2015 Phillies Report Card: David Buchanan

There are sophomore slumps and there are sophomore catastrophes, David Buchanan’s season was the latter. In his rookie season, he posted a 3.75 ERA in 20 starts en route to becoming one of the few pleasant surprises for the 2014 Phillies by looking every bit the part of a back-end rotation piece the team could send out there as needed for the foreseeable future. In spring training, he blew away the competition with a 1.29 ERA and 15:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 21 innings pitched. Then, unfortunately for Buchanan, the regular season began.

Buchanan made five starts in April and went 0-5 with an ERA (8.76) so high that when spoken aloud it sounds more like a total given by a Walgreens cashier…