Baseball

Obviously, a very disappointing game. One of those games that change momentum, good or bad. Had the Phillies pulled out that 9th inning rally it would have been a huge letdown for the Rockies, pinning them in a 2-0 hole, requiring that they win 3 in a row, and putting all the momentum on the Phillies side. Instead, having lost game 2, the Phillies now have to go to Colorado, where the Rockies were 51-30 during the regular season, in below freezing temperatures, already having used 4 starters in two games.

Much has been made about the discrepancy in Cole Hamels performance during the day, and it is quite drastic. Below is a breakdown of the differences in his performance, both from this year and from his career. What is interesting to me is that he doesn't seem to be getting hit particularly harder (in fact, his HR/9 actually goes down), but he gives up more walks and his batting average on balls in play is considerably higher.




The Phillies desperately need Hamels to revert to form, and today will be a big test. He struggled mightily against the Rockies in his only start against them earlier this year, and didn't fair all that well in the 2007 NLDS either.

Everything you could have hoped for the Phillies to show today they did. All the concerns, all the problems, all the questions were (for one day at least) answered. A better game 1 outcome could not have been scripted.

Some quick thoughts:

• I have to admit, I was incredibly nervous the first 4 innings where we got nothing off Jimenez. The combination of our struggling offense, Lee's erraticness, and facing a good pitcher made me nervous.
  
• Once Jimenez started getting behind hitters, the wheels fell off. Great stuff, but when he gets behind he can make mistakes. Patience is the key against him.
  
• Lee threw first pitch strikes to 24 of 32 batters faced. When he throws strikes and keeps the ball down, he's a machine.
  
• The chants of "Let's go Lee" was a great moment. For all the flak Philly fans get, it was an absolutely huge show of support and thanks.
  
• Davey Lopes is incredible.
  
• Hard to really single anyone out on the offense, as literally every start got at least one hit. Seemed that everybody was making solid contact.
  
• Tomorrow should be another favorable pitching matchup for the Phillies. The Rockies don't hit lefties well, particularly on the road. Overall they're only hitting .235 on the road for the season (against either righty or lefty). Aaron Cook's only pitched 13 innings since the end coming back from injury, doesn't do all that well against lefties (.282 BAA and 1.59 WHIP), and has gotten hit around twice by the Phillies already this year.
  
• Great to see the offense string together hits.
  

Great way to begin the postseason. 1 down, 10 to go.

Originally posted at baseball.realgm.com.

Originally posted at baseball.realgm.com.

Interesting to see some hard numbers on problems we've tried to locate from our eyes. Could it be that the weakness we've been witnessing are overblown?

Perhaps it's still true that down-and-away sliders are Howard's achilles heal (although he seems to be laying off of them better this year), and that he just crushes hanging sliders at an absurd level to make up for it?

Interesting, regardless.

I'd love to get my hands on the full collection of stats available.

Read the full article here.

16) Pitchers should stop throwing Ryan Howard(notes) sliders. Like, yesterday.

The book on Howard is the same as ever: throw breaking balls, watch him chase. This year, he’s seeing more than ever. Only 45.2 percent of pitches thrown to him are fastballs, and 26.7 percent are sliders, more than seven percent over his career average. Newsflash: Howard is hitting 8.1 runs above average off of sliders, second in the major leagues to Shin-Soo Choo(notes). Want more evidence? Howard’s 1.7 runs above per 100 sliders seen is better than his 1.25 per 100 fastballs.

The Phillies been on the other end of the trade deadline spectrum.

Philadelphia fans watched in disbelief as their ace got traded for Vicente Padilla, Travis Lee and Omar Daal. They've seen players demand trades, and players shed for salary purposes. They've seen the Phillies assume the role of reluctant buyers, making "huge" trade deadline acquisitions like Turk Wendell. So,please excuse Phillies fans if they're not exactly sure how to react to the addition of Cliff Lee.

Read the full article at RealGM.com.

Hearing word that Carlos Carrasco has been scratched from his start, and that Jason Donald and Lou Marson are out of this mornings (11:05) Iron Pigs game. Trade ready to be finalized? Will post more when I find it.

Raul Ibanez has been placed on the 15 day disabled list with a strained left groin. Ruben Amaro Jr. said that the groin has been bothering him since April, and that while they hope he's only out for 15 days, at this point it's up in the air.

"I don't know," Amaro said. "It could be longer. But it's to the point where we need to shut him down and make sure we get him healthy. .... We'll find out as he goes through his rehab and does the things that he needs to do to get it calmed down. We'll monitor him every day. We'll see how he feels. Hopefully he'll heal properly and he'll be ready in 15 days. That's the plan. That'd be great, but I don't know if that's going to happen.

Outfielder John Mayberry Jr has been called up from AAA to take his place. He's hitting .257 with 8 home run's and an OPS of .808 in 183 at bats so far on the year. He's struggled in June, hitting only .196 in 46 at bats.

While Mayberry Jr. is the most major-league ready in the Phillies farm system, Michael Taylor (.333 average, 10 HR, 10 SB, .962 OPS in 219 at bats in AA) and Dominic Brown (.299 average, 9 HR, 14 SB, .919 OPS in 187 at bats in A+ Clearwater) may be the Phillies long term future as outfield prospects, assuming they aren't traded as part of a deadline deal.

Brad Lidge has been placed on the 15 day dl, retroactive to June 7th.

The Phillies have called up Paul Bako, a 36 year old catcher from reading, to take his place on the roster.

