Lester Riddles Phils In Shutout Loss
Posted by Tim Malcolm, Wed, June 18, 2008 10:38 AM | Comments: 24
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The Red Sox shut out the Phillies, 3-0, behind a strong performance by Jon Lester and the Sox bullpen.
This one was all about offensive deficiency. The middle of the order struggled mightily, not getting one hit. Chase Utley is now mired in an 0-for-16 slump. Should he sit out today? I say no — slump or not, he’s your best player, and if anyone can figure it out by himself, it’s he.
Carlos Ruiz hit into two inning-ending grounders, one a double play ball. Between those plays and his poor play against baserunners, he’s not a starter. Not at all. Chris Coste should be getting the bulk of the playing time.
I knew this would be a tough one for the Phils. Lester is deceptive enough to keep the Phils off balance, and the offense was primed for a slump night. Jamie Moyer walked the tightrope again and didn’t pitch too badly; you can’t blame him for the loss. This one was all on the offense.
Posts: 1650 Tim Malcolm
Re-post:
You see the problem with the Phils. Against the top-line starters, guys who can mix great breaking pitches with fastballs, they just can’t hit. Now, 92 percent of baseball has this same problem.
There is a way to fight this: Patient hitting and one more top-line starter.
With guys like Ruiz, Feliz, Jenkins, Vic and Rollins in the lineup, you’re not giving the starter a chance to wear himself out. These guys need to start taking pitches and fouling things off. Be defensive. Don’t attack against these guys. Maybe the Phils can grab a veteran hitter, someone who will always work a count, for the bench. But it’s more on the regulars to get it going.
Then they need that lights-out guy. It’s Cole. — — — — — Kendrick — Moyer — Eaton — Myers. That’s a big hole in between 1 and 2. Come Sept. and Oct. they’ll need a guy to match up with the Dan Harens, Ryan Dempsters and John Maines of the world. Then, hopefully, the Jon Lesters and Joe Saunders’ of the world. Until then, you’ll see more 3-0, 2-1, 4-2 and 3-2 games.
Blog note: With the off day tomorrow I have some stuff planned about that elusive 2nd starter.
Posted: 10:49 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Greg
If you’re gonna call out Howard (as well you should), you need to add Utley and Burrell to the list. 0 for 12 8Ks from 3-4-5. Thats NEVER gonna get it done.
Posted: 10:51 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Mike T.
Ok, I’ll call the whole team out: We are not a good team right now.
Posted: 10:54 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 1650 Tim Malcolm
Greg, you’re absolutely right, but I’m going to hold off on any open letters to Chase or anything for the moment. Trust me, if this slump continues the vitriol will rise. We are an equal-opportunity critique here.
Posted: 10:57 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Greg
if the phils can pull off a trade for a decent starter, I’d put Myers back into the ‘pen to help with Gordon’s aging arm. In the off-season, sign Lidge, advertise Myers as a closer and ship him out for prospects.
I hope they don’t buy high on some vagabond LOOGY, too reminiscent of the Ed Wade “we’ll ship the farm for rental relief arms” era.
Posted: 10:57 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 THE RIDDLER
I was unimpressed with Lester’s outing last night.
Posted: 10:58 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 scot
I think that Howard, Burrell, and Utley’s K’s last night were actually selfless maneuvers. They saw (and foresaw) danger in running the basepaths in interleague play. Between Wang’s injury and Reyes injury, perhaps they decided the best way to stay injury free is to not run the basepaths. I’ve been against interleague play from the start, for so many reasons, but I never would have foresaw the injury crisis it presents. I aplaud the heart of our order and their forward thinKKKKKKKKKing here.
Posted: 11:09 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Mike T.
Haha.
Posted: 11:11 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Geoff
Though Utley went o-for yesterday, he did do one thing i liked. early on i think in like the 3rd inning, thuogh he popped out, he fouled tons of pitches off and he was at the plate for like 10 minutes. thats what you need the rest of the lineup to do, especially the power hitters. take pitches, foul it off. wear down the starter even if you get out now. make him word and throw pitches. in the pitch count era, if you do that youll probably knock him out an inning ot two before hed normally come out JUST by working the count and staying alive. this offense usually feasts on bullpens so they have the advantage there.
Posted: 11:19 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Geoff
didnt realize you already said that time, good call on that
Posted: 11:24 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 danny
Hey yall, not to get all mathy here, but if Utley hits around .300 for the year, he is MORE LIKELY THAN NOT to go 10-20 straight at bats without a hit.
Have you guys read that book by Temple professor John Paulos? He talks about “slumps” in baseball and basketball, and how statistically likely they are over the course of a season.
Just saying. We need to cut Utley some slack.. it’s baseball, it’s going to happen.
Posted: 11:25 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Don M
We need to cut the whole team some slack… they are in first place.. with the type of team they have, we know they are all going to strikeout a lot. But they are also going to score a lot.
I thought Lester looked pretty damn good yesterday.. and all the baserunners had pretty big jumps yesterday, so I don’t know how much you can knock Ruiz.. Lugo, Crisp, and Ellsbury are all pretty damn fast.
