PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The last time before Monday night that Gordon Graceffo was on the field at Citizens Bank Park, 157 people were in attendance.<\/p>\n
That was four years and one week ago, the Bank opening its doors on a Friday afternoon to Villanova and Georgetown for a Big East game. Graceffo, in the midst of a stellar junior season, muted the Hoyas that afternoon over 7 2\/3 innings, tying a career-high with 10 strikeouts.<\/p>\n
Should Graceffo get into a game this week with the St. Louis Cardinals in town to play the Phillies, it\u2019s a safe bet it would top that memory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to a bunch of games here while I was in college, so I\u2019m familiar with it, but never really been playing here with the packed house, which will be really fun,\u201d Graceffo said Monday. \u201cIt\u2019s just nice to be here. It\u2019s nice to have all the memories of being here and coming back, and it\u2019ll be a really cool series.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graceffo has come a long way in those four years, with a couple of unusual turns along the way. A fifth-round pick of the Cardinals in 2021 after a junior campaign where he went 7-2 with a 1.54 ERA in 11 starts, Graceffo is only six appearances into his MLB career. But in four games this year, he has two wins, a save and elevated stuff that inspires confidence that he could stick long-term for the suddenly surging Cardinals, who beat the Phillies Monday night for their ninth straight win.<\/p>\n
Graceffo has long been a starter, one projecting to a medium-at-best ceiling in the bigs. (At the moment, he\u2019s ranked as the 16th-best prospect in the Cardinals system.) Excluding his rookie-ball season, 74 of 88 minor league appearances have been starts.<\/p>\n
His first call to the big leagues, in St. Louis on June 29, 2024, came as an inning-eating long man. But after that, things got weird.<\/p>\n
Graceffo\u2019s next three calls to the bigs were as the 27th man for doubleheaders. He gave up three runs in 3 1\/3 innings to get the loss against Kansas City on July 10 of last year, then got racked in an 18-7 loss to Boston on April 6.<\/p>\n
But then \u2026 things turned. Called up on April 30 for a doubleheader with Cincinnati, he went five innings, gave up one run and got the win. He stuck around and worked a scoreless inning for the win May 5 against Pittsburgh, then notched the save a day later, as manager Oli Marmol chops and changes his bullpen usage.<\/p>\n
And so, it\u2019s possible that Graceffo has carved something of a niche for the big league level, in a bullpen where trade rumors will swirl around All-Star closer Ryan Helsley for the next few months.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely allows me to get into a routine, I would say, and feel more like I\u2019m here, like it\u2019s a normal kind of situation, which is nice,\u201d Graceffo said. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s easier to pitch. You\u2019re able to pitch more free and able to work on what you\u2019ve been working on, stay within your process and stay within your routine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stability is both cause and symptom of a big offseason from Graceffo. Sample sizes are small \u2013 he\u2019s thrown 255 pitches to big-league hitters \u2013 but his stuff has ticked up big time. His four-seam fastball averaged 93.6 mph last year and is sitting at 95.1 this year. His slider has elite upside, and he\u2019s banging them in at 90.5 mph, a development that turned developmental heads in the Cardinals\u2019 system in spring.<\/p>\n
Much as Graceffo has held onto starting as long as possible, short relief offers a chance to go after hitters with his best stuff more often. That fastball-slider combo has potential as the basis for a reliever\u2019s more limited but potent arsenal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the tick up in velocity and how my stuff\u2019s playing now, it\u2019s just a product of the work I\u2019ve done in the offseason and in the beginning of the season,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just starting to feel like myself and starting to kind of figure it out, and seeing things click.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graceffo\u2019s sentimentality is limited this week. He grew up in Cranford, N.J., as a Yankees fan. His girlfriend is a Philly sports fan, though Graceffo has remained immune. (\u201cI really can\u2019t stand it,\u201d he said.) He was planning to have about 12 people in attendance Monday night and closer to 20 for the next two games, which due to Tuesday\u2019s rain are both scheduled to be played Wednesday.<\/p>\n
His group should include some of Villanova\u2019s staff and a few former teammates.<\/p>\n
Graceffo\u2019s glancing contact with the Phillies organization has been positive. In college, he and the Wildcats got to sit-in with then-manager Joe Girardi for a spring training workout in Clearwater, seeing how the players went about their business in a spring setting.<\/p>\n
That he could face some of those players from the bump at Citizens Bank Park is a career development that resonates as special.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really cool experience,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s weird being here, facing a lot of those guys that I saw when I was a college student.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: May 13, 2025 at 6:36 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The last time before Monday night that Gordon Graceffo was on the field at Citizens Bank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,25,185,673,67,4311,4310,9898],"class_list":{"0":"post-25449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-st-louis","14":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","15":"tag-stlouis","16":"tag-stlouiscardinals","17":"tag-top-stories-dtd"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114504460131576370","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}