CLEARWATER, Fla. – The Phillies\u2019 revamped bullpen was the talk of spring training on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Brad Keller, Jonathan Bowlan and Kyle Backhus each threw live sessions against the Phillies\u2019 best hitters, a group that included Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber.<\/p>\n
The new arms were impressive.<\/p>\n
Keller retired Harper and Schwarber on routine fly balls in the first session of the afternoon. Bowlan then struck out Turner and Schwarber in consecutive at-bats. Backhus kept everyone off balance with his funky sidearm delivery from the left side.<\/p>\n
Adding Keller, Bowlan and Backhus to a returning nucleus of Jhoan Duran, Orion Kerkering, Jose Alvarado and Tanner Banks makes for a potentially dominant collection of relievers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably the best group of arms that we\u2019ve had since I\u2019ve been here,\u201d Rob Thomson said following Thursday\u2019s workout.<\/p>\n
The manager was especially impressed with how Bowlan and Backhus fared against the club\u2019s veteran bats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were really good,\u201d Thomson said. \u201cBowlan was outstanding. He has a great arm, but he can really spin it too and he was throwing strikes. Backhus is a completely different look for people, that really low sidearm slot with velocity and sink. He filled up the strikes zone with sliders. He\u2019s really difficult on lefthanded hitters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Phillies acquired Bowlan from the Royals in the offseason trade that sent Matt Strahm to Kansas City. Bowlan, a 28-year old righthander with three years of major league experience, posted a 3.86 ERA in 33 relief appearances and one start for the Royals last season.<\/p>\n
Backhus came to Philadelphia via a separate offseason trade in which the Phillies sent minor league outfield prospect Avery Owusu-Asiedu to the Diamondbacks. Backhus, a 28-year old lefty, had a 4.62 ERA in 32 relief appearances for Arizona last season as a rookie. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Keller is the most notable bullpen addition. He received a two-year, $22 million free agent contract after posting a 2.07 ERA in 68 appearances for the Cubs in 2025. The 30-year old righthander is a converted starter who shined in his first full season in a relief role.<\/p>\n
Keller has been welcomed with open arms in his new clubhouse. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything has been awesome,\u201d Keller said. \u201cAll the guys here have been great. It\u2019s been amazing. Everyone is super laid-back, which is awesome. Coming into a camp with a lot of veteran guys helps out a ton. I\u2019m just getting my feet underneath me and ready for the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Keller echoed Thomson\u2019s sentiments about the potential of the Phillies bullpen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously we have a lot of dogs down there, a lot of guys who throw hard. I\u2019m just trying to fit right in, go out there and do my job, put up a zero and pass it to the next guy. I\u2019m excited just to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEARWATER, Fla. – The Phillies\u2019 revamped bullpen was the talk of spring training on Thursday. Brad Keller, Jonathan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40,11036,38169],"class_list":["post-581762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia-phillies","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-philadelphiaphillies","tag-phillies","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-phillies-spring-training"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116099473627345684","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581762","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=581762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}