As far as the Phils go, they have been a hot and cold offensive team for the last several years, so there’s nothing new there. We have been a home run hitting team for a while now. When we hit ‘em, we score in bunches. When we don’t, we struggle. What is really getting me is that, even through these hot and cold years, we have always hit. We may not have scored a lot, but we always hit. Many, many times I have scratched my head wondering how we could only score 3 runs off of 10 hits and 4 walks. Also, in the past when we did struggle to get hits, you had a feeling that the hits would come eventually because we were hitting balls hard. Now, not only we are just flat out not hitting, but I don’t see many hard hit balls for outs that would lead me to believe we will come out of it eventually. I mean it is now common for us to get 4 hits a night. Are you kidding?

Like I said before, over the last several years, we have been hot and cold offensively. For some reason 2004 stick out in my mind. I seem to recall that we would bust out for 10, 12, 15 runs about every 7 to 10 days. It would make you think that the offense was going to go on a tear, but we would go right back to scoring 2 or 3 runs a game for the rest of the week. It semed like we busted out on Sunday a lot. We’d have 5 or 6 lousy offensive games during the week and then put up 12 runs on Sunday.

I hate hearing about how we are still the #2 offense in the league. You know, if you take the 20 run game against St. Louis and our two 15 run games against Colorado and I forget who else, things look a lot worse.

Other than ’79, I can’t remember a time when the Phils had a lousy year during a multi-year stretch of good baseball. I think that’s mostly because the Phils have had very few multi-year stretches of good baseball to begin with. Anyway, we had great years in ’76, ’77, ’78. We won the world series in ’80. We also won the first half of the split ’81 strike season(losing to the Expos in the end of year division playoff, ugh!). ’79 was the only down year in that stretch, BUT it was due to the many injuries we sustained that year, not because the entire team forgot how to hit and made up all kinds of excuses.

There are things the Phils CAN do, but I don’t think they SHOULD do them. Also, since we are still in first, and unless the Mets or Marlins get hot and knock us out, we should remain in the race, so I don’t think the Phils WILL do any of them. This post is getting very long, so I’m not going into more detail now. We can get into this another time, if you want.

I hate to sound like I’m giving up because I’m not at all. Maybe we will somehow be able to hang on, or maybe we will turn it around and go on to have our usual strong second half. It could be possible, however, that this is just one of those odd, off years and we’ll have to hope for a bounce back year like ’80 again.

If the Indians can get rid of Sabathia, why can’t we get rid of our “stars”? Wasn’t he just as important for them as Hamels is to us? Wasn’t he their Hamels? If we got rid of Hamels at the end of the year, I think there’d be riots. BTW, thanks for the link above, but I’m a bit of a slow reader, so I decided to print it out (10 pages!) and read it later.

About Deep Sixer, thanks for the heads up, although I had to google it to find it, and the format still irks me.

Yes, I still think pitching is our biggest need. Myers? Eaton? Gordon? Moyer is hanging in there, but he can’t last forever. We need more pitching now and it seems like we will need even more in the not too distant future.

The hitting is a major concern because we have been in a ridiculous, team wide funk for over a month. That said, I don’t know what you do about it. We have a team that was built for offense. We have guys who have been productive for years. Why this is happening and why it’s lasting so long is baffling.

I don’t know what you can do about it, at least for the rest of this year. In the off season you can add a few guys, let go of some others, promote a couple minor leagers (like Marson, Golson, Carrasco, and Bastardo in place of Ruiz, Jenkins, Myers, and Eaton, respectively). Usually when something like this happens, managers and coaches are let go, because getting rid of them is much easier than changing half your roster at mid season.

I am a die hard Phils fan and have been for over 30 years, so yes it is killing me. Every loss is like a little death. At least I don’t cry over it now, like I did when I was a kid(I’m still partially traumatized by our playoff failures in ’76, ’77, ’78). Sometimes I would like to, but I’m much too grown up for that now.

Anyway, you still think pitching is our biggest need? I’m still sticking by what I said earlier – we need hitting. Plus, remember when I proposed trading J-Roll? Does that sound preposterous now? You have to admit, he stinks this year, and his value is dropping by the series, we really should’ve shopped him earlier while his value was higher. In any case, we need a shake-up, Modell’s inventory of Phils jersey number T-shirts be damned. Pete compared J-Roll to Jeter and McNabb before, at least Jeter and McNabb don’t have funks like the one J-Roll’s having now.

BTW, are you a Phils die-hard, or just a baseball fan in general? If these were the Sixers in this sort of tailspin, I’d be dying, daydreaming of choking Willie Green. How are you taking the Phils potentially ending up this season mediocre?

It’s all about deadline deals. There are several quotes from various GM’s that give a good idea of their general mindset. It’s a bit long, but worth the read if you’ve got a few minutes.

PETE: As you know, I’ve been in the Bedard camp since his name was brought up. Overall, he is a less costly, solid alternative to Sabathia. He should demand fewer prospects, and we’d have him for next year as well. Sabathia would have only been a half year rental. I think Oswalt is worth looking into as well.

I could live with your back-up plan of Gordon, Krstic, Quinn, and holding some money. I don’t want to think about it too much now, however. I prefer to immerse myself in the possibility of landing Brand or Smith and enjoy it for as long as it lasts. Only if we miss on both of them and your back-up plan becomes a reality will I truly come to terms with it.

As far as college football: PSU

Why dont I want Bedard. Well for one, the whole not made up mentally for a big market team. The dude listen too much to what the media and fans have to say about him, he would absolutely hate it here. Two, they guy has told him manager that he wont pitch over 100 pitches, I definetly have a problem with that. Just what we need another struggling pitcher, like we dont have enough of those already.

Hell yeah, if we can get Oswalt you go get him. I dont care if it takes Carrasco. Make that deal. Hamels, Oswalt, Myers (I still Myers is gonna come back and be okay). Not a bad playoff staff.