Comments on: Philly Ramblings

By: bski

bski — Sat, 31 May 2008 03:31:52 +0000

The “Inside Baseball” section of the latest Sports Illustrated lists pitchers that may be available if certain teams fall out of the race soon. They name Sabathia, Byrd, Harden, Arroyo, Padilla, Maddux, and a few others. The most interesting name is Randy Wolf. SI thinks Wolf will end up either back with the Dodgers or with the Phils. I don’t know what I think about this. More than likely since he’s snubbed us twice, he’ll end up back with the Dodgers before he ends up with us. Even if he wanted to come back here, I’m not so sure he would help us very much. He hasn’t been very durable or reliable since he’s come back from his Tommy John surgery.

By: Ricky - Sixers4guidos

Ricky - Sixers4guidos — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:14:19 +0000

“Wow – so he is essentially Elton Brand. Except he sucks. Thanks Chad! ”

AHAHAHAHHAHA !!! good one Pete.

And you are right about the lack of motivation, if it’s true it would be a very bad sign indeed – even if I admit I don’t know a thing about college bball…

By: bski

bski — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:18:14 +0000

I just found some support for my contention that the Phils need to score earlier in games. David Murphy’s article in today’s Daily News, “Kendrick Gets Win as Phillies Down Rockies Again”, says exactly what I did last night. I believe the Phils had 48 come from behind victories last year. Well, this year they have played 1/3 of the season(54 games) and they have 16 come from behind victories. They are on track to record exactly the same 48 come from behind victories. Very demanding on a pitching staff.

By: bski

bski — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:10:00 +0000

Quite a menu to choose from. I’ll take the Phils. Hopefully Kendrick is starting to turn it around. He had a pretty solid start tonight. If that is the case, we’ll have Hamels, Moyer, and Kendrick. Myers is still a concern but the way I see it, unless he continues to get beat up pretty good leaving Charlie no choice at all, he’s not coming out of the rotation. To me, Eaton is a lost cause and needs to be replaced now. He had a decent start his last time out after which he was quoted as saying that this was more like the real him. He’s full of it. He must be trying to convince himself of that because we have his body of work for the Phils (40 starts), his 6 years with the Padres, and his 1 year with the Rangers that very clearly tells us who he really is. He may give us one decent start here and there, but nothing more. I care about the money the Phils are paying him but not enough to be ok with him taking the mound every 5th day.

I have a very bad feeling that Eaton is just holding the 5th spot in the rotation until Benson is ready. This is very distressing to me. I can’t shake the idea that the Phils are going to try to sell this reclamation project to us as a mid-season pickup who will be a shot in the arm for the rotation. This whole thing is off in many ways.

You are right about the offense but it’s more than how many runs we score, it’s when we score them. When we go through the lineup twice and don’t score until the 5th or 6th inning, it creates a lot of problems. The late inning comebacks are great and all that, but it kills our staff. When we fall behind early, Charlie will pinch hit for the pitcher in the 5th or 6th inning meaning we need 3-4 innings from the bullpen. The bullpen has been fantastic but if they are used too heavily, they won’t hold up for the full season. When the offense scores early like tonight (4 in the 1st and 3 in the 2nd), it takes a lot of pressure off the starter. Charlie can let him go deeper in the game, even if he gives up a few runs. This in turn helps ease the demands placed on the bullpen.

Because of the way this team is built, it is on the offense to make the starters better and save the bullpen. In order to help our pitching staff the most, we don’t necessarily need to score more runs, just get the runs we do score across earlier…or we can just keep putting up 15 or 20 runs a night, whichever is easier.