I can’t really complain about splitting a 4-game road trip in St. Louis and New York, but I certainly would have preferred it the other way, losing 2 to the Cards and beating the Mets twice. We’re in 1st place now, by 1/2 game, but we certainly don’t look like a first place team just yet. But then again, we usually don’t until late July.
2009: 14-12
2008: 14-12
2007: 12-14
Player of the Series: Ryan Howard (5 for 20, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 3 BB)
Goat of the Series: Jamie Moyer (2.1 IP, 7 H, 7 R, 2 BB, 1 K, Loss)
The Good News
- Deserved or not, we’re in first place.
- Joe Blanton may or may not have fixed his delivery and may or may not give us a couple decent starts.
- Chan Ho Park was more aggressive with his pitches and it worked in his masterful 6 IP, 1 H performance vs. the Mets.
- Worth mentioning again: he’s already won ROY, an MVP and a World Series, and got a big contract this past winter, but all that seems to only motivate Ryan Howard more, who CLEARLY worked very hard in the off-season on his defense and hitting.
- Rollins is showing some signs of life, with a hit in each of the 4 games. One good sign that he will turn it around is his BABIP (Batting Average on balls hit in play). This is a stat used to determine fluky seasons or stretches and pretty much says if the batter is having good luck or bad luck. For his career, he has been consistently around .300 on this stat, and right now, he’s at .234, which shows he’s been having some bad luck. Howard and Ibanez have the highest BABIP on the team (.353 and .351 respectively) so we might expect some drops in production from them.
- All our games against the Dodgers occur between now and July 3rd, the day Manny Ramirez can return.
The Bad News
- If Jamie Moyer can’t figure it out, Ruben Amaro is going to look quite foolish for using his first move as GM to sign a 46-year old pitcher to a 2-year deal. Moyer is dead-last in NL in ERA and 2nd to last in WHIP. I love Moyer, but I was very adamant that despite what he’s done for us, we shouldn’t sign him for more than 1 year. This very well might blow up in the Phillies’ face.
- Apparently even a contract year can’t get Brett Myers to pitch consistently.
- Our starting pitching is the worst in baseball, yet we haven’t found a way to get J.A. Happ, who looks great right now, into the rotation.
- The Mets incredibly big ballpark will make it tough for us to win with the longball there, despite what yesterday looked like.
- Carlos Carrasco doesn’t currently look a possible replacement if we need another in the rotation. He’s gotten killed his last couple outings in AAA.
- Don’t be fooled by Kyle Kendrick’s 2.61 ERA in AAA. He went down there to develop a change-up and make hitters swing and miss. His 5.8 K/9 rate is in line with his previous minor league seasons. Might be good for a spot start or two in the bigs, but right now, that’s all.
Pre-Series Post: Short, tough 4 game trip for the Phils
I’m going to do one preview post for this upcoming week where the Phils will play 2 games in St. Louis, immediately followed by 2 games in New York. St. Louis is playing the best baseball in the NL right now and we will face 2 tough righties in Kyle Lohse and Adam Wainwright. Then, we get Johan Santana on Wednesday in our first trip ever to Citi Field. Our starters are going to have to step-up and the offense is going to have to be patient and convert opportunities with runners on base.
Monday: Blanton vs. Kyle Lohse (3-0, 1.97 ERA)
Tuesday: Myers vs. Adam Wainwright (3-0, 2.76 ERA)
Wednesday: Park vs. Johan Santana (3-1, 1.10 ERA)
Thursday: Moyer vs. Mike Pelfrey (3-0, 6.00 ERA)
Three Questions for the Cardinals Series:
- Do our starters stand a chance against the best player in baseball, Albert Pujols? What’s the over/under on HR’s he will hit off of Myers and Blanton? 2 1/2?
- If Blanton gets shelled again, does his spot in the rotation get questioned?
- Can Ryan Howard tear it up again in his home town?
Three Questions for the Mets Series:
- How will Citi Field play?
- What will our lefty-heavy line-up look like against Johan Santana, the only devastating lefty in the NL not wearing red pinstripes?
- How many Phillies fans’ will be able to snag tickets to the new ballpark?
