by Cary Osborne
The normal aches that go with being a relief pitcher led Evan Phillips to believe that what he was going through in the first week of May would pass.
So to finally get to a point where Tommy John surgery became a reality was sort of a stunner for the right-hander.
But that’s where he is now, facing surgery this week and a long rehabilitation that ends his 2025 and eats up much of his 2026.
“Now that I have that path forward, I’m at peace with it,” Phillips said. “I’m ready for that rehab side of it. I know a lot of guys have experienced it, and I’ve seen the success stories come out of it. So I can kind of play those images in my head about what I’m about to experience.”
As positive as it sounds, it’s still a considerable blow to the ever-optimistic 30-year-old.
Phillips was expected to be a major part of the high-leverage bullpen group for the Dodgers in 2025. Instead, he’s another one of the many who have gone down with injuries — included in that group are Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech and Kirby Yates.
From 2022–2024, Phillips saved 44 games and had a 2.21 ERA in 187 appearances for the Dodgers. Included in that is his breakout 2022 season when he had a 1.14 ERA in 64 games.
Phillips made seven appearances this season — all scoreless. The results were good in his first two games on the first road trip in May — the velocity was right on the fastball and the slider came out normal. But the elbow wasn’t bouncing back, and the Dodgers decided to put things on pause. Testing revealed the ultimate course of action — surgery.
But throughout Phillips’ Major League career, there have been hurdles — professionally and personally.
From 2018–2021, he bounced up and down from the Minor Leagues to the Major Leagues and carried a career Major League ERA near seven. He was let go by the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays within a two-week period in 2021.
Phillips pitched five scoreless appearances in the 2024 National League Division and Championship series, but a shoulder injury kept him off the World Series roster. His 2025 season was delayed as he continued to recover.
Early in the 2023 season, his son Beau was born seven weeks premature. Beau is healthy today, but it was an even more difficult situation than anything he could have experienced on a baseball field.
It’s been a lot in a short period.
“I’ve overcome what I feel like has been worse,” Phillips said of the Tommy John surgery. “So this is just another bump in the road that I’m going to tackle as best I can and try my best to get back to being my normal self the second half of next year.”
Phillips recognizes that one of the more difficult parts of the process is the distance it creates from the team and teammates. There are pitchers throughout the Dodger clubhouse who have been through the surgery and have talked about how they’ve not wanted to take up space as they’ve recovered and rehabilitated.
The veteran reliever said he feels like he can still be valuable without throwing a pitch.
“I’m a thinker, so I’m going to process this many, many times in many different ways and develop my own way to handle it,” Phillips said. “And I think out of the gate here, I want to be as close to the team as possible. Some guys want to remove themselves in situations like this. I think, conversely, I need to be here and dig in because I’m going to be watching every pitch with such detail. It’s a long season. Still, there’s a lot ahead of us, so I’m going to try to channel that in a positive way for our guys and just be someone they can rely on for some support.”
True to character, Evan Phillips faces surgery with a level head was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.