Phils turning the corner? Or just not as bad as the Mets?

Sweeping the Mets is fantastic, there is never any doubt about that. But, it’s hard to gauge what this weekend series really means for the Phillies, as the Mets were rolling out a line-up with only one legit offensive threat, David Wright.  Have they put the rough patch behind them? Or was this just a case of one team being worse than the other? A four-game series against the Reds should provide more answers.

2009: 42-37
2008: 43-36
2007: 41-38

Player of the Series: Brad Lidge (2 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 5 K, 2 Saves) and Jimmy Rollins (5 for 11, 1 HR, 5 RBI, .533 OBP)
Goat of the Series: n/a

The Good News

• So far, JA Happ looks like he might be a long-term solution for the rotation. Since being put in the rotation, he is 3-0 with a 3.15 ERA over 8 starts. By comparison, Hamels had a 5.45 ERA over his first 8 starts (though he was 4 years younger). He has shown poise on the mound and hasn’t gotten flustered when put in big spots. He has to lower his walks (almost 3 per start) and raise his K’s (33 in 51.1 IP), but his numbers, attitude, and stuff point to him being a solid starter for us for at least a couple years.
• Joe Blanton has seriously stepped it up with Brett Myers out of the rotation. He’s sporting a 2.61 ERA in his last 8 starts. His ERA has dropped from 7.11 to 4.69 during that span. Likewise, Moyer has a perfectly acceptable 4.14 ERA in his last 9 starts. With our 5th starter spot up in the air and Hamels struggling, we need these 2 veterans to keep keeping us in games.
• The bullpen, after saving us last year, has been our achilles heel this year. However, closer Brad Lidge put together two of his best outings of the year against the Mets. He didn’t allow a baserunner and struck out 5 batters, for his 2 saves. Small sample size, but this team needs him to turn it around.
• I’m not even close to ready to anoint Rollins as being back. But he did look like the Rollins of old against the Mets, and sometimes just one good series can get a player going.
• Maybe the brass did see some change in Rodrigo Lopez over his last couple minor league starts. I wanted Carrasco or Carpenter to get a chance, but Lopez was just what we needed. He pitched into the 7th and only allowed 7 baserunners. His fastball got as high as 90-91, but mostly sat in the 88 range, and he used his slider well to get outs. While it was a great start, my personal opinion is that Lopez, like Moyer, really need to be hitting his spots to pitch well, so he could be a little unpredictable and I don’t think he is the final solution for our #5 spot.
• Congrats to Raul Ibanez, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. All deserving all-stars. Make sure you vote for Shane at least 25 times for the final spot.

The Bad News

• Before the season I said that the 2 most vital pieces to this team were Brad Lidge and Cole Hamels. Both have been fairly large disappointments this year, and we are extremely lucky to be where we are given their performances. Lidge, as mentioned above, is showing signs of turning it around, but Hamels seems to be moving in the other direction. The Phillies needed him to come up big his last two starts, and he didn’t even come close. In those 2 starts he gave up 17 hits in 8.2 IP with a 11.42 ERA. Is this a sign of last year’s workload wearing on his arm? Is it his focus? Is it just a string of location problems? I’m honestly not sure. But I do know that he needs to be a stopper for this team to do well. Tonight’s start is important for him.
• The case of Ryan Madson is an example of how baseball can be so maddening to the fans sometimes. From May 19th – June 14th, Madson made 16 appearances, gave up 0 runs, only 8 hits and struck out 17 in 15.1 IP. He was flat out unhittable and looked like he might even make the all-star team. Then, in his next 7 appearances, without losing a single mph off his fastball, he sports a 10.80 ERA, a 2.85 WHIP and is credited with 3 losses and 2 blown saves. On a whole (3.27 ERA) it looks like a normal reliever, but seeing the domination and the mighty struggles back-to-back just boggles the mind. That shouldn’t happen. Someone can’t be that good one day and then that bad the very next day. But whether it’s luck, the law of averages, or something else, if its not clearly an arm problem, us fans are just left to wonder.
• Reports are the Phillies are going to scout Pedro Martinez. Let’s hope they don’t like what they see.

Series Preview: Cincinnati Reds at Phillies

The Reds roll into town at exactly .500 and 3 games back in the NL Central. They have been getting by on their pitching (6th in the NL in ERA) and not their hitting (14th in the NL in runs). Last time we played them, Joey Votto was out of the line-up, but he’s back now. The line-up is going to have to get their starters and force the Reds offense to score some runs.

Probable Pitchers

Monday: Hamels vs. Johnny Cueto (8-4, 2.69 ERA)
Tuesday: Happ vs. Aaron Harang (5-8, 3.86 ERA)
Wednesday: Lopez vs. Homer Bailey (1-0, 5.94 ERA)
Thursday: Moyer vs. Micah Owings (6-8, 4.48 ERA)

3 Questions for the Series

1. Can Jimmy Rollins and Brad Lidge build off the momentum they gained in the Mets’ series?
2. Can Cole Hamels rebound from 2 horrible starts?
3. Can the Phillies, for the first time all season, win back-to-back home series?

Prediction

I’m not exactly about to declare the Phillies “back” after they beat down a Mets team that has a bunch of bench players in their line-up right now. I think the last 2 games of this series are very winnable, so it will be important for the Phils to take at least 1 of 2 in the first 2. I want to pick them to win the series, but I haven’t seen enough to say that the Mets series was a real turnaround. I’ll predict a split of the 4-game set.

Something to Consider

I will occasionally come up with random baseball ideas and share them here just for the heck of it. Since it’s all-star time, I feel the need to re-state my desire to see a “fastest player” and “best arm” contest along with the HR derby. The fastest player would be a timed first-to-home sprint to see who has the best time. The best arm contest would have players in RF catching a fly ball from a hitting machine and throwing at a target by home plate. Speed and accuracy would be awarded points. I bet Victorino and Ichiro could give anyone a run for the money in both.

Anyway - another stupid idea I had today was to change baseball series from 3 games to 5. There is a big luck factor with 3-game series because you can miss a team’s best pitcher(s) while another team gets it. There have been seasons when it seemed like the Phillies always got the worst of this and years when they’ve had better luck. To eliminate this, you could have 5-game series where you face every starter on the other team, thus eliminating this luck factor. There are several reasons I can think of not to do this, but I’ll leave it up to you to show I’m wrong.

July 6, 2009