{"id":634817,"date":"2026-03-21T04:09:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T04:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/634817\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T04:09:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T04:09:26","slug":"philadelphia-phillies-share-pitching-plan-to-open-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/634817\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Phillies Share Pitching Plan To Open the Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a full offseason of question marks, uncertainties, and a variety of possibilities, the Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> know what their rotation will be on Opening Day. Rob Thomson shared on Friday what Philadelphia\u2019s pitching plan will be for the first five games of the season.<\/p>\n

The Phillies\u2019 rotation will look like this:<\/p>\n

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Christopher Sanchez vs. Texas Rangers<\/p>\n

Aaron Nola vs. Texas Rangers<\/p>\n

Jesus Luzardo vs. Texas Rangers<\/p>\n

Taijuan Walker vs. Washington Nationals<\/p>\n

Andrew Painter vs. Washington Nationals<\/p>\n

This iteration of Philadelphia\u2019s rotation has a nice blend of veteran presence, an ascendant star, and a top prospect who has the potential to grow into the Phillies\u2019 ace at some point in his career.<\/p>\n

With that, there truly are no real surprises with the Phillies\u2019 plan to open up the season. This was the group that was projected to be in the rotation when Spring Training began, and now that\u2019s exactly what has come to fruition.<\/p>\n

\"Jun<\/p>\n

Jun 14, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Cristopher Sanchez (61) throws a pitch against the Toronto Blue Jays in the fifth inning at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Ross-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Having Sanchez be named the Phillies Opening Day starter is something that Thomson said<\/a> his ace earned, and the track record speaks for itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cRunner-up in Cy Young last year. I\u2019m biased, but I would have said he should have won the Cy Young. It\u2019s an honor, and he\u2019s earned it, and he was pretty fired up about it,\u201d said the Phillies skipper.<\/p>\n

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Possibly the most interesting part of the order is choosing to have Aaron Nolan in the middle between Sanchez and Jesus Luzardo, but Thomson gave a very good rationale for this.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get them [Sanchez and Luzardo] back-to-back in the same series, it’s a little bit easier for the hitters, though, so putting Nola in between is a different look,\u201d explained Thomson. \u201cYou got two power lefties, not that he [Nola] is not a power guy, but he’s a pitcher in between, and I think it keeps them a little bit off balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though the Phillies will open up the year with these five pitchers in their rotation, the looming question on everyone\u2019s minds is, when will Zack Wheeler be ready for his season debut?<\/p>\n

Once the veteran ace is ready to rejoin the rotation, Walker feels like the most obvious candidate to move to a bullpen role.<\/p>\n

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Until then, the group that will be the Phillies will rely on to start the season.<\/p>\n

Phillies Roundtable also offers a fan community and message board. We\u2019d love to have you join us to talk all things Phillies. Click the \u201cJoin\u201d button at the top of the page to join our community for free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a full offseason of question marks, uncertainties, and a variety of possibilities, the Philadelphia Phillies know what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2397],"tags":[1206,5,17178,5143,6,4,144,25,4216,40,21733,4874,1544,69,70,71,117],"class_list":["post-634817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia-phillies","tag-aaron-nola","tag-baseball","tag-christopher-sanchez","tag-cristopher-sanchez","tag-jesus-luzardo","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-philadelphiaphillies","tag-phillies","tag-question-marks","tag-rob-thomson","tag-taijuan-walker","tag-texas-rangers","tag-toronto-blue-jays","tag-washington-nationals","tag-zack-wheeler"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116265208105935872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634817","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=634817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}