Sometimes the biggest relief doesn’t come from who you add.
It comes from who you no longer have to face.
Philadelphia Phillies v Washington Nationals | Diamond Images/GettyImages
When MacKenzie Gore was traded from the Washington Nationals to the Texas Rangers last week, the move barely registered across the National League. There was no extended buildup, no dramatic bidding war dominating headlines. But inside Philadelphia, the reaction was different.
Quiet.
Immediate.
Knowing.
Because for the Phillies, Gore wasn’t just another division arm. He was a recurring problem—one that never quite went away.
The NL East is already stacked with pitching talent, and every marginal advantage matters over 162 games. With Gore now out of the picture, the Phillies are facing a division that just became subtly—but meaningfully—less hostile.
Gore’s raw results in 2025 didn’t always scream dominance. He finished the season 5–15 with a 4.17 ERA across 159 2/3 innings. On the surface, that looks manageable. Dig deeper, and the story changes.
When Gore was locked in, he wasn’t just good—he was suffocating.
Phillies fans remember Opening Day 2025 all too clearly. Gore carved through the lineup for six innings, allowing one hit, zero runs, and striking out 13. It wasn’t an anomaly. It was a warning of what his stuff could do when command and confidence aligned.
And the underlying data says that threat was very real.
According to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, Gore led all MLB starters in 2025 with four different pitch types each generating a whiff rate of 35 percent or higher, with a minimum of 50 swings per pitch. That kind of balance is rare. More importantly, it’s dangerous.
Gore wasn’t relying on one elite offering. He had four legitimate put-away weapons: a devastating changeup, a cutter, a slider, and a curveball—all capable of missing bats at an elite level. The four-seam fastball was the lone pitch that played closer to average, but when everything else is working, that hardly matters.
His individual whiff rates tell the story clearly:
- Changeup: 47.2%
- Cutter: 40.9%
- Slider: 40.5%
- Curveball: 35.7%
That arsenal pushed Gore into the 80th percentile league-wide with a 29.7 percent overall whiff rate in 2025. Hitters weren’t just uncomfortable—they were guessing.
And few teams saw that more often than Philadelphia.
In five career starts against the Phillies, Gore struck out 41 batters in just under 30 innings, posting a 3.03 ERA. Even when the results weren’t overwhelming, the process was. Long at-bats. Missed barrels. Lineups that never looked settled.
Gore arrived in the NL East as part of the Juan Soto trade and spent three seasons in Washington quietly becoming one of the division’s most unpredictable obstacles. His biggest flaw—command—never fully disappeared. He led the majors in wild pitches in both 2024 and 2025. When things slipped, they slipped fast.
But when they didn’t? He changed games.
That volatility made him exhausting to face. Not dominant enough to guarantee wins, but dangerous enough to swing a series.
Now, he’s gone.
The Phillies won’t have to game-plan around that uncertainty anymore. They won’t have to deal with a left-hander who could miss bats with four different pitches on any given night. Over a long season, that matters more than fans sometimes realize.
Philadelphia still has plenty of challenges in the NL East. That hasn’t changed.
What has changed is this: one of the division’s most uncomfortable matchups has quietly exited the stage.
No celebration.
No parade.
Just one less problem waiting on the schedule.
And when October positioning is decided by margins, the Phillies won’t forget the value of a threat they no longer have to solve.
Because sometimes, subtraction is the best kind of addition.
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