In this tough economy, a lot of teams are seeing declines in their attendance, but not the Phillies, who have filled their stadium to 99.1% capacity so far this year, and are on pace for 3.5 million tickets sales.
So the fans are showing up at the Bank, but more often than not, the Phillies aren’t. The Phillies are 8-12 at home so far this season, and are coming off a 2-4 homestand where the gave away a couple very winnable games. It should also be pointed out that the fans have not taken this opportunity to get on the home team, but rather have been very supportive despite the outcomes.
I am limited on time, so just the basics…
2009: 16-16
2008: 18-14
2007: 14-18
Player of the Series: Cole Hamels (7 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 9 K)
Goat of the Series: Chase Utley and Ryan Howard (0-22, 12 K)
The Bad News
- What on earth do you do with Jamie Moyer? If you take out his miraculous (and it’s looking more and more miraculous) World Series start, he has an 8.84 ERA in his last 9 starts. How long can you keep him in the rotation? Adam Eaton wasn’t booted until July 12th last year. Brett Myers was sent to the minors after his June 27th start. Both had ERA’s under 6.00 though, not 8.00. If you do decide he has to go, you can’t demote him and you can’t put him in the bullpen, so what do you do? Release him? Make up a fake injury and DL him? He still might figure it out, but you can’t keep parading him out there unless he does it soon.
- Ryan Howard had 0 RBI on this homestand. We know he’s streaky, and the hot variety usually comes in the summer, but still, we needed something out of him.
- Lidge appeared to fix his location problem…and then STILL got hit around. His ERA is worse than Jamie Moyer’s and his 1.98 WHIP is just astounding. Right now, it looks like our bullpen is going to lose us a lot of games.
- Bruntlett and Dobbs: 7 hits, .134 BA. Matt Stairs is making up for it, but the NL’s best pinch hitter the last 2 seasons isn’t doing much right now.
The Good News
- Nice to see you, Chooch! Carlos Ruiz finally showed up, getting on base 8 straight times in the last 2 games of the Dodgers series. He also had a HUGE hit off Broxton to send the game to extras.
- Hamels looks perfectly fine and I think we should expect good things from him from here on out.
- Park had another solid outing and has given up just 8 hits and 2 runs in his last 2 starts (12 IP)
- J.C. Romero is back in 18 games.
- Hopefully Happ is good enough on Saturday to make a strong argument to keep him in the rotation.
Pre Series Post: Phillies face Manny-less Dodgers in NLCS rematch
I want to take a look at just how bad the Phillies pitching has been this year. We are at a point (29 games) where if our rotation was a single person, he would have about a full season under his belt. Here is what his line would look like:
Here are some notes on this as if this was a single player’s season. It might be best to make the women and children leave the room:
- This is very, very close to Adam Eaton’s first season with the Phillies, where he went 10-10 with a 6.29 ERA in 161 IP. Right now, our rotation is as effective as putting Adam Eaton is his worse season with us out there every night.
- Only 7 non-Phillies starters have a worse ERA than 6.28 thus far this season.
- In the history of baseball, only 24 pitchers (or, one every 5 years or so) have pitched 150+ IP with that high of an ERA and WHIP.
- Our quality start % is 34%. This means that 2 out of every 3 starts have been detrimental to the team.
- This distance between our starters ERA and the next worst (Washington, 5.16) is the same distance between Washington and the 5th best team (Pittsburgh, 4.04).
- Our top pitcher so far (Brett Myers) is 68th in the MLB in ERA (out of 90) and 70th in WHIP.
So, with that in mind, here are the “pitching” match-ups for the series:
Tuesday: Park vs. Clayton Kershaw (1-2, 4.91 ERA)
Wednesday: Moyer vs. Randy Wolf (1-1, 2.95 ERA)
Thursday: Hamels vs. Chad Billingsley (5-1, 2.45 ERA)
Three Questions for the Series
- How will the Dodgers hitters react to in their first series without Manny?
