Blame the Short Bench

Thirteen of the current 25 Phillies roster spots are taken up by pitchers. Add 8 starting position players and that leaves you with 4 bench players as possible substitutes and pinch hitters. Last night, manager Gabe Kapler used 7 relief pitchers to get 18 outs. Hector Neris, Luis Avilan, and Pat Neshek COMBINED to face a total of 4 hitters. That's just insanity. At least Neris had the decency to record 2 outs.

The lack of bench players leads to situations like Tuesday night, when Kapler was forced to use Vince Velasquez, a starting pitcher, as a pinch-runner for the gimpy and slow Wilson Ramos. Velasquez tagged up too soon on a fly ball to center, and was called out on a game-ending appeal play. Kapler did have Maikel Franco available, but he was on deck to pinch-hit for Neshek, Tuesday's closer du jour.

Does anyone else think having 8 guys (32 percent of the roster) in the bullpen is maybe a little excessive? Wouldn't another bat off the bench (or actual knowledgable baserunner) make more sense? No Phillies pitcher has thrown a complete game this season. The last Phillies complete game was thrown by Zach Eflin, who beat the Pirates 4-0 on July 22, 2016. That's right, the Phillies have gone more than 2 whole years without a complete game from a starting pitcher.

Is one less arm in the bullpen going to make that big of a difference? I know managers are hyper-focused on pitching matchups, but come on, 3 pitchers facing 4 hitters? Stuff like that leads to losses like Tuesday, where pitchers are forced to become pinch-runners and ballgames get lost.