Phillies-Brewers with a little lineup gamesmanship prior to Saturday's game

One team submitted a lineup, changed it, then changed it back again. The other team announced a starting pitcher, changed the starter, and then announced they were going back to the first guy. 

No, this wasn't during a critical October playoff series. This was on the final day in May, in the middle game of a three-game series between the Phillies and Brewers. 

Gamesmanship of this kind is not the norm for a nice, late-spring Saturday, and yet, here we are. 

Here's what happened.... 

According to Phillies manager Rob Thomson, they submitted their lineup for today's game last night. That's a common practice in baseball. Of course, lineups can always be subject to change right up until the time they are exchanged at home plate with the umpires, but, the common practice is to set them the night before.

And that lineup that they submitted was this one:

Stott 2B

Turner SS

Schwarber DH

Bohm 1B

Castellanos RF

Kepler LF

Realmuto C

Marsh CF

Sosa 3B

The Phillies submitted that lineup with the expectation that the Brewers were starting RHP Chad Patrick. 

But, when Thomson arrived at the ballpark this morning, the Brewers decided to make a change, and start LHP Rob Zastryzny.

With a lefty on the mound instead of a righty, Thomson decided he wanted to make a change to the lineup. He wasn't going to switch to his vs. lefty lineup - because the expectation was that Zastryzny was just going to be an opener for Milwaukee and pitch an inning, maybe two. 

So, he was going to keep his lefties who usually platoon - Bryson Stott, Max Kepler, and Brandon Marsh - in the lineup, but put them at the bottom, figuring that they can avoid Zastyzny, or, if the lineup did get to them, it was likely the Phillies had posted at least a run, if not more at that time. 

Meanwhile, the Brewers were likely going to try and build off the success they had in their 6-2 win over the Phillies on Friday, where they opened with a lefty, D.L. Hall, who tossed three hitless innings, and then turned to usual starter Quinn Priester for the last six innings in relief. 

So, Thomson re-jiggered the lineup to look like this:

Back to work#RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/abOUYLbYxU

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) May 31, 2025

But once the Brewers saw that change, manager Pat Murphy decided to nix the idea of opening with Zastryzny and instead, re-installed Patrick as the starter. 

Perplexed, Thomson changed his lineup - again - back to the original one he had submitted. 

The gamesmanship stopped there. Murphy didn't counter again. I tried to get to Murphy's pre-game availability to ask the reason for the cat-and-mouse game he was playing with Thomson, but he had his availability just minutes after Thomson's started, which is also unusual, so by the time I got there, he had already talked. 

Now, because it's Photo Day here at the ballpark and the teams didn't have their usual on-field workouts, it's possible the Brewers decided to just move their manager availability up and it just so happened to overlap with Thomson's, so I'm not suggesting they were ducking questions about this gamesmanship. But none of the Brewers media posted anything on line about why Murphy chose to switch and then switch back, so we may never know.

But there was a lot of speculation about gamesmanship happening - rare for May baseball. 

Some gamesmanship going on with the starters this weekend by the @Brewers. Interesting 🤔

— Ruben Amaro, Jr. (@RAJr_20) May 31, 2025

Really, it was all about where Stott was going to bat in the lineup. He is the best of the three platoon lefties against left-handed pitching and one of them had to stay in the lineup regardless with Bryce Harper still nursing a sore elbow, forcing Edmundo Sosa into the lineup at third base since Alec Bohm shifted over to Harper's spot at first. 

And if the intention was to see if Thomson would sub in, say, Weston Wilson and/or Johan Rojas with another lefty on the hill, just to get some intel on how the Phillies manager thinks of the matchups of his lefties against Zastryzny, Thomson didn't bite. 

Just an odd game of chess between managers this afternoon.

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