Phillies Nation

Thanks for the game review. Our Phillies continue to impress the heck out of me. Pat Burrell is having a phenomenal season. I can only imagine what this team is going to do once Jimmie comes back, and Feliz, Jenkins and Howard begin to hit at their potential. Ryan Howard. What a frustrating situation he is in. Personally, I am at the point where I think Ryan has to sit out in sporatic games, but batting at 0.167, in no way should he remain in the clean up spot. I would drop him to seventh for a game or two. Mix it up a bit Charlie! What you are doing now is not working. He is killing our offensive punch. K after K after K. I really do like the guy as a person and a player, but his game has got to begin to turn around. The guy demanded $10,000,000 to play ball this year. The bottom line is that if you demand that kind of money, you have to produce at that level. It’s that simple. Things are really beginning to get ugly with Ryan Howard. Sorry Ryan sometimes the truth does hurt.

I am so looking forward to this 4 game stint against the D-Backs. There is nothing better than two great teams going at it head to head. The downside is that the games do not start until 9:40pm. Because I get early for work, I will only be able to watch about 3 innings.

Go Phillies!!!!!

I agree with moving him behind Burrell as long as you are ok flip flopping Feliz and Jenkins. You can not have Howard and Jenkins back to back or a left handed reliever would kill them. As far as the money I would love to say he does not get a raise for 2009 but let’s face it, he will. I also think when the season is over, he will have 40 plus homeruns, bat over .260 and strikeout more times than Leisure Suit Larry at the Irish Pub.

IM impressed with the job the giants have done with trying to assemble a decent group of young players. meanwhiel, tim lincecum is going to win the cy young award before his career is over, but the phillies actually did ok against him. This series is going to be interesting. Well see how the phillies do against top pitching. micah owings, the old unit, and they might get brandon webb or dan haren in the last game of the series. i want to see them against webb and see how well they stand up to elite pitching.

Agree that Howard needs to be moved to the 5th spot in the lineup as a permanent change and not just a stopgap. They need to break up the lefty-lefty problem and Howard could use being pitched around for a while.

When Rollins comes back, Howard would still have Feliz or Jayson Werth/Jenkins hitting behind him and all of those guys are 20-30 season home run hitters. So it will still be tough to pitch around him but he will still get his share of walks in front of those hitters.

To those few here who were ready to run Brett Myers out of town. ;-)

Team report:

RHP Brett Myers played long-toss and studied video between starts last week, trying to figure out where his fastball velocity had gone. He seemingly found some answers. Myers’ fastball climbed back into the low-90s Saturday night after dipping into the mid-80s in his previous start, and he stuck with the pitch rather than relying on his cutter. The result: Myers allowed two runs in seven strong innings and struck out a season-high 10 batters against the Giants. “I looked back (at the radar-gun reading on the scoreboard), and once I saw what I wanted to see, I was able to keep throwing it and pitch off it,” Myers said. “I was able to locate it and throw it enough where it set the rest of my pitches up.” Myers, the Phillies’ opening-day starter, is 2-2 with a 4.70 ERA in seven starts.

Last time I look at the calendar it’s May 5th and 32 games (18-14) into the season. It’s seems that a few here has a new favorite “whipping boy” in Ryan Howard. Never mind what Howard has accomplished for the team in the past 3 years. It’s ‘what have you done for me lately” to some fickle fans. As a long time baseball fan, I know every single player will have their share of peaks and valleys during the course of a 162 game season. May I remind you that Howard had almost the same numbers (HRs, RBIs and BA) last season in April. With his track record, I have expectations of seeing Howard gradually finding his stroke thanks in part to the patience of the manager and his teammates.

BTW, as noted by Manuel and Howard himself, he is showing signs of seeing the ball better and having the patience to wait for good pitches. Even in yesterday game, Howard’s patience was a factor when he received the second of two walks in the game (9th inning) and hustled home with the winning run on an error.

Umm lets see no one said the guy should not be in the line-up but isn’t the point more like what is best for the Phillies not just one player? This is a team sport correct? Also I think what others, as well as myself, are also saying that he does not deserve the 10 million he is making – especailly because that is what HE asked for! So before we start throwing out every cliché about fans we should really understand what is being said.

BTW I wish for a month I could suck that bad at my job and still get paid 10,000,000

There were huge red flags last year with Howard. He took a 45 point drop in BA from 2006, and his strikeout rate increased. Those aren’t exactly good signs, and a lot of HRs have a tendency to make people overlook those bad signs. This isn’t a case of fans being “fickle”. This is a case of people looking at a disturbing trend.

Tommy A~
How closely do you follow the Phillies? PITCHING for the most part is what kept the team afloat and on a winning track (19-14). The starting rotation and particularly the bullpen which has been exceptional with a ERA that is second only to Arizona in the NL. Lidge and Gordon have been going great in their roles. Pitching indeed is name of the game which compensates certain hitting slumps. :-)