not only for them to get the win, but the Cubs lost and the Braves lost.
Braves lost to the Nationals.
So Phillies now just three back of the Braves.
You heard Bryce Harper talking to Tom McCarthy about that.
And they are now one up on the Cubs for that top spot in the wild card.
Top spot in wild card is so important.
Yes, obviously you want to catch the Braves.
That's all well and good.
But if you don't, staying in the top spot is so big because you get to host for three games of that wild card series.
I mean, that is, invaluable.
Yeah, really huge, especially for the Phillies.
They have that home field advantage.
I think, it There's a lot of teams that just do not want to come to CBP.
It is a house of horrors- Yes for some, for those teams.
They actually say it.
There's, there are, there are- Oh, the Braves know all too well.
Yeah.
We've talked, we've talked a lot about this, and I've talked to a lot of teams about it, and a lot of players.
Coaches, managers, they don't like coming to CBP- Mm-mm during the course of the playoffs 'cause they know how tough it is to win.
Really excited about the way they're playing baseball.
Hopefully they can continue all the way through this month, the next 23 games, and, and show the world that they're a real contender- Mm-hmm which they are certainly doing that.
