Phillies Pitching Duo Feature Most Optimized Arsenals in Baseball

Over the last few years, the Philadelphia Phillies' biggest strength has consistently been their starting rotation.

Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola have been long-term mainstays. Cristopher Sanchez and Ranger Suarez have emerged more recently as high-upside middle-of-the-rotation arms.

The team has received solid contributions from rookie Mick Abel in 2025 and Taijuan Walker has had his moments after a disastrous 2024.

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Jesus Luzardo, acquired from the Miami Marlins in an offseason trade, has had two road bumps because of some reported pitch tipping, but has been dominant otherwise.

Another reason the talented lefty has found so much success this year is that he has found the perfect optimization of his repertoire.

Neil Paine of ESPN created a formula to see which pitchers are getting the most out of their arsenal with Nash Scores.

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“Nash Scores work by comparing the runs a pitcher saves with each pitch in his arsenal to the average runs saved by all of his other pitches combined,” he wrote, explaining the formula.

The lower the score, the better job a pitcher is doing balancing the effectiveness of their offerings. It is a way to see if someone is throwing one pitch too often and should be scaling back in favor of another one.

Luzardo has been one of the best at mixing up his offerings effectively with a Nash Score of 0.11, which is tied for the fourth lowest amongst starting pitchers in baseball with Ryan Pepiot of the Tampa Bay Rays.

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Only Jake Irvin of the Washington Nationals (0.05), Garrett Crochet of the Boston Red Sox (0.06) and Kutter Crawford of the Red Sox (0.09) had lower Nash Scores, which use the last three seasons as a sample size with an emphasis on more recent production.

What separates Luzardo from the other pitchers near the top of the list is that he is striking a balance, relying more heavily on off-speed pitches, not fastballs.

He isn’t the only Phillies pitcher to make the list, as he is surprisingly joined by Walker.

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That might surprise Philadelphia fans, especially with how much he struggled in 2024 on the mound.

Despite having a shaky No. 1 pitch, his splitter, he can oversome its ineffectiveness because he mixes in his other offerings so much.

Walker has thrown his splitter 26% of the time, while his No. 2 offering, a much more effective sinker, has been thrown 23% of the time.

Because of the infrequency of his No. 1 pitch being used, he can strike a balance with the rest of his arsenal to improve his Nash Score.

That is a perfect example of what the formula is made to share; Walker isn’t overly reliant on a pitch that isn’t super effective.

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