Phillies Allergic to 90 Wins. Make Me Allergic to Happiness.

Myers is turning back into a pumpkin about one month too early.

This is a re-post from last night, plus a little extra from today:
Please excuse me for stating the obvious, but the way the Phils have played the last two nights is not good.  Losing back to back games is bad enough, but the way they are losing is even worse.  A flat offense and sloppy play is no way to lock up a division title, let alone head into the playoffs.
I realize that Myers deserves a good chunk of the responsibility because he really put us in a hole, but he doesn’t deserve all of it.  That error by Howard (his 18th!) was huge.  Durbin came in and did his job.  He got a ground ball that, with a good throw, would have been the second out of the inning.  Then Durbin struck out Francoeur.  That would have ended the inning with only one run scoring and we would have been down 4-3.
After that Eyre comes in to face Chipper, who hit from the right side.  The next two hitters (Anderson and Johnson) are much less dangerous as well as being left handed hitters. Instead of being cautious or even avoiding Chipper, Eyre makes a mistake that ends up being a 3-run homerun.  As a result, the Braves scored 6 runs in the inning on only 3 hits!
Back to Myers.  As you know, I was extremely reluctant to accept his turn around and believe that he has remade himself.  These last two starts are exactly why.  I held out for a long time because something in the back of my brain told me that it wasn’t for real.  Well, I finally started to buy in after his 95 pitch complete game on 3 days rest.  Since then, he has been a disaster.  (I’m trying to tell myself to give him a little leeway because he still could have some lingering after effects from pitching on short rest, but this is a bit much.) He is being hit a lot and hit hard.  In his last two starts Myers has given up 16 runs (14 earned) on 19 hits and 4 walks in 8 1/3 innings.
I certainly do not believe that he is this bad of a pitcher.  However, it does reinforce for me that he is not the pitcher he was in his first 11 starts after coming back up from the minors either.  I should have trusted my gut.  I expect Myers to be what he has been throughout his career.  He will have stretches where he pitches lights out, but he will also have stretches where he gets lit up.  He is what he is.  Between his mechanics and his head, that’s a lot to keep straight consistently, and I really don’t expect that he will.  I think the best we can expect in the future is production similar to what we got from him in 2005 and 2006.  Now, that’s not terrible, but it’s no better than #3 starter numbers.
Larry Andersen has been all over Myers through these last two starts, and actually throughout the season.  Last night he was saying that Myers lost whatever rhythm he had during those first 11 starts after he came back up, that he needs to throw his fastball–establish that first and then work off of it, that he is pitching scared, that he is back to throwing way too many curveballs and offspeed pitches he is leaving up and over the plate that are getting hammered, and more.
Andersen has also expressed a lot of frustration with the rest of the team as well for their sloppy play, lack of focus, and how they are giving away games.  I know I’ve said it before, but it is great to hear an announcer call it like he sees it without sugar coating it or worrying about making players look bad.  I really think that being on the radio full time has liberated him to speak his mind.  I have much preferred listening to games on the radio this year over watching the tv broadcast.  Listening to Wheeler try and explain everything away is exetremely agitating.  I really think that Andersen would fit right in with us in the blogosphere.
I fully expect us to win the division, but at this point it is due more (say 60-40) to the fact that the Mets really are a mess and will probably not play well enough to take it away from us.  I am really hoping that we regain our focus, the bats come back to life, we start playing crisply again, and we pick up some momentum heading into the playoffs.

Naw, Phils take 2/3 from the Gnats, but true to form must win on the final day of the season to clinch, yet again.

I’m going to say we win 2 out of 3 this weekend, BUT we will win the first two, the Mets will lose one on either Friday or Saturday, and Sunday will not matter. 

Regarding the hot dog incident, the report says that the bomb squad detonated them.  How exactly do you detonate a hot dog? I mean, I know they are horrible for you, but are all those fillers and preservatives really combustible?  Of course, there were three of them left at the gate.  Maybe that is the key, you need enough of them to reach a critical mass.  If so, I would have expected to see a lot of guts flying about CBP on any given “Dollar Dog Night”.

Morty, Sign of the times:  Carmelita, my reader & advisor says, “Phillies give willies to fans, always.  Come back next year.”

bski, Verifying testimony:  I’ve “detonated” many a Hebrew National Reduced Fat frank with relish.  As for yesterday’s incident, I suspect Scotty Palmer taped ‘em and planted ‘em for his ol’ colleagues and “the big story on Action News”, with Wheeler tagging along, directing him to place them on the ramp “middle-in”.

come on guys, they’ve been like 11-1 over the past 12 games  you can’t have thought they were going to go 15-2 over the last 17 games

JJG…I almost forgot to mention that last night was the second consecutive start on 3 days rest for Sabathia.  I’m guessing that the Brewers will send him to the mound on short rest again on Sunday if they need him to get them into the playoffs.  I saw a little interview clip on espn where Dale Sveum was saying that it’s great to have Sabathia do this for the club but that they are concerned for his future, too.  Yeah, right.  Sabathia has been and will continue to be ridden hard by the Brewers in an effort to get them where they want to be.  This will catch up to Sabathia at some point in the near future.

Jumpin, a T. Power reference, like it !!! Hope we aren!t a “Witness for the pursecution” come Monday.

Well, this is it.  As much as I wish the Phils had this thing wrapped up already, it’s fun to see it come down to the last weekend. 

Like I said last night, the Mets can’t take it away from us.  I don’t expect them to either.  They were barely able to win last night against a makeshift Cubs lineup and the lesser arms in their bullpen.  I think the Marlins will play them really tough this weekend.

