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Phillies Notes: Altherr to get more playing time, Mackanin says

Aaron Altherr's start in left field Thursday was his fifth in the Phillies' 10 games since his promotion from triple-A Lehigh Valley. Each has come when a lefthander started for the opposition.

Aaron Altherr.
Aaron Altherr.Read more(Yong Kim/Staff Photographer)

Aaron Altherr's start in left field Thursday was his fifth in the Phillies' 10 games since his promotion from triple-A Lehigh Valley. Each has come when a lefthander started for the opposition.

But interim manager Pete Mackanin said Thursday that he planned to play Altherr more often "in the near future," and not only against lefthanders. That would mean fewer starts for leftfielder Cody Asche or rightfielder Domonic Brown.

"Possibly less. Not eliminating them, but less," Mackanin said. "We want to see [Altherr]. He had a heck of a good year in the minor leagues, and we like what we see.

"Brown and Asche have had quite a few at-bats at this level. They've been given good opportunities and will continue to get opportunities, but we think that Altherr deserves an opportunity as well."

Altherr, 24, has six hits - two home runs and four doubles - in 24 at-bats since his Aug. 18 call-up. Asche, 25, has a .687 on-base-plus-

slugging percentage through 334 at-bats, and Brown, 27, has a .637 OPS through 182 at-bats.

Araujo streak ends

Curtis Granderson's double in the ninth inning of the Mets' win Wednesday marked the first hit Elvis Araujo had surrendered since the all-star break.

For the 6-foot-7 lefthander, it ended a string of 38 consecutive batters faced without allowing a hit, the longest streak for a major-league reliever this season, and the best for the Phillies since Antonio Bastardo (41 batters) in July 2007.

Araujo, a 23-year-old rookie who entered this year with only 21 innings of experience above high-A ball, has allowed only two earned runs in 10 innings of the season's second half. He struck out 12 and walked five in that span.

Araujo entered Thursday's game in the 11th inning and left with a left groin strain after throwing five pitches.

His recent success coincides with a decrease in velocity, which is partially by design as he focuses on more efficiently locating his pitches. His fastball has averaged 91.72 m.p.h. this month after averaging 93.69 in July, according to the PITCHf/x pitch-tracking system.

"When I was throwing hard, everything was up and easy to hit," he said. "Just working with Jeanmar [Gomez] and Luis [Garcia], they told me, 'Just try this and we'll see what happens.' "

So far, it has paid dividends.

Extra bases

Jorge Alfaro, the touted catching prospect the Phillies acquired in the Cole Hamels trade, caught three innings of a rehab game with the organization's Gulf Coast League affiliate Thursday, Alfaro's first game action since his ankle injury in June. The 22-year-old Colombian singled, twice reached base when hit by a pitch, and threw out a would-be base stealer. . . . Jeff Francoeur's pinch-hit, run-scoring single in the Phillies loss Wednesday was his major-league-leading 10th pinch-hit RBI of the season.

- Jake Kaplan