Phillies place RHP Archie Bradley on IL with oblique injury

The Phillies have placed Archie Bradley on the IL with an oblique injury, according to a team announcement. The club has selected the contract of lefty Kyle Dohy to take his place. To make room on the 40-man roster, lefty Matt Moore was transferred from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL.  (Matt Gelb of The Athletic first reported Bradley was heading to the IL and that Dohy would be coming up.)

This is surely a frustrating development for Bradley and the Phillies, as he has been a largely solid member of a shaky relief corps for the club. The righty has logged 51 innings for the Phils with an ERA of 3.71. His strikeout and walk rates are both slightly worse than average, at 17.9% and 9.8%, respectively, but his 55.7% groundball rate is excellent. This is his second trip to the injured list this year, as he missed more than a month at the beginning of the season, also with an oblique injury. If this injury is as severe as that one, it has the potential to finish Bradley’s season. The Phils are still hunting for the NL East crown and are just 1.5 games behind Atlanta, but another month-long stretch on the injured list would keep Bradley out of action until the World Series. For what it’s worth, Bradley himself said he hopes to pitch again in October, per Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. Signed by the Phillies to a one-year, $6M deal in January, the 29-year-old is a free agent at season’s end.

As for Dohy, he was added to Philadelphia’s 40-man roster in November to protect him from being selected in the Rule 5 Draft, but cleared waivers and was outrighted off the roster April 1. The southpaw has spent the bulk of this year at Double-A, logging 37 1/3 innings out of the bullpen there, as well as 5 1/3 innings at Triple-A. Overall, he has an ERA of 2.95, with an excellent strikeout rate of 35.1%, but a concerning walk rate of 15.1%. As soon as he is called upon to enter a game, it will be his major league debut.

Moore was just placed on the 10-day IL September 23 with a lower-back strain, meaning Saturday’s transfer to the 60-day IL officially concludes his season. The Phillies signed him to a one-year, $3M deal in the offseason, based on a strong performance in Japan in 2020. Unfortunately, 2021 didn’t go quite as smooth for the 32-year-old. He logged 73 innings this year in 24 games, 13 starts, with an ERA of 6.29. His strikeout rate of 18.9% and walk rate of 11.4% were both worse than league average.