The back end of the Phillies bullpen has been a pleasant surprise as Closer Jeanmarr Gomez leads Major League Baseball in Games Finished with a 2.70 ERA while Setup Man Hector Neris leads MLB in Games Pitched with a 1.04 ERA.  CSN Philly Phillies Analyst Ricky Bottalico on Thursday's The Sports Bash explained the success of Gomez and Neris this season:

"They're pretty legit, you know Gomez is 9 for 10 (in save opportunities) that's nothing to shake your head at, that's pretty good. He had a rough one (the other) night, a lot of things didn't go well for him, you move on from that game and that's that. Neris is just nasty; my concern with Neris is throwing 50-something percent Splitters, when does your elbow say no more? I mean, that's a lot of Splitters to be thrown and a lot of strain on your arm. But besides that, he strikes out a lot of batters, he's got 27 strikeouts this season already, doesn't walk very many. In reality when you look at the numbers and what they do, you could actually flip flop them and it would be a positive also. You could have Neris close, you could have Gomez setup, Gomez is more of a one pitch type pitcher who just wants to stay in the zone and let you get yourself out; Neris is more like 'I just want to strike you out' type guy. So it's two completely different types of pitchers which it actually helps being the Setup and Closer because (hitters) are not seeing the same types of pitches in the Eighth as they would in the Ninth."

Hear what Bottalico had to say about the Phillies' offensive struggles and his advice for Maikel Franco to stop pressuring himself

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