PHILADELPHIA — Ranger Suárez got up, and almost immediately started smiling and laughing.
“I was lucky,” he said through the team’s interpreter.
Suárez left Saturday night’s 5-0 loss to the Twins at Citizens Bank Park in the fifth inning because of a “left inner-thigh contusion.” While the loss locked the Phillies into the No. 2 seed in the NL playoffs, the good news was that Suárez is OK after Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers ripped a 106 mph line drive off Suarez’s upper thigh.
Suárez will be fine by the time he makes his next start in the postseason.
“It was a little scary at the time,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “The way he just kind of hunched over, I thought it got his hand or something.”
Suárez got hit, stumbled, picked up the ball and tried to make an off-balance throw to first from the mound. His momentum took him to the ground, but he quickly rolled over and got up. He took a few steps, then started laughing with Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott.
Suárez left the field under his own power, accompanied by Thomson and an athletic trainer.
It could have been much worse.
“As Ranger said, ‘It got all muscle,’” Thomson said.
The Phillies have made no announcements beyond Cristopher Sánchez, who will start Game 1 of the NL Division Series on Oct 4. But Suárez is a good bet to start Game 2 on Oct. 6.
Suárez will need to regain his sharpness before his next start, whenever it is. He allowed nine hits, three runs and two runs and struck out four in 4 1/3 innings against the Twins, who got six scoreless innings from former Phillies prospect Mick Abel.
“Aside from getting hit by that liner, that wasn’t what I wanted today as a whole, as a team tonight,” Suárez said.
He has allowed 17 hits and nine runs in 8 1/3 innings in his last two starts, including Sunday’s start in Arizona.
Before that stretch, Suárez was 4-0 with a 1.47 ERA in his previous six starts.
“I feel good,” Suárez said. “Physically, I feel fine. I don’t know what’s with it, but the last outing every year for the past two or three years hasn’t been good. But I’m ready to go for the next one.”
Suárez finished his 2025 season 12-8 with a 3.20 ERA in 26 starts. He threw a career-high 157 1/3 innings, which is notable as he prepares to enter free agency for the first time in his career.
It means Saturday could have been his final regular-season start with the Phillies. It means this postseason could be his final month with the organization that signed him as an amateur free agent in 2012.
The Phillies have several difficult decisions to make in the offseason. Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto, like Suárez, have been on the Phillies roster during their current four-year postseason run.
They will be free agents, too.
Suárez will be one of the best starting pitchers on the market, and the Phillies already have Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Sánchez, Jesús Luzardo and Taijuan Walker under contract next year, plus the expectation that top prospect Andrew Painter will finally debut. Suárez almost certainly will receive a qualifying offer, but it will be interesting to see how far the Phillies are willing to go to keep him.
Suárez said he isn’t thinking about it.
“I just try to enjoy the present, enjoy the day by day I have with this team,” he said. “We’ll see what happens when the season is over.”