Prediction
I feel the same way going into this 4-game set as I did going into the Mets series. There are too many things wrong with this team right now to keep winning on crazy comebacks. Eventually it’s going to catch up with us until players (Lidge, Hamels, Blanton, Park, Rollins) get themselves righted or removed from duty. I think we lose 3 of 4 here, with the lone win definitely not coming in the Santana/Park match-up. This will put us at .500 going into the series against the Braves, where we can hopefully get a full start out of Hamels, which I think would really pick the team up a bit.
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Okay, I know we offered this guy a reasonable deal and he turned it down. Even better, we won a championship without him. But geez, aren’t Kyle Lohse’s numbers just SICK?
We need Hamels and Myers to pitch like aces 1 and 1a. We need Blanton and Park to settle down and at least pitch well enough (and deep enough) to keep us in games.
The funny thing about this is, at the beginning of the season I thought Moyer would be the pitcher most likely to go into a funk. I mean, at his age, how long can he possibly go on? And he’s our winningest pitcher. I guess a pitcher can’t lose any of his stuff if he doesn’t have any stuff in the first place. Moyer just flat-out knows how to pitch.
I say we split on both series… Howard hits too well against St. Louis for us to lose both of those so I think we lose tonight but Myers pitches well enough for a win against them and our lefties knock Wainwright around a little tomorrow…we lose for sure on the Johan vs. Park matchup but hit the struggling righty in Pelfrey and Moyer pitches well and gets the corner calls assuming the ump’s strike zone is bigger than the one from Saturday….
man that Blanton start was a breath of fresh air. hopefully he found something with his mechanics that is now fixed and we can expect this out of him a little more moving forward. let’s see if Myers can put it together tomorrow as well.
I’m glad my prediction was wrong…hopefully we can win the two games besides the Johan start…and I hope Ankiel is okay as well….
Pete: i am gonna go on a limb and say we win against johan tomorrow. not sure he gest the loss, but everything you have predicted so far has been off. phils apparently have tons of surprises. we came into this series and kicked their 2 of their best starters out of the game and swept. who would have thought?
on Pujols’s HR against Lidge: was so glad when that happened. must be quite therapeutic for Lidge to at least face him. too much has been made of that monster blast. he owns Lidge, safe to say. Message delivered; “u’re Brad Lidge meen, you may not be able to get that guy out, but you can get the other 599 guys in the league, go do your thing and forget bout it”. he retired the next 3 straight. not filthy but good enough to get it done.
jkay-
2 impressive wins by the Phils. good pitching one night, and dominant offense the next. hope you are right about tonight, they’ve won this type of game in the past, I just don’t see it.
drolz -
forgot to comment, but despite us hitting him a bit, and despite us winnign the WS, I’m still a little miffed we didn’t re-sign Lohse. That being said, he wouldn’t be doing as well in Philly as he is with the magician Dave Duncan.
Pete: thats all hindsight. Lohse was the same to us as Joe Blanton is now. an in-season pickup that was expendable. re-sign only if for the right price. nothing special. he just happens to thrive in St. Louis thats all. i say good call for Pat Gillick. if we had gone the other way and given him a long, sweet deal and he had soured in CBP (the HR haven) then what? would be another Adam Eaton. unlikely yes, but he’s nothing special, i’ll live with the mistake any day.
Can we please never start Miguel Cairo again?
I’m with jkay in hoping your predictions continue to be off, Pete. Watch Park go out and match Santana pitch for pitch tonight. That would be something, huh?
Zolecki posted our probable starting lineup’s numbers against Santana:
Jimmy Rollins: .059 (1 for 17) with 1 walk, 1 strikeout.
Shane Victorino: .083 (1 for 12) with 1 home run, 1 RBI, 2 strikeouts.
Chase Utley: .167 (3 for 18) with 1 home run, 1 RBI, 3 strikeouts.
Ryan Howard: .429 (6 for 14) with 2 home runs, 5 RBIs, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts.
Jayson Werth: .313 (5 for 16) with 1 double, 1 homer, 2 RBIs, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts.
Raul Ibanez: .353 (12 for 34) with 1 homer, 8 RBIs, 2 walks, 8 strikeouts.
Pedro Feliz: .158 (3 for 19) with 1 RBI, 6 strikeouts.
Carlos Ruiz: .429 (3 for 7) with 1 strikeout.
Howard, Werth, and, most notably, Ibanez have encouraging numbers against Santana, but if Rollins, Victorino, and Utley hold true to form, there will be precious few RBI opportunituies for them.
