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PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Two weeks ago, Jhoan Duran wiped his mouth with his jersey and winced while walking off the playing surface at Citi Field as the New York Mets doused each other with water bottles behind him in celebration of a walk-off win.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia\u2019s new star closer had his usual stuff: the high-octane fastball and the sharp splitter\/sinker hybrid. But the Mets hit it anyway, tallying four base hits in a row in the bottom of the ninth inning. Duran didn\u2019t record an out in that Aug. 26 Phillies loss, the team\u2019s second in a three-game New York sweep.<\/p>\n
On Thursday night at Citizens Bank Park, the entire story was flipped upside down. Behind a dominant run from starter Jes\u00fas Luzardo and a comeback effort from the offense, the Phillies completed a four-game sweep of the Mets with a 6-4 victory. Duran entered in the ninth and mowed down New York\u2019s big bats, striking out Juan Soto, Pete Alonso and Mark Vientos to take an 11-game lead in the National League East.<\/p>\n
After the concerning outing in New York late last month, Phillies manager Rob Thomson thought one pitch made all the difference for Duran.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe used his curveball, and I think that\u2019s kind of an equalizer for him,\u201d Thomson said. \u201cI think he needs to use it a little bit. It just keeps them off all the hard stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duran, acquired at the trade deadline to fortify the back end of the bullpen in Philadelphia, recorded two saves against the Mets in this series. In his 1-2-3 inning on Thursday, he threw the highest percentage of knuckle curves that he\u2019s thrown since joining the Phillies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat maybe helped,\u201d Duran said. \u201cI don\u2019t think about that a lot, because the last time they had a couple of base hits on me because I missed the pitches in the zone. They have the chance to put the ball in play, and they are great hitters. When I bring the opportunity to them, they do an adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Duran was more focused on locating and executing, two keys that he certainly nailed, there\u2019s no doubt that he was leaning on his curveball more heavily. He threw it five times out of 11 pitches, good for 45.5% of the time. The usage was also up to 42.9% on Monday against New York. Entering Thursday, Duran went to his curveball for only 19.4% of his pitches. This increase in breaking balls was all part of the game plan, according to catcher J.T. Realmuto.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Mets had been very aggressive on him, and it seemed like they were very aggressive to the fastball\/split combo, particularly the split early in the count,\u201d Realmuto said. \u201cSo we made a decision to mix in some more curveballs, mix in some more four-seams and not let them just get their swing off that split really early.\u201d<\/p>\n
Realmuto said the Phillies hadn\u2019t initially felt like they needed Duran to use his curveball much since his fastball and splitter were overpowering hitters. Duran didn\u2019t even throw a curveball with the team until his third game after the trade. But then the right-hander had a shaky couple of outings in August, including the disaster in New York.<\/p>\n
As far as Realmuto was concerned, the Mets didn\u2019t have a tip or a tell about what Duran was about to throw. The Phillies just thought the Mets hunted his splitter and put good swings on it when they first saw him. Duran and the club countered.<\/p>\n
After upping the curveball earlier in the series, Duran used it as a weapon in the finale. He started off Soto, the No. 2 batter, with a splitter, threw a curve for a called strike and struck him out swinging with a 101.9 mph fastball. He finished off a five-pitch at-bat against Alonso with a breaker low and away that the Mets slugger couldn\u2019t help but chase. After a curveball and fastball put Vientos in an 0-2 count, Duran got him to whiff on another curve with a half swing to end the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievably impressive to be able to see him mix curveballs in like that, throw them for strikes early in the count and throw them for swing and miss late in the count, and also be able to throw 104 at the top of the zone with good life,\u201d Realmuto said. \u201cJust the ability to pitch and command the ball \u2014 throw strikes with that many pitches \u2014 there\u2019s not many people in the game who can do what he does.\u201d<\/p>\n
This kind of pitch mixing could help the powerful Duran become even more dynamic. Between the Twins and Phillies, he now has a 1.83 ERA in 66 games with 29 saves. The thought of him developing even further is tantalizing, as the team will need him to secure big outs down the stretch and in the postseason. Additionally, having an answer for the Mets could end up being quite useful once again down the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really good team over there, so it wouldn\u2019t be surprising at all if we ran into them down the road somewhere in the playoffs,\u201d Realmuto said. \u201cSo having a guy back there like that, where you have so much confidence in the ninth inning to just shut the door and know that he\u2019s going to come in and throw strikes and attack hitters and be able to mix like he does, it\u2019s like we have a little ace up our sleeve. Not a lot of teams have that ninth inning like we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Jhoan Duran leaned on his curveball in Thursday\u2019s save. (Madeline Ressler\/Phillies Nation) PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Two weeks ago, Jhoan Duran wiped his mouth with his jersey and winced while walking off the playing surface at Citi Field as the New York Mets doused each other with water bottles behind him in celebration of a walk-off win. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Phillies-closer-Jhoan-Duran-leans-on-breaking-ball-to-carve.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2870,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/2870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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