Comments on: Retaining Confidence In Lidge

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:54:33 +0000

dane cook… joke stealer… bad actor… coc fiend… coattail rider…

By: Don M

Don M — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:43:28 +0000

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me there, and Im not trying to start a debate on it.. I know a lot of people just view it as entertainment.. but I really don’t care all that much about the personal lives of athletes, just as I don’t care about the personal lives of actors.. But i understand that a lot of people do..

I just love the guys on Baseball Tonight and how they look at the Key Matchups.. and how and why some guys are effective, or what was causing Myers to struggle, Utley to be so hot to start the year… and then the 2nd half those two reversed roles.. to me, that is the interesting part of sports..

baseball postseason pitcher-hitter, situational matchups.. its great.. If there was a clock, you would not have had the edge-of-your-seat DRAMA (damn, I said it..) that you had with Lidge pitching yesterday.. knowing that ANY PITCH could be a difference maker in the game.. and how quickly momentum can switch with one pitch, that leads to an out.. or a baserunner…

God I love baseball… and I love that Dane Cook isn’t telling me THERE’S ONLY ONE OCTOBER anymore.. he used to be funny at one point

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:38:40 +0000

georgie, in Don M’s defense… a lot of the time the media takes it to levels we as fans never need to see… we all could do without most of the sideplots that ESPN and most of the newspapers put out there… statwatching by the way is a huge reason a lot of people enjoy baseball as it isn’t as fast paced as the other big 4 sports…

By: Don M

Don M — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:35:43 +0000

you really that insterested in seeing how “real” T.O. is and whether or not he complained about getting 20 passes thrown his way, or which pills he tried to kill himself with … Brett Favre retirement drama, will-he, won’t-he comeback… Michael Vick and his involvement in dog fighting..

Or how the comentators tell you who they would take in their Mock-Fantasy-Football draft this year that they actually had on ESPN.. that was good television

By: Georgie

Georgie — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:20:28 +0000

Don, last time I looked , sports were played by REAL people, not machines. Players are affected by things that are going on OFF the field as well as on, and there-in lies your “drama/soap opera” type stuff. I , for one, enjoy the personal stories, it makes the players seem more real to me, not just a bunch of stats.

By: Don M

Don M — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:19:50 +0000

you must mean Billy Wagner… he got the blown save in the All-Star game, Lidge only got the loss.. and we all know that Win-Loss is a joke, especially in the All-Star game

By: Chutley

Chutley — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:16:43 +0000

GUYS GUYS GUYS …… he already blew a save in the all star game so he already got it out of his system…. dont worry

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:48:05 +0000

MP, couldn’t agree with your point any more….
all morning long on 950ESPN i’m hearing all these callers with negativity. really?! we just won a freakin playoff game! A PLAYOFF GAME!!!
we are 1 – 0 right now! two more wins and we go to the NLCS!!! this is huge!!! i cant even begin to fathom how someone can harbor negative feelings towards this team right now… what do you want? 20 – 1 victories from here on out? a win is a win is a win… who cares how you got it? the giants won with a helmet catch for christs sake… giants fans dont care how they won, because they won!
so phillies phans – please… PLEASE start getting positive about our fightins – they need it now more than ever

By: Don M

Don M — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:25:30 +0000

Somebody made a good point the other day.. that with Ruiz behind the plate, Lidge feels like he can throw any pitch in any situatiuon, and try to get batters to chase in the dirt.. which is HUGE for a closer.

Anyone else getting annoyed by these “sportswriters”.. yesterday the Cubs were a lock to go to the World Series.. but they lost game #1 and so all the stories today are about how they are in trouble.. and could go down 2-0, and blah blah blah.. Sports is such a damn soap-opera anymore it drives me nuts sometimes.. instead of talking about the ins-and-outs of the games, I had random guys on ESPN telling me why T.O. is, or isn’t a distraction to the Cowboys, as though anyone cares at all

By: Chase Andrews

Chase Andrews — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:22:33 +0000

Hindsight is 30/20 in the playoffs. If Lidge has a 1-2-3 ninth, this blog is a couple hundred posts lighter. Bringing in Lidge was the best managerial move, as saving Cole’s arm for later in the playoffs (even if it’s just an inning) could prove helpful down the road.