- How will Chad Billingsley pitch in his first outing against the Phils after falling flat on his face in the NLCS? Motivated or rattled?
- Can Chan Ho Park, unlike Joe Blanton, build off his first good start of the season?
Prediction
Since the Phillies are back in “do the opposite of what they should be doing” mode after dropping 2 at home to the Braves 3 worst pitchers, then they obviously should win 2 of 3 against the NL-leading Dodgers best pitching. Thursday is the type of game the team will get up for, with Hamels pitching against the Dodgers’ ace. We could win tonight with Clayton Kershaw (who has my favorite curve-ball in the game right now) pitching at age 21 against a bunch of professional hitters or tomorrow with Jamie Moyer at age 46 pitching against a bunch of young hitters. I’d put my money on tonight, with Park putting in another solid outing and J.A. Happ still waiting on the outside looking in.
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
Randy Wolf, boy that name seems familiar. Why’d we let him get away anyway, and also would you mind posting Adam Eaton’s current ERA? I think he’d fit in just fine with our current rotation.
Eaton’s current ERA: 7.18
Randy Wolf at 1 year, $ 5 mill, or Jamie Moyer at 2 years, $13 million? I think that’s pretty obvious.
However, Wolf clearly wanted to pitch on the west coast (as he spurred us twice already in the past when we offered more money) so I doubt he would have come here.
So, what do you think has been the Phils biggest problem thus far, Pete? Just kidding, had to ask. It really is that simple, though. If we’d have had even halfway decent starting pitching, we would have several more wins and be in much better shape.
I keep thinking that it’s going to come around. Problem is, I’ve been thinking it for a couple weeks now. Every day we get the obligatory article about pitcher X (today it was Lidge, yesterday it was Myers, the day before it was Blanton) and how he is “getting a better feel” or “is almost there” or “is starting to put it together”, and I’m honestly getting kind of tired of it.
Like I’ve said before, by the time the starters come around they will have exacted a heavy toll on the bullpen for which we will most likely pay dearly during August and September.
It is really starting to look like a season in which the offense is going to have to hit us to wins—now to make up for poor starts and, most likely, later to make up for a worn out bullpen. We just saw that it doesn’t always work like that, though.
I’m curious to see how the offense bounces back after two consecutive lousy games over the weekend, especially considering we will be facing two lefties (our bugaboo) today and tomorrow, and a tough rightie on Thursday.
I don’t know what Charlie is going to do, considering how miffed he was over reporters asking if he thought about dropping Rollins down in the lineup, but I do expect to see him mix things up again. He knows the top of the lineup is hurting us, so I’d be surprised if he didn’t try some different things to see if he can find a combination that will work better, at least until Rollins comes around.
bski –
ask and ye shall recieve…..
here is tonight’s line-up
1. Victorino
2. Utley
3. Werth
4. Howard
5. Rollins
6. Ibanez
7. Feliz
8. Ruiz
9. Park
We don’t talk about Charlie much here (probably a good sign), but since I ripped him for last series, I’ll give him some credit here…
I think he is great at mixing up line-ups, getting a feel for how a hitter is going and tweaking the line-up in a way to maximize what we can get. I like that he didn’t put Rollins down at like 6 or 7 where he is less important, but rather put him at 5, knowing that maybe a sense of urgency and/or importance is what he needs.
Thanks, Pete. I knew Charlie wouldn’t let his lineup languish for very long. A big thing about batting Rollins 5th is that Ibanez is behind him. I like this lineup. Werth is nestled in between Utley and Howard and Rollins is tucked between Howard and Ibanez. If Victorino can give us something out of the top spot, we should be able to produce some runs.
great line from L.A. tonight after Kershaw pitched a ball to Utley…
wow.
lots of good stuff tonight:
- another real good start from Park, who is finally pitching like he did in spring training
- Even though Lidge gave up a run, he was finally locating his pitches well, good sign there.
