By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
The baseball gods giveth, and the baseball gods taketh.
Just days after the Philadelphia Phillies introduced free-agent signing Jake Arrieta, RHP Jerad Eickhoff, who was very likely to be slotted a spot below him in the rotation, suffered a lattisimus dorsi strain. Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia was the first to report the injury, noting that the 27-year-old is now expected to miss six to eight weeks. It's not immediately clear what side of Eickhoff's back the injury took place in.
It's obviously a difficult setback for Eickhoff, who was hoping to rebound for a disappointing 2017 campaign. Eickhoff went 4-8 in 24 starts in 2017, while posting a 4.71 ERA and 4.30 FIP. Eickhoff battled through a nerve injury in his throwing hand during the 2017 season. He was ultimately shut down for the season after exiting a late-August start against the Atlanta Braves with nerve irritation.
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In 2016, his first full season with the Phillies, Eickhoff was the picture of stability, posting a 3.65 ERA in a team-leading 197.1 innings. John Stolnis of The Good Phight began to refer to him as "the human metronome." With Aaron Nola and the aforementioned Arrieta now at the top of the Phillies rotation, the hope was that Eickhoff could provide the stability that he did in 2016 for a team that has hopes of posting the club's first winning season since 2011. He may very well still do that, but it won't be at least for the first month of the season.
Prior to Eickhoff's injury, the Phillies rotation seemed fairly set. It's not immediately clear when Arrieta will be ready to make a major league start, but the thought was the rotation would include him, Nola, Eickhoff, Vince Velasquez and Nick Pivetta. With this injury, Ben Lively seems to be the favorite to fill out the team's rotation now. Jake Thompson, Zach Eflin and Mark Leiter Jr. are other less likely options. Despite what has been a strong spring thus far, Tom Eshelman appears unlikely to fill this role, because unlike the other options, he's not on the 40-man roster already.
A month (or more) in the starting rotation for someone like Lively could create an interesting scenario when Eickhoff does ultimately come back. If Lively, who posted a 4.26 ERA in 15 starts in 2017, starts out the season well, it will be more difficult to send him back to Triple-A. The Phillies, of course, will do that if he's having the worst season of any piece in the rotation, but if Velasquez and Pivetta – who the Phillies view as having higher upside than a piece like Lively – are really struggling early, perhaps the club will consider optioning one of those two instead of Lively.