Gotta be happy with the just completed series against the Cardinals, right? I mean, we went on the road, played what is considered to be one of the better teams in the league to this point, and took both games. Encouraged by Blanton’s start. Myers, obviously not so much.
Myers said he wasn’t feeling well. Even though he hasn’t been very effective this year, I’d like to think that illness played a part in his problems last night. He went through the first two innings with only a hit batter before giving up 9 hits over the next in 3 1/3 innings before being pulled. Myers says that this is not like last year. We’ll know for sure based on his pitch selection. If we start seeing 60 curveballs every time out, it’s because he’s lost confidence in his fastball, just like last year.
I have to say that I am loving Ryan Howard this year (in a purely baseball productivity kind of way). Seeing him get base hits, (and drive in runs with them like he did in the 7th last night), making productive outs and moving runners over (like he did in the 9th last night), and striking out less is fantastic. I’m sure the home runs will come. In the meantime, and I hope this continues, he is helping the offense in other ways. Howard is on a pace for 160-something strikeouts, which would be 30-35 fewer than each of the last two seasons. While I admit that a few of these may turn into double-plays, having Howard put 30 more balls in play this year will surely benefit us, just as it has so far.
Also, can’t forget about his defense. He picked a bad throw, which he has done regularly this year, from Rollins last night and has yet to make an error this season. His throwing is much improved, both to second base and on tosses to covering pitchers, and, maybe it’s just me, he seems more aggressive. It always appeared to me that on any ball hit deep to first, Howard would choose to stay back and toss to the pitcher covering. This year I notice an increased effort on his part to make those plays himself. Much improved.
some good stuff from a Baseball America chat on prospects…
Dan (Philly): So Dom Brown is starting to crush the ball, what’s his ceiling? And good call on him being number 1 in the Phils system.
Kyle (Fort Lauderdale): Ben, What minor league system has impressed you the most in the 1st month and what system has been the biggest disapointment?
osh (Queens): Ben who has the better farm system right now phillies or mets?
bski-
Love what I’m seeing from Howard too. It seems like he really wants to continue to improve himself as a player. As someone who won ROY, MVP, World Series in his first couple years, then got a fat contract, that’s great to see.
Not to mention he’s lost I’d say around 10 hits to the shift already this season (I personally think it should be illegal for a SS to play on the opposite side of 2b)
Thanks for passing along the chat, Pete. Always good to get outside validation that the Phils prospects are as good as they tell us they are.
Yeah, he loses hits to the shift but, from what I’ve seen, I think he’s actually losing less than he has in the past couple years. You used to know with almost absolute certainty that every ball not hit in the air would be a groundout to the second baseman, if you can call it that since he plays in short right field against Howard. Not anymore. I’ve actually been impressed that he has gotten several hits up the middle and to the right side through the shift this year. Since he’s trimmed down, maybe this is the year he should drop a few down the 3rd base line here and there in the right situations, huh?
Howard has really surprised me. After all the “unlike any other player” talk that surrounded his ongoing arbitration/contract negotiations, I never thought he would sign a deal like he did. Also, after seeing him flounder in the field, I figured that his butchery at first would remain the price we would have to pay if we wanted to keep his bat around. Finally, as ridiculous as this might sound at first blush since he puts up a pile of HR and RBI, , it sure seemed like we were going to have to be happy with his all or nothing production at the plate. I have no idea who or what has caused him to change his approach, but I’m thrilled that he has.
As much as we all think, demand would probably be more accurate, that all players should/should want to continually improve in all areas of their game, we know it doesn’t work like that, especially in the case of a guy like Howard who leads MLB in HR and RBI every year. Glad to see him dedicate himself and improve.
johan has got no-hit stuff tonight
Apparently Park has no-hit stuff as well – haha
What happened to our Defense? Pedro has got to hold on to that ball. And Werth has got to let that ball go. It will be interesting to hear after the game what happened. Did he not know where to throw or maybe a bad grip on the ball??
Great start by Chan Ho. It’s hard to imagine how the Mets starters can have as bad ERAs as they do in that ball park. Utley’s drive to the warning track was crushed.
K-Rod is officially welcomed to the rivalry. He looks like a guy we can give a few blown saves to this season.
