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Eickhoff has proven his value to Phillies
- Updated: October 3, 2016
PHILADELPHIA — The prevailing opinion has been that with Jeremy Hellickson’s pending free agency, the Phillies will need to add a veteran arm to their rotation for the 2017 season.
That arm may, however, already be in the rotation — the only one to have spent the entire season there, too — in the form of 26-year-old right-hander Jerad Eickhoff, who threw six innings, allowing one run, in the Phillies’ 5-2 win over the Mets on Sunday to close their 2016 campaign.
Those six innings pushed Eickhoff’s season total to 197 1/3; he fell eight outs short of breaking the 200-inning milestone. Manager Pete Mackanin pulled him after 86 pitches and six innings for the exact reason he was so valuable this season — his health.
“If he didn’t have that rain delay [in Atlanta in July], we probably would have won that game, plus he would have got to 200 innings,” Mackanin said. “He’s close enough that he has proven his value to the team. He has been a real stalwart to this rotation, and it’s good to have him.”
“It’s a selfish benchmark,” Eickhoff said of reaching 200 innings. “But it’s a cool thing to look back on at the end of things here. I was just very fortunate to stay healthy, that’s the …
