Phillies Relievers Respond To Don Mattingly’s Confounding Bullpen Management

ATLANTA, GA - SEPTEMBER 12: Don Mattingly #8 of the Philladelphia Phillies looks on in the fourth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies at Truist Park on September 12, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Matthew Grimes Jr./Atlanta Braves/Getty Images)

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The Philadelphia Phillies are approaching the end of the regular season with serious questions surrounding a bullpen that has struggled to provide the consistency needed in a World Series contender.

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Those concerns became more pronounced after the club recently demoted Orion Kerkering, adding another layer of uncertainty to a relief corps that will be critical in October.

Amid the bullpen concerns, the Phillies have faced growing scrutiny over how their relievers are being deployed under interim manager Don Mattingly. With the postseason approaching, the issue is not simply on when he deploys which arms, but how much work they are absorbing without necessarily appearing in games.

“Mattingly is a near butcher when it comes to his bullpen,” as Ethan Witte put it for SB Nation’s The Good Phight. “The way in which Mattingly has put wear and tear on the members of his bullpen is different. There isn’t any kind of statistic to track this, but rather more of a hunch and feeling that there is no manager in today’s game that gets his relievers warmed up only to not use them in a game more often than what Don Mattingly does.”

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The relief corps itself was recently asked about this trend under the interim skipper and, while they would not publicly turn the situation into a controversy, they did acknowledge that they are warming up more frequently.

“The Phillies have run their bullpen in a different way since Mattingly became interim manager in late April,” Matt Gelb reported for The Athletic. “Anecdotally, they have warmed up more relievers this season without using them in a game. Several of the team’s relievers attested to that dynamic but downplayed it.”

But for fans and analysts, at least, the concern is different from simply counting appearances. A pitcher can warm up without entering a game, meaning the workload may not show up in conventional statistics while still requiring preparation and throwing, possibly contributing the the bullpen’s surprisingly poor performances.

That could be contributing to the issues for a Phillies bullpen already dealing with injuries and inconsistent performance.

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Philadelphia’s bullpen has little margin for error with the postseason approaching.

Mattingly’s bullpen management will therefore remain under scrutiny, even if the relievers downplay his confounding emphasis on unused warmups. Without many bridge options he can trust between the starting rotation and closer Jhoan Duran, Mattingly won’t want to waste any arms with repeated unnecessary warmups in the playoffs.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

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