Jesús Luzardo, it’s been well-documented (including here by The Athletic), was confident he was tipping his pitches when he allowed a historic 20 runs across his previous two outings before facing the Cubs on Wednesday. He made some changes to correct it.
There was something else that stood out in his six-inning, one-run bounce-back outing against the National League’s best run-scoring offense: Luzardo flashed things back to 2023.
NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Taryn Hatcher reported on the broadcast before the second inning that pitching coach Caleb Cotham wanted to simplify things for Luzardo ahead of Wednesday’s outing — “subtracting” rather than “adding” — and return to the things that Luzardo thrived on in his first 11 outings of the season, when he pitched to a 2.