- Werth stealing home was way too cool
- Rollins getting a clutch hit out of the 5-hole
- Ibanez Ibanez Ibanez!
I think Charlie did a great job w/ the pitching tonight and giving each player some confidence to build on. Pulled out Park before he had a bad inning, kept each reliever in just enough to get confidence but pulled while on top (except Lidge, what could he do?) and moved JRoll to get his attention.
I was down on Charlie over the weekend for bad moves.
Gotta agree, Pete.
Park was hit hard in the first but he settled in (lucky that Hudson slipped or it would have been worse.). Maybe he really is coming around.
Rollins, well, too bad for him, right? He wasn’t removed from the leadoff spot without cause and he knows it. This isn’t the first time he’s been moved out of the top spot this year. Also, Charlie has given him a couple days off along the way. What else is Charlie supposed to do? Nothing really needs to be said on either side (Jimmy’s or Charlie’s), as it is really pretty simple. If you are getting the job done——not what you know you can do, what you have done, or what you feel you are close to doing——there is no problem and nothing changes. If you are not, you don’t have a leg to stand on and you can’t complain about being moved around. You don’t have to like it, just understand and accept the decision. The way you get things back to the way you want them to be is to go out and produce.
I couldn’t believe that Ibanez hit that fastball either. Kershaw blew the first few right by him. That’s a hitter there.
How about Madson? He was hitting 97 on the gun. After the post season last year I was wondering(actually doubting) if we would see this all season this year. So far, so good.
Werth was fantastic. After he stole home, I realized that he had just stolen second, third, and home. He literally stole a run for us. What I really liked was Werth’s aggressiveness. We really needed it after a pretty lifeless weekend. I sure hope it spreads through the rest of the team.
I don’t like station-to-station baseball. When your offense is scuffling for hits it is very difficult to score that way. I like to force the issue whenever you’ve got a good opportunity. Steal a bag, hit and run, go first to third or second to home, anything to force the other team to make a play to stop you rather than just sitting back and trying to string together 5 hits to score. The thing is, we have the guys—-Rollins, Victorino, Werth, Utley——to play this way. Ibanez is aggressive on the bases going first to third and such and would be good at the plate in hit and run situations. Heck, even Howard is showing more confidence, picking up a steal last night, albeit on the back end.
The other thing I liked was our patience (8 walks–I know Feliz had 4 of them, but still…) at the plate. Sometimes when your having a tough time getting hits, you want to hit your way out of it. I was glad to see us take a more patient approach. With the lineup we have we can certainly take a page out of the 1993 Phillies’ book, which is to take the walk and leave it to the guy behind you.
Patience will get you more opportunities, even when you’re struggling to get hits, and aggressiveness on the bases will help you make the most of those opportunities. Both will go a long way in helping us get more runs across as well as score more consistently.
What do we do now? How many more times can we afford to send Moyer out there while we’re waiting for him to find his arm slot, his release point, or whatever else, when all the while he’s getting pounded?
Anyone else really starting to get concerned about Lidge? He has turned into a run giving up machine that is killing the Phils and my fantasy team. Why is he going into the game when we are losing by a run in the 9th? I understand a closer will never get a save at that point in the game. But we can’t keep going into the bottom of the 9th down 2 or 3 runs after Lidge gives up those crucial top of the 9th runs.
this game is making me sick…
between Rollins’ bad error, the botched squeeze and inability to take advantage of 2 errors, Lidge getting belted again (agree Adam) and Durbin immediately giving the runs right back in the 10th, I’m truly irritated for the first time this season.
Yeah, Adam, I’ve been officially concerned about Lidge for a while now. I was surprised by your optimism the other day, Pete, because I didn’t see what you did.
What a lousy offensive series, and homestand. Utley and Howard 0-for-the-series, Victorino 1-for-the-homestand, 24 runs scored during the 6-game homestand -10 runs on Friday= 14 runs in the other 5 games, and on and on——–I know you’ll have all the gory details when you wrap this one up, Pete.
