Ranger Suarez might be pitching for the Boston Red Sox now, but he still holds a significant presence in the Phillies’ clubhouse.
“I see him every day,” Jose Alvarado said with a laugh. “Right there in the hallway.”
Indeed, a large photo of Suarez hangs just outside the clubhouse door. The picture captures him, in full elation, embracing catcher J.T. Realmuto after registering the final out of the 2022 National League Championship Series. (See: Bedlam at the Bank).
A couple of weeks ago, before taking the field for pre-game work in Philadelphia, a handful of Phillies were talking about Suarez. They laughed recalling how funny he could be, laughed even more when they talked about how elusive he could be, how hard it was to get him on the phone or answer a text.
“Let’s FaceTime him,” someone said.
Suarez, in the clubhouse with his new Boston teammates, answered the call and had a good laugh with Alvarado, Zack Wheeler, Rafael Marchan, Jhoan Duran and head athletic trainer Paul Buchheit.
“I love you guys. I miss you guys. See you soon,” Suarez told his former mates before everyone had to get to work.
The “soon” is here now. The Phillies open a three-game series at Boston’s Fenway Park on Tuesday night. Suarez is scheduled to pitch the third game of the series Thursday night. Jesus Luzardo, the fellow left-hander who ostensibly has taken Suarez’ spot in the Phillies’ rotation, will be on the mound for the Phillies.
Suarez has not pitched since May 3, when he exited his start against Houston after four shutout innings because of right hamstring tightness.
After getting tagged for eight runs over 8 1/3 innings in his first two starts with his new club, Suarez has been on top of his game. In four of his five subsequent starts, he has not allowed a run. Twice he has pitched eight innings. He enters Thursday’s start 2-2 with a 2.77 ERA in seven starts. He sports an impressive WHIP of 0.949. His strikeouts, at 7.4 per nine innings, are down, but so are his hits allowed at 6.2 per nine. In other words, Suarez is “pitching,” getting some chase, limiting hard contact, getting outs. Just like old times.
“He moves the ball around so well,” catcher Garrett Stubbs said. “In today’s game, where everything is analytic, analytic, analytic, he doesn’t necessarily pop on the stuff models because he’s not a huge velocity guy. He pitches. He moves it around. He always had a game plan out there. It was hard sometimes because he had so many weapons and options. When I say hard, I mean choosing which weapon you were going to use. Front-door sinker. Back-door sinker. Cutter. Breaking ball. The big, slow curveball. Four-seamer. And that electric changeup. That’s a lot of weapons — which is why he got paid what he did when he went over to Boston.”
Suarez signed with the Phillies for $25,000 when he was a 16-year-old still learning to pitch back home in Venezuela in 2012. He spent 13 years with the organization, becoming a regular big-league contributor in 2021. Overall, he pitched in 187 regular-season games with the Phils and recorded a 3.38 ERA. He had amazing runs of success and other times was slowed by injury. He was immensely popular with fans for his smile and the cool, effortless way he went about his business.
“I have a lot of respect for him, especially when he’s on the mound because he’s got big (guts),” said Alvarado, a fellow Venezuelan. “And off the mound, he was so funny.”
Especially during those raucous postseason clubhouse celebrations.
“He’d throw beer, champagne, everything at me and I loved it,” Alvarado said with a laugh.
In the postseason, Suarez was always at his best. He pitched in 11 October games for the Phils, eight as a starter, three as a reliever, and registered a tiny 1.48 ERA in 42 2/3 innings. In addition to earning the save in the famous Bedlam at the Bank game, he picked up the Phillies’ only win in the 2025 postseason when he tossed five innings of one-run ball against the Dodgers in Game 3 of the NLCS.
“He performed at the highest level in the postseason,” Wheeler said. “He showed up. He had some hiccups through the years with injuries, but at the end of the day, when it really, really mattered, he was there and he performed and he helped us get to our furthest points, at least since I’ve been a Phillie, with the World Series and as deep as we made it other years. He’s one of the guys that helped us get to that point.
“He was a special part of this core and we don’t forget that. Especially as a starting pitcher. Maybe hitters kind of forget certain things like that, but as a starter, we kind of take pride in carrying that load and he really stepped up.”
With a bulging payroll and the desire to integrate youngster Andrew Painter into the rotation, the Phils were faced with a quandary this past winter. Suarez was 30, about to turn 31 in August, and there was quiet concern about his overall durability. Luzardo, who had come over the previous offseason in a trade with Miami, was two years younger. He was coming off a healthy and effective season for the Phillies in 2025.
Even at the time the Phillies traded for him in December 2024, Luzardo was seen as a potential replacement for Suarez, who was bearing down on free agency. That is exactly how it played out. The Phils made no real effort to retain Suarez and he signed with Boston for five years and $130 million. A few months later, the team extended Luzardo for five years and $135 million.
Time will ultimately offer judgment on the Phillies’ decision.
“I figured it was inevitable that he’d be somewhere else with the way the payroll is,” said Wheeler, who will pitch Tuesday night’s series opener in Boston. “We had Taijuan (Walker) at the time and Painter was coming. Things were kind of full. As good as Ranger is, they kind of didn’t have a spot. It’s the reality of baseball, the business side.
“Ranger was my locker buddy, two down from me. We got to know each other. He’d joke around. He could be loud at times, quiet at times. He knew the room, when to be a certain way. He knew how to carry himself. He was a lot of fun to be around because of that.
“Getting close with people and seeing them go other places is sad, disappointing, all the emotions. Especially when it’s a good person, a good teammate and a good player.”
Suarez was all of the above in Philadelphia.
“I miss him,” Alvarado said. “He did a lot of good things for our team. That’s why he means a lot to us.
“But this is business. He will try to beat us and we will try to beat him.”