Rise and Phight: 8/27/2021

The team had a double barrel shot of bad news yesterday when they found out Rhys Hoskins’ season was over and Zach Eflin had to be scratched from his return start to the rotation. At this point, not much should be expected from Eflin as we are almost into September and he will need at least three or four starts to get back to where he was pitch count-wise. You have to wonder what the point is, if maybe it would be more effective for him to just be a reliever at this point. Maybe he can find a little giddyup on his fastball that would make him effective. Anything should be tried to help this team get into the playoffs.

Losing Hoskins means that a path might be found to get Alec Bohm back to the majors, possibly to share in a platoon at first with Brad Miller. Another option would be to bring up Darick Hall to play first, but that seems to be playing a little with fire since he’d be thrust right into a playoff chase and have to get acclimated to big league pitching. But, as I said before, anything should be tried to get this team to the playoffs. If they feel Hall is the better option, then Hall should be the one who gets the call.

On to the links.

Phillies news:

• Losing Hoskins for the season is a huge blow to the team’s morale and playoff chances.
• An exercise on expansion at The Athletic has led Matt Gelb ($) to choose the 15 players the Phillies should protect if ever a draft were to come up.

MLB news:

• The Reds suffered a blow when Tejay Antone said he had to undergo Tommy John surgery. Not a good thing for a Reds team that is looking to hold off the challengers for the last wild card spot.
• The Twins are also getting rough news on Kenta Maeda, though they aren’t sure yet what they are going to do.
• A good story about how MLB messing around with the Atlantic League almost led to the union organization of the players in the league.
• Speaking of the Atlantic League, here is a story from Jayson Stark ($) about how the moving of the mound has affected the players there.