The Philadelphia Phillies are confident that they have much better insurance options than a year ago, but they’ll begin the 2021 season with the longest tenured member of their bullpen closing games out.
Wednesday morning, Phillies manager Joe Girardi announced that Héctor Neris will open the season as the team’s closer. Offseason pickups José Alvarado and Archie Bradley will serve as set-up men as the Phillies attempt to turn around what was a historically-bad bullpen a season ago.
“I like the way that all three of them threw the ball [in spring training],” Girardi said. “When you look at Archie, Archie’s kind of a guy that you can ask to give you multiple innings in a sense, more than three outs on occasion because of his willingness to pitch at any time.