Phillies facing the question plaguing most contenders: Will they run out of pitching?

The most effective reliever in the Phillies’ bullpen since the All-Star break wasn’t in the organization until opening day or on the roster until the first week of May. Heck, he might not have even gotten called up if not for the scorching fastballs that he threw to Bryce Harper in lieu of a minor-league rehab assignment for the slugger in late April.

“It’s come up between me and my wife a little bit,” Jeff Hoffman said, laughing.

Hoffman, 30, is a former first-round draft pick with a big arm. But he has been with five organizations since 2014, went from starting to relieving, had a 5.68 ERA entering this season, and opted out of a minor league deal with the Twins at the end of spring training in search of a better opportunity.

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Imagine the odds, then, that Hoffman would be among the Phillies’ most trustworthy high-leverage relievers less than three weeks before the playoffs begin.

The point is: Pitching is precious. There’s never enough. Over a six-month season, attrition is real. And with 2½ weeks to go, in front offices of contending teams across baseball, nervous executives are asking a variation of the same question:

Are we going to run out of pitching?

It isn’t only the clubs on the fringes of wild-card races, either. The mighty Braves rushed back Kyle Wright from a rehab assignment because they didn’t have a starter for the finale of Monday’s day-night doubleheader against the Phillies. The Dodgers are down to Clayton Kershaw, Lance Lynn, and three rookies (Bobby Miller, Ryan Pepiot, and Gavin Stone) in their rotation. The Cubs have a veteran starter (Marcus Stroman) and now their closer (Adbert Alzolay) on the injured list.

For now, the Phillies’ pitching anxiety is caused mostly by workloads. With 18 games remaining in 20 days entering Tuesday, it was down to simple mathematics: There at least 162 more innings to cover and 14 pitchers on the staff, including one with optionality. Righty reliever Yunior Marte got called up from triple A between games Monday to take Andrew Bellatti’s spot.

Back-end starters Michael Lorenzen (148⅔ innings) and Cristopher Sánchez (129⅔, including 80 in the majors) have surpassed their single-season highs in innings. In the bullpen, lefty Matt Strahm has worked 82 innings, almost twice as many as the last two seasons combined (51⅓). Even after making only four appearances in the last 12 days, closer Craig Kimbrel is on pace to pitch in 70 games, which would be his highest total since 2011.

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José Alvarado and Seranthony Domínguez would figure to have fresh arms after missing chunks of the season with injuries. But Alvarado is still regaining a feel for his cutter, while Domínguez hasn’t had his typical swing-and-miss slider. Maybe it’s rust. But it’s difficult to work off rust in the middle of a wild-card race, especially if others are pitching better.

It’s ... well, it’s a lot.

“I just go back to trusting the work I did this offseason,” Strahm said. “Previous offseasons for me have been a lot of rehab coming off of surgery. This was a good offseason to just get strength training and conditioning under my belt. I just rely on that.”

The Phillies have used a six-man rotation for the last few weeks to allow more rest for the starters. But it has left them with eight relievers rather than nine.

Lorenzen or Sánchez may get bumped to the bullpen after Thursday’s scheduled off-day, although manager Rob Thomson said Monday that it’s “not 100%” yet. Sánchez has been a godsend, with a 3.09 ERA in 14 starts since getting called up from triple A in June. Lorenzen has a 7.96 ERA in five starts since tossing a 124-pitch no-hitter on Aug. 9.

“Stuff feels sharp,” Lorenzen said. “My stuff feels great. It’s coming out good. I’ve had worse times with my stuff earlier in the year, during the year, but I’ve just had better results. I’ve just got to trust that the results will eventually get better.”

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Lorenzen prefers to start but has considerable experience as a reliever. At this point in the season, would his stuff play up better in short bursts? The Phillies might want to find out before they get to the postseason, especially since they haven’t wrapped up a wild-card spot yet.

“Every game matters,” Lorenzen said. “Every win, every loss, every pitch, everything matters. I think we have a group of guys that take that approach that everything matters.”

The Phillies carried 13 pitchers for last season’s wild-card series but used only six (two starters, two relievers) in the two-game sweep of the Cardinals.

A year later, ace Zack Wheeler and struggling Aaron Nola are the probable Game 1 and 2 starters; Kimbrel is the likeliest choice to close. Thomson’s confidence is growing in Hoffman as the Strand Man because of his success at preventing inherited runners from scoring.

“I feel like we kind of took a step back and evaluated it and just looked at who I really was as a pitcher,” said Hoffman, whose improvement has been tied to his slider usage, a la Bellatti last season. “I’m a stuff guy. If we throw three pitches — my three pitches — in the zone whenever we want, it’s going to make the decisions for the hitter pretty hard.”

It’s difficult to imagine Alvarado out of the late-inning mix. And Ranger Suárez was used as both a starter and reliever last October. Suárez’s role in this postseason may be tied to how much gas is left in the tanks of starter Taijuan Walker, Lorenzen, Sánchez, and Strahm.

It will be the biggest story line over the final 2½ weeks.

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“There’s been a light on it because we’ve all kind of hit a down period at the same time, but that’s baseball,” Strahm said. “But there’s so much trust in our bullpen. These guys are going to be fine.

“I understand what they’re looking at, innings-wise, and the future and all that. But I’m just looking for the next hitter and the next at-bat.”