SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Phillies officially announced Tuesday that they have activated Orion Kerkering from the 15-day injured list.<\/p>\n
Kerkering suffered a Grade 1 hamstring strain in Clearwater during Spring Training. The stint was retroactive to March 22.<\/p>\n
As the corresponding move, the Phillies optioned left-handed reliever Kyle Backhus to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. The 28-year-old submariner, acquired in an offseason trade with Arizona, allowed three earned runs in three innings of work with the big club.<\/p>\n
Backhus was the only Phillies middle reliever with a minor league option remaining, part of the reason the club was interested in acquiring him this winter. Zach Pop, Tim Mayza and Jonathan Bowlan are all out of options.<\/p>\n
The addition of Kerkering gives the Phillies\u2019 bullpen a meaningful boost.<\/p>\n
Last season, Kerkering was one of the Phillies\u2019 most durable and heavily used relievers. He appeared in 69 games, struck out 65 batters in 60 innings and posted a 3.30 ERA.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old also turned in strong underlying metrics, ranking in the 98th percentile in opponents\u2019 average exit velocity, the 93rd percentile in hard-hit rate and the 88th percentile in average fastball velocity at 97.1 mph.<\/p>\n
Kerkering has long leaned on a three-pitch mix led by his sweeper, along with a four-seam fastball and sinker. More recently, he began mixing in a splitter to give hitters a different look.<\/p>\n
Kerkering\u2019s 2025 season, though productive overall, did not end cleanly. His throwing error in Game 4 of the National League Division Series led to the Dodgers\u2019 walk-off win and the Phillies\u2019 elimination.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen how often he\u2019ll use the splitter in the Majors, but Kerkering looked sharp during his four rehab appearances with Triple-A Lehigh Valley, where he posted a 2.25 ERA. He now rejoins the Phillies\u2019 bullpen just 10 games into the season.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Phillies officially announced Tuesday that they have activated Orion Kerkering from the 15-day injured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40,16702],"class_list":{"0":"post-669015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","12":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","13":"tag-phillies","14":"tag-phillies-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116365229006984666","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669015","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=669015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}