They Fucking Hate Brandon Workman In Philly
Yikes. Poor Brandon Workman.
Rewind to this year's trade deadline, the Red Sox flipped Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree to the Phillies for Nick Pivetta and Connor Seabold. Pivetta was held down at the alternate site so that Boston could obtain an extra year of control of the right-hander, but he made his Red Sox debut last night going five innings, four hits, one earned run with eight strikeouts and a dub. Hembree has appeared in 11 games for the Phils and has allowed at least one earned run in all but three of those appearances. The righty's sporting a 12.54 ERA and a gross 2.36 WHIP in 9.1 innings. Bad.
Then you have Workman. What the fuck happened here? I've tweeted the numbers a million times; Workman, across the board, put up better numbers than Aroldis Chapman last year, who won the American League Reliever of the Year Award. Prior to the trade, he wasn't exactly having a stellar season with Boston in 2020, but holy shit have the wheels fallen off since he arrived in Philly. In his first appearance with the Phillies, Workman blew a save against the Braves. Last night, he gave up a walk-off bomb to Yadiel Hernandez to cap off a doubleheader sweep for the Nats.
Workman has appeared in 13 games for Philly, and out of the 131 relievers who have made at least 10 appearances since he made his Phillies debut on August 22, the reliever ranks 115th in ERA (6.92), 128th in WHIP (2.46), and he's allowed more hits (23) than any other reliever in baseball. Just absolutely brutal. Phillies media is losing their minds, telling Workman to not even rejoin the team. I think Phillies fans are heated at Workman, but more so pissed off at the entire Phillies bullpen, which ranks dead last in the majors in ERA (7.06) and WHIP (1.84).
If you were to take a poll of Phillies Nation on who their hatred lies with the deepest, I would imagine that individual is Phillies general manager Matt Klentak. In fairness to Klentak, there has to be some player accountability at some point. This is a good roster. But if the postseason started today, they'd now be on the outside looking in. That wasn't the case before their doubleheader in DC yesterday. With less than a week to play, whether they get in or not, that team is going absolutely nowhere with the most dreadful bullpen in baseball.