{"id":756452,"date":"2026-07-20T04:00:46","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T04:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/756452\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T04:00:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T04:00:46","slug":"why-did-jhoan-duran-pitch-in-a-non-save-situation-phillies-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/756452\/","title":{"rendered":"Why did Jhoan Duran pitch in a non-save situation? \u2013 Phillies Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Jhoan Duran pitched a scoreless ninth inning in the Phillies\u2019 6-1 loss to the Mets on Sunday. (Brendan Baldwin\/Phillies Nation)<\/p>\n

PHILADELPHIA \u2014 With the Phillies down by five in the ninth, star closer Jhoan Duran emerged from the bullpen. His music played without the usual theatrics of his entrance. <\/p>\n

It came as a surprise to what was left of the more than 40,000 fans in attendance for Sunday\u2019s game. It was already a long day for the Phillies bullpen. After starter Alan Rangel threw 91 pitches through four innings, the three Phillies relievers \u2014 Tim Mayza, Max Lazar and Seth Johnson, all combined to throw 95 pitches in four innings. <\/p>\n

Duran is the Phillies\u2019 set closer. Entering Sunday, only eight of his 34 regular season appearances have come in non-save situations. Some of them were high-leverage opportunities with the game tied late. On Sunday, he just needed to get some work in. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe told us before the game that he needed to pitch,\u201d interim manager Don Mattingly said postgame. <\/p>\n

Duran last appeared in a game on Tuesday, facing two batters in the ninth during the All-Star Game in Philadelphia. He was on four days rest. His last regular season game was the penultimate game of the first half against the Detroit Tigers on July 11. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t gonna let him throw too many, right?\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cWe were gonna let him throw 20-25 (pitches) and keep him there. I think I\u2019ve said this a few times, he\u2019s pretty aware of what he needs. There\u2019s days when he\u2019s been three in a row, and he\u2019s like, \u2018I\u2019m great. I feel good.\u2019 Other times, before the game, he\u2019s like, \u2018I need to pitch.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Mattingly said the Phillies checked in with Duran in the eighth to make sure he still wanted to pitch the ninth. Duran\u2019s outing was also a grind. His 22 pitches thrown was tied for the second-most he\u2019s had in an outing this year. Phillies pitching combined to throw 208 pitches on the Sunday, the most they\u2019ve thrown in a game all season and the most since May 19, 2023. <\/a><\/p>\n

If Duran pitches again on Monday against the Los Angeles Dodgers, he may not be available on Tuesday. Or maybe he is. Duran will surely dictate that. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe knew, in some form or fashion, he needed to get on the mound today,\u201d Mattingly said. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jhoan Duran pitched a scoreless ninth inning in the Phillies\u2019 6-1 loss to the Mets on Sunday. (Brendan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40],"class_list":["post-756452","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"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116950311176710005","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756452","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=756452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}