I don’t blame Pinella at all.  The Cubs took care of their business and they have every right to set themselves up for the playoffs as they see fit.  If that was us and Manuel used Lidge or Romero, we would be howling about it today.  No reason to have them pitch in that kind of foul weather when the game is meaningless.

Looking at the pitching matchups for us this weekend, I’m going to stick with my original prediction, which is that we will win tonight and tomorrow.  Hopefully that will wrap things up for us by Saturday night.

The Nats have Balester pitching tonight.  He has made two starts against us this year and has given up 13 hits, 6 runs (5 earned), 1 walk, 9 strikeouts, 1 HBP, and 2 homeruns in 12 innings.  That’s not terrible but we have beaten him both times.  I expect to hang another loss on him tonight.

Lannan is going for the Nats tomorrow.  In 3 career starts against us he is 0-2, giving up 20 hits, 15 runs (12 earned), 7 walks, 12 strikeouts, 3 homeruns, 3 HBP (Utley being the biggie) in 16 innings.  We should be able to muster plenty of offense against him to secure our second win in 2 days.

It is frustrating to think of all the games we gave away throughout the season, but we still control our own fate.  If we win, we are in.  If we do not, we have nobody but ourselves to blame.  In know that’s a cliched way to look at it, but that’s the way it is.

Still say Phils take only 1 of 3.  Wouldn’t you like to be playin’ for Nationals this weekend, relaxed and spoilin’ the party against an uppity (and maybe uptight) Amtrak foe? 

JJG…I did read Hagen’s article.  There are a few points involved here.  First, by taking care of their business and clinching early, I believe that the Cubs have earned the right to set themselves up for the playoffs anyway they see fit.  Second, we sure as heck would be doing it if we had taken care of our business early.  We did not and we can’t take it out on the Cubs or anyone else.  Third, you should not have to depend on another team to help you make it to the playoffs.  It happens, but you can’t blame another team for not helping you do what you should have been able to do yourself.

In my mind, you are on the money in saying that as long as everyone you put on the field is playing to win, integrity is not a question. 

With this in mind, do you recall the garbage that the Cardinals pulled on us?  It was the last game of the 1992 season.  The Cards had a 3-run lead and a couple men on base in the bottom of the 8th.  Well, they wanted to give Lee Smith the opportunity for a save. (It must have been a meaningful one for him.  I don’t recall and I don’t care either.)  So, instead of playing it straight up, the next couple Cards hitters were just waving at pitches in the dirt and way out of the strike zone as well as watching others cut the plate in half.  I think there were two consecutive “hitters” that just flat out tanked and struck out.  The Cards enjoyed themselves very much.  There were several dugout shots of the Cards players laughing at their teammates deliberately flailing at the plate.  Needless to say they didn’t push any more runs across, Smith pitches the top of the 9th, and “earns” the save.

It was the most disgusting, disgraceful thing I have ever seen in all my years of following the game.  The images are still burned in my brain.  I was livid!  I was swearing at the television during the whole horse**** incident!  I’m getting worked up now just remembering it!  I’m sure there are numerous examples of this kind of crap being pulled by various teams over the years.  I’ve only seen this one, and it’s one more than I care to have seen.

JJG…I have to admit that I remembered everything on my own, except the year.  I knew it was in the early 90’s, so I knew where to look to find it.  I had some help from baseball-almanac.com to lock in 1992 as the year. 

Baseball-almanac.com is a great site.  Lots of fantastic info.  Definitely worth exploring.  If you’re curious, on the main page there are listings in white: History…Players…Leaders…Left Field…Help.  If you look in the History section there is a “team by team” subsection.  Click on that and you will find a big box with a link to each team’s individual page on the site.  Every team’s page gives a brief history of the club.  It also has numerous lists of team and player accomplishments.  Toward the bottom of the team page is a box listing every year the team played in the league.  If you click on any year, it will bring up a chronological record of that particular season.  If you click on any date in that season, it will take you to the box score for that game.  Plus, you can click on any player in the box score and get his season and career stats.

I’ve used it many times to “sharpen my memory”  when I’m pretty sure when something happened but I can’t get the exact date or whatever.  I think it’s a fantastic site.  Just in case you don’t care to explore, here’s the link for the game I was talking about earlier against the Cardinals.  It was on Sunday October 4th 1992. I have to admit that I was looking at the box score asking myself who some of the players were.

Morty...Yep, Cormier came up as a starter.  Glad you checked it out.  I like to explore the various sites when I have time.  I have found myself in a boondoggle with Directv where the only Phillies games I can get are the national telecasts, which aren’t many.  As such, I end up listening to a lot of games on the radio, so I’m usually surfing through all these sites then.

Baseball-reference.com, baseball-almanac.com, mlbtraderumors.com (for the word on the street), and now thebaseballcube.com (thanks Pete) are high on the list.  I’m sure you do the same with basketball, right?  Basketball-reference.com, 82games.com, and others.

Gotta keep up with all the intelligent posters on here.

I found a couple interesting things to pass along.  First, today from John Heyman of SI:  “There’s a lot of scuttlebutt that Phillies GM Pat Gillick, who’s still one of the best in the business, may not retire after all. Publicly, Gillick has maintained he planned to retire. But several baseball people said they believe the decision has not been made and that Gillick may indeed change his thinking and return to run the Phillies.”

If this is true, Amaro and Arbuckle must be grinding their teeth or kicking their dogs or something.

Next is an article from dugoutcentral.com about the impact of strikeouts titled Hitter Strikeouts Are Part of Baseball’s Improvement. It’s an interesting take.

bski: One more to go! Please don’t make this come down to the final game, please.