This Rollins-blowing-off-reporters stuff is really bugging me. Everyone else is being stand up about their struggles. No way for a “team leader” to be.
Rather than making up a fake injury for Moyer, I think being “old” should qualify for a DL stint. But seriously, how did Moyer finagle Amaro into not only 2 years, but $13M. Who else was going to do that? I know Pete was against this from day one. I wasn’t but I sure didn’t think it would be this bad. For someone like Moyer it’s all luck. What really changed between two years ago and last year?
Moyer’s a pitching artist or a scam artist, depending on the day (and umpire).
Hell, 249 wins in 28 years is no great shakes. Saw him leaving the parking lot recently and his only bumper sticker read “Puget Sound, Souderton or bust.”
Get him “outtah heeerrre!”
Last year it took Moyer until June before he really settled in. That’s as far as I’m willing to go with him this year. If this continues for a couple more starts I’m hoping that Moyer is the “team guy” he is praised as being and that he goes to Manuel and Amaro and takes himself out of the rotation. If he won’t do it himself then I sure hope management approaches him, because this just can’t go on indefinitely.
As for the offense, Utley’s foot could be contributing to his struggles, but I don’t know what’s going on with everybody else. I hope we don’t get into one of those cycles (like we have in previous years) where we score 10-12 runs in one game every week to ten days and think that the offense has finally busted out only to see them score 1 or 2 runs a game during the stretches in between the outbursts.
Lidge really put us in a pickle for today, didn’t he? Had to play an extra hour of baseball, use a couple more relievers, and use today’s game two starter, Happ. I know the Nats have to deal with the same issues, it’s just that I don’t care about them.
Manuel can offer nothing more regarding Lidge than he can about every struggling pitcher on the staff other than to say, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.” (Henry V, Act III)
Let’s hope that either Carpenter can give us something or that Myers goes deep and keeps the bullpen fresh for game two. Actually, both would be nice. Come to think of it, a healthy dose of offense would be a big help too. Too much to ask for all three?
Just listening to Charlie on “The Manager Show” pregame radio interview with Wheeler. Looks like we’ve seen the last of Cairo, as Charlie was saying what a difficult decision it was to send him out, what a professional he is, how he wishes him the best, how he will help him any way he can, and how he hopes he gets more at-bats with another team after he clears waivers.
Gotta wonder who will take his Cairo’s spot on the roster.
Looking at his whole career, Ibanez’ 35 game Phillies span represents:
2.5 % of games played
2.8 % of at bats
3.5 % of hits
4 % of total bases
4.4 % of rbi
5 % of runs scored
7 % of home runs
11 % of stolen bases
His .368 BA is 80 pts. higher than career .288 mark.
He turns 37 on June 2.
Is he benefiting from higher quality lineup mates?
Is he benefiting from CBP comfy confines/”bandbox” factor?
Is he benefiting from “juice”?
Wondering about his aberrant season to date.
Carpenter…meh. Didn’t expect a whole lot though. Interesting that he got called up because yesterday was also Kendrick’s scheduled day to pitch. I guess the Phils weren’t merely trying to “send him a message” by sending him to AAA and telling him to develop his secondary pitches, they really mean it. Anyway, Carpenter, Condrey, and a cloudburst worked I guess.
Myers got the job done in game 1, home run balls notwithstanding. Just what we needed. After another mechanical fix, his velocity is up and he seems to be coming around.
The offense was certainly there in both games (even Rollins was 4-7) and Ibanez (in Gillick we trust) is just killing the ball.
I got most of what I asked for yesterday (2 out of 3) and more than I expected, so I’ll take the two wins. Here’s to hoping we continue to kick the Nats while they’re down and sweep the 4-game series.
Now it’s Park’s turn to continue his progress. Gotta figure that Ruiz will be catching him again today since it certainly seems to have made a difference in his last two starts.