During the time on the DL, setup man Ryan Madson will take over the closers roll. Hopefully this will give Lidge not only the time to recover from whatever lingering issues he has, and give him a chance to right himself down in the minors during rehab starts to regain confidence and be ready for the stretch run.

The Phillies officially announced yesterday that J.A. Happ will be making the Phillies start Saturday against the Yankees. With the move Chan Ho Park will be moving to long relief in the bullpen.

With the exception of a small number of starts last year, Park has been largely ineffective as a starter since 2001. Despite that, he was given a chance to compete for the starting spot during spring training, and was the most effective of the 4 candidates (with the others being Happ, Carrasco, and Kendrick) down in Clearwater.

I think that was, in the end, a mistake. Regardless of how well one pitches in spring training, it should not be the only, or even main, criteria for winning a spot. 20 good innings in February should not overrule what has been a decade of not getting the job done as a starter. If we're going only by spring training results, Happ should have been in the rotation ahead of Hamels. Clearly spring training was not going to override actual game results there, and it shouldn't have in Park's situation either.

I previously said that Park should get the spot only if Happ and Carrasco don't get the job done. Happ did get the job done, and should have been starting from the beginning. Regardless, I think this is the right move. Park's previous two starts prior to the Washington debacle were the exceptions.

March 26th, 1936 - April 13th, 2009.

Harry Kalas, voice of the Phillies for the past 38 years, has passed away. He was 73.

Harry had been rushed to the hospital earlier this year for unknown reasons, but this is still a complete shock for me, to the point where I don't have words to describe it.

The Phillies have canceled the white house visit they had scheduled for tomorrow.

Harry Kalas, you are the man. RIP.

The Phillies dropped their 2009 season opener 4-1 to the Atlanta Braves.

Obviously, I'm going to tr not to take too much away from one game. The Phillies have, after all, won 11 of their last 15 games.

Losing their opener isn't exactly anything new for the Phillies, who are 1-8 in their last 9 season openers. That doesn't make it any less disappointing, especially not with the build up to the game.

As I said, I'm not going to over-analyze the first game of the year. Whatever offensive struggles the Phillies had, particularly in the middle of the lineup, I'm going to look past. At least until the second game. About the only thing that concerns me is the performance of Myers, who was missing spots and leaving changeups up in the zone far too much. There isn't anyone on the team I have less of an ability to judge than him. I simply have no idea what the Phillies are going to get from him this year.

All in all, it's great to have baseball back. Even just going down this weekend to the on-deck series was a good time. The excitement of the championship is still there in full force. I can't wait until the ring ceremony on Wednesday.

Random Thoughts

I didn't like the special opening-day uniforms. The gold looked tacky IMO. First time I saw them I was terrified they'd be permanent.

I don't like Happ's role. I'll talk more about that later in a column dedicated to that. I'd rather see him getting work in AAA.

If I were in charge, Victorino would be batting second, Werth 5th, and Ibanez 6th.

According to Todd Zolecki, the Phillies have released Geoff Jenkins. He's speculating that the move could be a precursor to the Phillies signing the recently released Gary Sheffield.

There definitely has to be something more to this. For as well as Mayberry Jr. started this spring, he struggled down the stretch, and showed a need to go back and play everyday in the minors. He didn't end the spring strong enough to force the Phillies hand to eat Jenkins' $8 million in salary.

Even as disappointing as Jenkins was last year, I thought he would be given a chance at redemption this year. That being said, the acquisition of Ibanez has already made this team very left-handed heavy, and I can see the desire to get a right handed bat off the bench. Hence the interest in Sheffield.

That being said, Sheffield is clearly not the player he once was. He's a liability in the field at this stage in his career, and his production is dropping fast. While he's a right handed bat, his production against lefties last year was atrocious.

Jenkins has a $1.25 million buyout for 2010.

I would be shocked if this wasn't a precursor of another move, most likely Sheffield.

Other transactions

Hamels will not be ready to start opening night, and will likely wait until the 4th game of the season to make his first start. Blanton or, more likely, Myers, will be the opening day starter.

Marcus Giles has been released, and John Mayberry Jr. and Carlos Carrasco optioned down to the minors.

The Phillies have traded Ronny Paulino to San Franscisco for left-hander Jack Taschner. I don't particularly like Taschner, and don't like a lefty specialist out of the pen who can't get lefties out, but this is newsworthy as it means Coste beat Paulino out of the backup catcher spot, and Paulino was likely to be released. I like this move, even if it only means there's less blocking Marson from coming up to the big league club should he catch fire in AAA.

The Phillies have Kyle Kendrick, Lou Marson, and Brad Harman to the Phillies AAA club in Lehigh Valley, step one in clearing up the competition for the 5th's starters spot, which is now between J.A. Happ, Chan Ho Park, and Carlos Carrasco.

Kendrick was 1-3 with a 9.20 ERA during the spring.

Sending Kendrick down isn't exactly a surprise, as he had fallen well behind Happ (3.60 ERA in 15 innings), Park (1.54 ERA in 11.2 innings) and Carasco (5.52 ERA).

Lou Marson had an outside chance at being with the big club as a backup catcher before struggling in spring training. The 22 year old batted .314 with 5 HR and 46 RBI last year at AA Reading.

The final two prospects with a realistic chance of making the team appear to be Jason Donald (batting .314 so far in spring training) and John Mayberry Jr (.279 with 6 HR's). However, with neither of them are currently challenging for a starting spot, it is likely they will both be down in the minors to start the season to get more experience. With both Feliz and Utley coming back from injury before the season, Donald's odds of making the team took a drastic hit.