By: Evan

Evan — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:19:33 +0000

Another stat not given is double plays. Lidge has been good at this in 2008 because he’s been able to locate his pitches down. He can give up a hit or walk and still cut down on the damage with a DP.

I didn’t watch him much in 2007, but if he wasn’t getting his pitches down where he wanted, I’m sure he was giving up more extra base hits and not getting as many double plays.

By: T

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:41:00 +0000

bull is right, it’s the extra base hits. The difference between 2007 and 2008 for him is that he’s not serving up the occasional homerun ball. All of his pitches are well thought out this year (can we attribute some of his success to Carlos Ruiz? Why not.), and when he does have the men on base he doesn’t screw up.

Incredibly simple, yet incredibly complicated.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:21:37 +0000

I have no problem putting Lidge in there. That’s his job, and while it was dicey for moment, he got the job done.

Saving Hamels is a good idea. He might be needed on short rest for game 4 if the Phils don’t win one of the next two.

By: bull

bull — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:09:22 +0000

you probably have to break down the hits on how many extra base hits he had gave up last year to this year.

By: Whisky Priest

Whisky Priest — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:59:59 +0000

I was checking out Lidge’s stats and was amazed at how much better his record is this year vs. last year: not because of how many more saves he’s had, but because of how similar his BB, H, K and WHIP have been.
.
Year—— G —- IP —– H —- BB — K — WHIP — ERA — SV
2007 —- 66 — 67.0 — 54 — 30 — 88 — 1.25 — 3.36 — 19
2008 —- 72 — 69.1 — 50 — 35 — 92 — 1.23 — 1.95 — 41
.
How do you pitch essentially the same number of innings, have a WHIP within 0.02 of one another, have a K/IP difference of less than 0.02 (2007 – 1.31; 2008 – 1.33) and yet be able to drop your ERA by 1.41 and more than double your number of saves? I find this totally bizarre! Did Houston just have a lot of one run leads when handing the ball over vs. the Phils having two and three run leads?

By: bull

bull — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:27:36 +0000

I think that is exactly what lidge needed to give himself some confidence after his last playoff appearance. He has been iffy his last few but that is part of his game make them swing at the slider if they dont beat them down with the fastball. Plus that run should not have scored if the ground is not wet, Utley doesn’t fall.

By: BrewTownPhilsPhan

BrewTownPhilsPhan — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:18:22 +0000

All my friends out here are saying, “Man, we almost got to Lidge! He didn’t have his A-game.” I’m telling them, “No, that was Brad being Brad. How do you think he went 41 for 41? By beating down every single team he faced? A good percentage of his saves looked pretty much like that one.”

Yesterday was gut-wrenching. Does he have to do it that way so often? But it seems like when he gives up the first run of a three run lead and puts two more in scoring position, even though my heart is palpitating, he keeps pitching his game. He hasn’t been rattled all year. I want to wring his neck one or two batters into one of his cardiac saves, but he doesn’t loose his cool.

In that one unmeasurable category he looked exactly like Cole yesterday – calm under pressure.

By: Don M

Don M — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:16:11 +0000

yo Phil…. good to hear from you again.. comments were few and far between over the last few weeks of the season..hope all is well..

By: MP

MP — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:11:24 +0000

Okay, being at the game yesterday, the last inning was scary and it was really starting to rain – people are getting far too worked up over this! The man is not a robot, he cannot have a 1,2,3 perfect outing everytime – he has been perfect in saves this year, and gave us #42 yesterday, let’s cut the guy some slack. It was nervewracking yesterday, but I didn’t lose confidence that Lidge would get the job done – he’s proved he can, even in the stickiest of situations. We overanalyze in Philadelphia. We need to STOP the Lidge talk from yesterday. Yesterday is over, just like last year’s postseason outing. It’s time to move on today. Instead of focusing on the negatives, could we just enjoy yesterday? Our first postseason win in 15 years and all anyone can say is anything about Lidge. We’re going all the way this year – can’t anyone else feel it?

By: ashley

ashley — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:11:04 +0000

I think a lot of fans are waiting for Lidge to…ya know. Hamels should have gone out there in the 9th with Lidge just ready to go. Lidge is scaring me way too much right now. If we could start scoring like 15 runs a game and holding the other team to one or two then maybe we won’t run into this problem again.