It would be nice to see the fightin’s defend their home turf and send the Red Sawks packing… win this series 2-1, and then try your hand at the Angels who are damn good too
Posted: 11:38 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Josh
I was annoyed that Utley couldn’t do anything against the shift. He faked a couple of bunts to the left side, but I think he should have stuck with it and gone through with one. Even after seeing him pretend to bunt, they didn’t move back toward a conventional defense at all. He’s too good of a hitter to let that work against him.
Posted: 11:39 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Greg
Let’s beat up this F%#*ing Masterson kid and make him wish he was in Pawtucket.
Posted: 11:48 AM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Geoff
Ruiz grounded into 2 DP’s. he gets no slack
Posted: 12:01 PM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Mike T.
You won’t get many hits on Masterson. But he’s a righty, and like Wellemeyer for St. Louis, seems to be un-tested. His only loss is to Cincy, who I think has a similar lineup to ours. If we can figure this guy out after the first inning or two, it’s going to be a feast.
Posted: 12:03 PM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Geoff
I think they can feast on this guy. Hes very inexperienced. Lester pitching game 4 of the world series and pitched really well so hes proven.
i think they can get to masterson
Posted: 12:16 PM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Phil
Yeah, Cincinnati’s line-up is like a grade B version of the Phillies. It’s good, but it’s not as good as ours. Dunn hit a homer off of him, so I think Howard can. Hopefully Kendrick can just hold it down. Which 3 of the Angel’s marvelous starters do we face?
Posted: 12:34 PM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Bruce
Atta boy… Mike T … way to be positive for a change (chuckle).
As Wheels commented during the game, Boston is very patient as hitters and indicative of the way many American league hitters are programmed with that approach. It certainly paid off for them against Moyers last night.
BTW, Mike T… in another post you made yet another comment that defies logic. I quote you…”Howard stinks. He has 62 RBI because of the 3 guys in front of him. ” I had to laugh at that one. As no 4 hitter whose main responsibility is to be a run producer, Howard does it better than most (co-leader in league with 62 RBIs) in executing that responsibility. I can give you stats to back that up. With RISP, Howard is hitting .333 (28 for 84) with 6 HRs and 45 RBIs. You want more? With RISP and 2 outs, he is hitting .310 (13 for 42) with 2 HRs and 18 RBIs. So my obvious point to you is that those ” 3 guys” who get on base often can’t score if you don’t have a run producer that does his job well with RISP.
Let’s cheer and show our support for our team… Mike T (smile)
Posted: 12:37 PM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Geoff
Bruce.. Thanks for agreeing with me that patient hitters arent fooled by moyer. namely, american league hitters whove all sene or heard about moyer before. hell get hit during interleague play. meanwhile, the phillies are the tyupical national league phantom offense. totally impatient and mashes most pitching but good pitchers make it disappear….
Posted: 12:41 PM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Mike T.
What happened to the emoticons, Bruce?
Posted: 12:43 PM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Phil
Rollins and Victorino are the most aggressive hitters on the team and they’re our table setters. They get on base, and that’s great, but they need to be more patient and let the rest of the team see what the starter they’re facing has. Lester threw 2 pitches by the time he got to Utley in the bottom of the 1st. Luckily Utley had a 7 minute at bat against him in the bottom of the 1st. I guess that Howard and Burrell didn’t take notes but Werth and Feliz did.
As for everyone who bashes this team I’ll go up and down the line up, I already Thdid Vic and Rollins. Utley, I don’t even have to talk about that guy. He’s in a slump, but he is one of the best players in baseball. Howard…he is an RBI machine. Sometimes he’s patient at the plate sometimes he’s not, but when he is patient he’s amongst the best power hitters in the game. Burrell is one of our most patient hitters with the best eye. Probably too patient sometimes because he should be backing up Howard when he strikes out instead of walking. Werth is also one of our most patient hitters, but he can’t hit righties. Jenkins is somewhat patient, and can be very clutch. ie game Hamels got killed by Houston and the game we came back and beat the Marlins. He can’t hit lefties at all though. Feliz is also some what patient but he can’t hit righties at all. Everyone hates on Feliz, but he’s still going to have about 20-25 homers and 75-80 RBIs as our 7th hole hitter. I guess he’s bad though. Especially his defense, that’s pretty horrible too. Not for nothing, but a lot of Phillies fans used to want to make Nunez the everyday 3B because of his defense, and that would just be your 8 hole hitter. Well, Feliz is much better defensively than Nunez and his bat is much better. Ruiz calls a great game, and sometimes he can get a hit when there is a runner on second base. He was good last year, especially as an 8 hole hitter. He needs to stop being so scared at the plate. Coste is great, I can’t say anything bad about him as a hitter. I just wish he could be an everyday catcher, but he can’t handle the physical aspect of it.
This offense isn’t bad like Mike T says it is. They just get beat up by really good pitching, and most offenses do. We’ve never seen Lester before and I think that’s what makes something like that hard. He’s a young guy with good stuff. It’s gonna happen. Once again our pitching stepped up but our offense couldn’t I expect an average of 3 runs a game our offense is just going to have to score 4. They should be able to do it.
Posted: 12:57 PM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Mike T.
“They just get beat up by really good pitching” = non World Series contenders. My whole point.
Posted: 01:07 PM on June 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Phil
That doesn’t mean they aren’t a good team.
Posted: 02:12 PM on June 18, 2008