I’m thinking that Escalona, who was just called up to replace Carpenter, must only be up for today to help out a tired bullpen. I don’t see this as a sign that Happ is being moved into the rotation. More likely, since the Phils are heading into interleague play, they will be needing an extra bat. The Yanks are throwing CC and Petite against us, so a right-handed bat—-Mayberry—-is in order. We’ll see what the move is.
jjg…..There’s no way Ibanez can keep this up. However, he can do better than his career averages because of what you mentioned. I’m sure he is benefiting from being in this lineup. There is no doubt that CBP is helping him as well. Even with that though, you’ve got to admit that he is a good hitter and he is really stroking the ball well to all fields. Plus, the 3 home runs he hit yesterday were not in the friendly confines of CBP, rather at Nationals Park which is decidedly not a home run park.
bski, He’s smokin’! … and at a pace that would make Ponce de Leon proud. That upper deck pitch was placed in a perfect spot for him to jack. Law of averages and league hurlers finding his weaknesses should bring him back to earth. So far, so All-Star.
Millwood’s current ERA: 2.93 (career 4.03); 4-3 season, 146-114 career - numbers slightly surprising considering his sluggish Phillies walk.
jjg…..Yeah I agree, but even when he comes down you gotta figure we’ll still get more from him than we would from Burrell.
Out of curiosity, I thought I’d check on Ibanez’ numbers:
(Home/Away)
AB: 71/65, H: 27/23, HR: 8/5, RBI: 20/15, BA: 0.380/0.354, OBP: 0.464/.0394, SLG: 0.817/0.646, OPS: 1.281/1.041
(vs RHP/vs LHP)
AB: 95/41, H: 35/15, HR: 9/4, RBI: 24/11, BA: 0.368/0.366, OBP: 0.434/0.429, SLG: 0.726/0.756, OPS: 1.160/1.185
He is doing a bit better at home than on the road mostly due to the 3 extra home runs and the fact that he has played 5 more games at home. As advertised, he sure is hitting left-handed pitching so far, albeit in far fewer at-bats. Any way you slice it there’s a lot to like.
OK, that’s it! I have seen enough of Chan Ho Park. The Phils come right out of the gate and stake him to a 3 run lead only to see him turn around and surrender 3 runs on 4 hits, 1 walk, and 2 wild pitches on 38 pitches.
The first inning has been his worst this season. He has now surrendered a total of 10 runs on 14 hits and 5 walks in the first inning of his 7 starts.
Time for Happ to take his spot in the rotation, IMO.
AAAAHHHH! I thought the first inning was bad? This has got to be the end of the line for Park!
Then Taschner comes in and hits Harris to force in another run. UGH! That line drive double play was a bit of luck.
Only down 2 runs with 7 more innings to go. Hopefully the offense can continue cranking and get us another win. Better settle in. It took over an hour to get through the first two innings so it sure looks like we’re in for a long afternoon.
Another good win against a bad team. That defensive play by the Nats in the top of the 8th was really poor.
The bullpen stepped up and got the job done. Escalona picks up the win today, as did Carpenter yesterday. Nice for them.
Funny to see Eyre in to start the 9th. It’s understandable though, as Lidge pitched on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, throwing a fair amount of pitches in the process. Since we have an off day tomorrow I guess Charlie figured he could extend him for a hitter or two. Luckily Wheeler gave Lidge the reverse black cat, saying that Lidge never throws double-play balls because he is a fly ball/strikeout pitcher, only to see Lidge throw a double-play ball to end the game.
Good to see us beat the teams we are supposed to beat. Let’s hope the offense got healthy off the Nats and they continue to hit well.
Pete, if you can tell me where I can get innings pitched for Phillies starters over the last 5 years (this year and previous 4) plus whatever metric you prefer to rank them (I’m guessing ERA) I’d like to whip you up some fun stats.
Nats wouldn’t be a bad team if they had any kind of pitching; staff, a disaster zone. Zimmerman, Johnson, Dunn, Kearns, Milledge, Dukes, Guzman, Flores – some ML stick power and some spunk.
MD-