Dave Dombrowski struck gold with Jesús Luzardo. The Phillies’ bullpen is bad enough to undermine that.

Can the Phillies make the playoffs with this bullpen?

Sure.

Can they win a playoff series?

That’s the real question.

They’ll need to beat somebody better than the Marlins to do so. They’ve barely looked capable of that over the last couple of days. On Saturday, they nearly blew a seven-run ninth-inning lead. On Sunday, they jumped out to an early 3-0 lead and got seven dominant innings from Jesús Luzardo and still ended up losing, 7-5. All of this against a team with five players making more than $1 million and one player making more than $5 million.

» READ MORE: Phillies fumble a chance to sweep the Marlins as Orion Kerkering gives up a late three-run homer

Sunday’s loss is a good thing, truthfully. It would have put us in an awkward position if the Phillies had come back to win after Javier Sanoja’s three-run home run off Orion Kerkering erased a 4-2 lead in the eighth inning. Nobody wants to bury a team that is a game out of first place and coming off a three-game sweep. The verdict was in well before the Phillies tied the game in the bottom of the frame. Even if the Marlins hadn’t scored two runs off Matt Strahm in the top of the 10th, we’d feel the same way.

Not with this bullpen. No way.

It’s hard to lose a game when you score three runs in the first and your starter goes seven strong. It’s even harder when it is Easter Sunday and the starting pitcher’s name is Jesús. Yet that’s exactly what the Phillies did.

The most surprising development of the game came after it was over, when manager Rob Thomson noted that this was the Phillies’ first loss of the season when leading after seven. Somehow, the math checks out. But even if the unraveling was unprecedented, it sure felt foretold.

The Phillies’ bullpen entered Sunday with a 5.54 ERA, third-worst in the majors. They had below-average strikeout, home run, and ground ball rates. That they had only been charged with two losses was one of those statistical anomalies that April sometimes produces.

Mostly, the numbers were in lock step with the eye test. The Phillies let two of their high-leverage arms walk during free agency and replaced them with a guy who had been nontendered by his previous team. To date, Jordan Romano has allowed 13 of the 39 batters he has faced to score, including six of the eight he faced during Saturday’s near meltdown. Meanwhile up north, Jeff Hoffman is dominating as Romano’s replacement in Toronto. The former Phillie has five saves and a 1.59 ERA with 16 strikeouts and one walk in 11⅓ innings.

Last year, Hoffman likely would have been out there in the eighth inning when Luzardo turned over a 4-2 lead to the bullpen. Instead, wine turned to water and Easter became the Ascension as Kerkering hung a sweeper, and Sanoja lofted a high arcing fly ball toward the left-field wall. Unlike a certain savior, it has not returned.

The Phillies had their reasons for letting Hoffman leave via free agency. Two teams walked away from the table because of medical concerns about the veteran right-hander before the Blue Jays signed him to a three-year, $33 million deal. The real problem is that they replaced him with a guy whose question marks came with even fewer knowns.

It’s a shame. As much grief as Dave Dombrowski took from fans for his offseason maneuvering, there was a sensible piece of logic evident in his strategy. The Phillies knew they weren’t going to come close to outspending the Mets or the Dodgers. They knew they weren’t going to find a third baseman who gave them more bang for their buck than Alec Bohm. They knew they would have needed to sacrifice their future to make a play for Kyle Tucker.

In short, the Phillies knew they probably weren’t going to be able to change the complexion of their lineup. They had spent five years building their roster and payroll to its current state: It was unrealistic to think they could magically transform into a unit that was fundamentally different from the last three regular seasons.

Instead, Dombrowski concentrated his resources on putting the team in a better position to win once the postseason arrived. Much of the Phillies president’s success during his long career can be attributed to his grasp of a fundamental piece of conventional baseball wisdom: starting pitching lifts all ships. In trading for Luzardo, he gave himself another pitcher capable of winning six or seven innings of a postseason game. With Ranger Suárez yet to make his 2025 debut, and with top prospect Andrew Painter still on the way, the philosophy is the biggest reason to believe in these Phillies.

Yet, on Sunday, you saw how it played out.