Antonio Bastardo wants the Phillies to trade him: “I should be somewhere else”

By Aug 7, 2014, 11:10 AM EDT
10 Comments

Antonio Bastardo reportedly was drawing plenty of interest leading up to the July 31 trade deadline and seemed like a prime candidate to be moved, but instead the Phillies hung onto the 28-year-old reliever … and now he wants out of Philadelphia anyway.

Last night Ryan Lawrence of the Philadelphia Daily News asked Bastardo if he’d have been better off with a trade to another team and the left-hander actually gave an honest reply:

I don’t know, that’s a good question. I think it could be good for me to stay here, but I think it could be better going somewhere else. We have two young lefties here, and they can do a really good job. A third lefty in the bullpen … I think for my career–for my career–I should be somewhere else.

For my career, it could be way better to be somewhere else. If there was a team interested in me, I could be a part of a team and … help more. Be more in the game, stuff like that. Help them, and it could help me in my career. I’m moving forward not to be a mop-up guy in the game. I just like to be in the [biggest] spot that I can get.

In other words: Bastardo thinks the Phillies have some decent left-handed bullpen options for the future and he’d like to pitch for a contending team in a higher-leverage late-inning role. All of which seems fair, although surely Phillies fans won’t take too kindly to his asking out of Philadelphia.

Bastardo, who has a 3.31 ERA and 259 strikeouts in 201 innings since 2011, is under team control for 2015 and then can become a free agent.

Editor’s Note: Hardball Talk’s partner FanDuel is hosting a one-day $30,000 Fantasy Baseball league for Thursday night’s MLB games. It’s $25 to join and first prize is $5,000. Starts at 7:05pm ET on Thursday. Here’s the FanDuel link.

Phillies’ ace Nola loses no-hitter in seventh, wins game 8-3 over Tigers

Associated PressJun 5, 2023, 10:34 PM EDT
Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
2 Comments

PHILADELPHIA – Aaron Nola took a no-hitter into the seventh inning and struck out 12, Trea Turner homered twice among his four hits to lead the Philadelphia Phillies to their third straight win, 8-3 over the Detroit Tigers on Monday night.

Nola (5-4) fanned 10 and had faced the minimum through six as he tried to pitch the Phillies’ first no-hitter since 2015. The ace right-hander ran into trouble in the seventh when two batters reached on a walk and a fielding error. Nola still had two outs when he hung an 0-2 breaking ball to Nick Maton and the former Phillie crushed one into right to make it a 5-3 game.

Maton’s bat-flip homer was the only hit allowed by Nola. He walked three over seven innings.

Seranthony Domínguez and Andrew Vasquez each tossed a scoreless inning out of the bullpen.

Nola walked Jake Marisnick with two outs in the third inning but the outfielder was out at first base on a caught stealing by catcher J.T. Realmuto. Nola walked Maton with one out in the fifth but the baserunner was erased after Eric Haase hit into an inning-ending double play.

Nola threw 68 of 108 pitches for strikes in front of 33,196 fans. Nola, who recorded two strikeouts on automatic strike three calls, has now pitched at least six innings in each of hit last 10 starts.

He improved to 83-66 in a career spent all with the Phillies since his debut in 2015. The right-handed ace is a free agent at the end of the season. Nola and the Phillies tabled contract talks in spring training, with no plans to resume until the offseason.

Nola’s no-no stalled, too.

There have been no no-hitters in the majors this season, the first since Major League Baseball introduced a pitch clock. There were a record nine in 2021 and four last year.

The Phillies returned home from a 4-6 road trip in search of some last season’s June success that squashed a miserable start and led them to the NL championship. So far, so good. The Phillies won the last two games in Washington and kept the wins coming at home. They scored one run in each of the first three innings on Turner’s RBI single, Nick Castellanos’ run-scoring double, and Turner’s solo shot in the third.

Bryce Harper added an RBI single in the fifth. Turner connected the same inning off Tigers starter Joey Wentz (1-6) for his seventh homer of the season and first multi-homer game with the Phillies.

Turner has slumped in the first season of an 11-year, $300 million deal. He hit just .143 on the road trip but now has three homers in his last two home games.

VETERAN MOVE

Tigers DH Miguel Cabrera, who has said he will retire at the end of the season, is the last active player who played at Veterans Stadium. The Phillies last played in their now-razed former stadium in 2003. He played six games at the Vet in 2003 with the Florida Marlins. The Phillies will honor Cabrera before Wednesday’s game.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Phillies: LHP José Alvarado (left elbow inflammation) is set to make a rehab appearance in Double-A Reading. … CF Cristian Pache (right meniscus tear) is “swinging and missing quite a bit,” according to manager Rob Thomson, in his minor league rehab games.

UP NEXT

The Phillies send RHP Taijuan Walker (4-3, 5.65 ERA) to the mound. The Tigers did not name a starter.