Fun to watch this one. Bottom line, we made more mistakes than they did and it cost us the game. Our offense has been so productive that it’s been more than making up for any mistakes we’ve made. Last night, even though Ibanez misread a flyball and was doubled off second and Victorino overthrew the cutoff man and was also picked off first, we still scored 10 runs. Not tonight. Santana and K-Rod were too good.
We’ve got to get to Pelfrey tomorrow. He didn’t pitch well against us last Saturday and we didn’t really make him pay for it.
tough one. hate to lose on 2 bad defensive plays on 1 play.
I agree Pete, I wasn’t expecting us to hit Santana either but was impressed with Park…its a shame he had to blew it on that great play by Howard and I don’t know what Werth was thinking when he hesitated when Delgado was going home…hopefully Park can keep it up because if he can just be decent that gives us an edge over the rest of the division….
So this is what it takes to get Park to focus? Tell him, however indirectly, this is his last chance to stay in the rotation and, oh by the way, you’re facing possibly the best starter in the game at the moment. Hope this isn’t a case of getting up/being very focused against a top notch opponent only to then let up/lose focus against a lesser one. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.
jurnee16, that was a fantastic play by Howard, wasn’t it? Too bad that instead of being replayed and remembered, it will be forgotten since Park couldn’t finish it off. Also, Werth hesitated TWICE before finally throwing home on his 3rd windup. Too bad again because, watching the replay, you could see that Delgado was just jogging around the bases because of his hip and he didn’t pick it up after he rounded 3rd either. Throw the ball the first time and Werth would have him by 10 feet.
BTW, Pelfrey pitched against us last FRIDAY, not Saturday. Sorry for the mixup. Regardless, we got to him for 7 hits and 4 walks in 5 1/3 innings but couldn’t make him pay, scoring only 3 runs off of him. Got to do better tonight.
Hey, J.C. Romero now has some company, as Manny Ramirez has just been handed a 50-game suspension for violating MLB drug policy.
Manny just being Barry
Just found out that Danny Ozark died today.
We’ve been talking about the starting pitching for a while now. As much as I know there is time and I’m trying to be patient, I’m getting very close to where I think something needs to be done (i.e. Happ needs to take somebody’s place in the rotation).
As odd as it sounds to complain about one of the few good starts we’ve gotten this season, Park really threw a monkey wrench into the works with his last start. It seemed like it was falling nicely into place for Happ and we’d at least get some consistency from the 5 spot. Now that’s on hold for probably at least two more starts.
It’s not that I want Park to fail. Not at all. It’s that we simply must have consistency from 4 of the 5 spots in the rotation (if we plan on making the playoffs that is) and, as of right now, we are not getting it from any one of them. If Happ can give us that out of the 5 spot, that’s one down. Gotta figure that Hamels will get himself together, which takes care of the 1 spot. And then there’s the other 3…………
So how do we get Happ into the rotation now? Neither Myers nor Blanton (who seems to be coming around) are going anywhere anytime soon—remember, we went a long time with both Myers and Eaton last year. The bullpen is not an option for either of them and trade talk, which would most likely involve Myers, is two months away—too long to wait.
I too was against giving Moyer a 2-year contract. It smacked of the mistakes we made in giving Dykstra and Daulton new deals after our last world series run in 1993. Moyer is not a candidiate for the bullpen either. I’d love it if he would swap roles with Happ but after a 20+ year career spent entirely as a starter I can’t see him going for it, no matter how much of a team guy he is.
Moyer is interesting though. He is two sides of a razor thin coin. While it doesn’t take much—–poor location, tight strike zone, patient veteran hitters—–for him to get pounded like he did last night, it doesn’t take much—–good location, wider strike zone, impatient young hitters—-for him to be successful either. Moyer has been at this a long time. He knows his mechanics and how to self-correct. Also, he has been pitching the same way for quite a while, so he knows what to do. It’s not like he just lost his fastball and has to learn to pitch an entirely new way. Chances are pretty good he’ll be able to right the ship and contibute.
The best we can hope for is that Moyer can hang in there and give us something this year. Then we need to part ways with him. By all appearances he’s on the way out and we can’t go with him for another year.
I don’t know how it will all shake out, but however it does it had better happen soon. Our bullpen is covering now, but at this rate guys will be at 70 appearances in early August and will be fried coming down the stretch. If we don’t get innings from our starters ASAP, it will most certainly hurt us later on when we usually make our patented late-season run.