Offense Can’t Muster Much In 3-1 Loss
Posted by Tim Malcolm, Wed, April 22, 2009 10:57 PM | Comments: 21
2009 Recaps, Posts
The Phillies offense continued to struggle against sinkerball pitchers, collecting only five hits off Braden Looper in a 3-1 loss. The Phillies left eight on base in the game, never hitting a stride until the ninth inning, a tad too late.
The lone run was a Jayson Werth home run with an out in the ninth. The Phils proceed with two more hits by Raul Ibanez and Matt Stairs, but Chris Coste struck out to end the game. Earlier the Phils couldn’t capitalize on chances, including a two-men-on, one-out opportunity in the first inning; that was erased by a Ryan Howard double play.
Pitching was much better, as Joe Blanton threw a solid six innings (3 ER, 8 H, BB, 5 K). He was done in by a two-run Mike Cameron double that gave the Brewers a 3-0 lead at the time. Chad Durbin, Clay Condrey, Scott Eyre and Ryan Madson combined in relief for three no-hit innings.
Posts: 0 Dan
Such a waste of a great pitching effort. Seems like when our pitching is giving up tons of runs our offense can score (the 7-1 blown lead), but when the pitching keeps the score low the offense can’t muster squat. At least it is still early.
Posted: 11:26 PM on April 22, 2009
Posts: 0 JohnKruksLoveChild
It was goddamn freezing down there !
Posted: 11:41 PM on April 22, 2009
Posts: 0 Tools Of Ignorance
John- You are so right….It actually felt better though sitting in the seats, then standing in the concourse because of the wind tunnel effect there.
Posted: 12:19 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Doug D.
It was just one of those games — a lot of “at ‘em” balls
Posted: 06:45 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Geoff
That was a bad offensive performance against a below average sinkerballer. But sinkerball pitchers own the Phillies – or they seem to. Joe Blanton pitched well and they wasted it.
Posted: 09:02 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Don M
I saw that All-Star Voting started last night… almost 3 whole weeks into the season..
This is why guys that actually deserve to go don’t get-in, and guys like Fukudome and stuff get selected to the team..
Voting should start June 1st or something.. so we’re not watching the Mets and Cubs play the Yankees and RedSox every year
Posted: 09:31 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Chuck P
Doug nailed it… Geoff missed it, sorry bud (and I don’t want to turn this into a Geoff bashing forum). If they got “beat” by a sinkerballer, you would expect to see a ton of groundball outs and bloop flys… that wasn’t really the case. We got the leadoff runner on base in all 9 innings and Blooper managed 0 strikeouts… traditional wisdom says that we win that game. There were a few easy groundballs but not many. There were a couple of bloop flys but there were three times as many hard line drives. The Brewers played well defensively in tough conditions and they deserve some credit but it just wasn’t our nigth.
Evert line drive that we hit was right at someone. When you’re hitting balls that hard, you expect to get a few into the gaps but that didn’t happen. Blanton was throwing some fillth… he looked great. It’s a shame that they wasted that “ever-so-important” Quality Start but it’s encouraging that Blanton gave us solid innings.
By the way… at the risk of sounding like an Ibanez d-eater… that play he made to gun down whoever it was at second base was INCREDIBLE. He grabbed the ball about 15 feet in front of where we were sitting and I can honestly say that my knee-jerk reaction was disbelief. When a ball hits the fence that deep in the corner, it’s like a gimme on the green… a double… he even sported a grin on the jumbo-tron.
Posted: 09:44 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Brian of CO
Fact still remains, giving up only 3 runs should have been enough to win that game. Fact still remains when you put up 1 run in 9 innings, it is still a poor offensive performance. Surgar coat all you want to say we got the lead off man on every inning. If those lead of man did not score a single time in any inning, it IS a poor offensive performance. I dont always aggree with Geoff, but he didnt miss the fact that the Offense didnt not score a single run until a HR in the ninth inning. That is in fact a poor offensive outing and a waste of a quality start. Whether it was a below average sinkerball I dont know, but we came up short. A loss is a loss, and win is a win. The only redeeming thing about last night was the fact that the Mets also lost AGAIN, and the Marlins lost as well.
Posted: 10:23 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Geoff
But unless you can paint the corner like Lowe, a sinkerballers job IS TO GET YOU TO HIT BALL RIGHT AT HIS DEFENDERS. Of course there were a lot of “at em” balls, thats what sinkerballers are supposed to do. Either induce grounders or have the hard hits go right at someone. Blanton pitched well enough to win and they basically gave him nothing. NO clutch hitting. You get a runner on base and then strand him in all 9 innings ? – thats not acceptable.
Sinkerballers dont always aim to induce ground balls strictly. Thats the main goal, but they pitch to contact in general. Now, the umpire was calling Looper’s low junk strikes all night. But you gotta be patient and not swing at that.
Posted: 10:28 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Geoff
If the umpire still calls the low balls strikes and isnt being consistent then you send the manager out to get up in his grill and get thrown out.
Posted: 10:29 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Georgie
Ok, I’ll pose the same question here as I did in the Jimmy post. Having never played organized baseball, I honestly don’t know the answer to this-since sinkerball pitchers apparently “own” the Phils’ hitters, why don’t they take some batting practice with a sinkerball pitcher? Just try to hit and hit and hit those types of pitches during practice. Do they do that? If not, why not? Couldn’t that help? Maybe I’m being naive, but it seems to make sense to me!
Posted: 10:56 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Geoff
Tha pitchers in batting practice arent throwing nearly as hard as the pros do. Batting practice is more lax than it should be. But thats what its always been like. Thats one reason, at least.
The Phillies also like to swing at low pitches. Which plays right onto the sinekrballers’ hands. Left handed hitters in general like low pitches, which includes the switch hitters, and Werth likes low pitches too. They love to swing at bad pitches out of the strike zone, lol. They all do it, even when theyre hitting well they still do it.
Posted: 11:04 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Geoff
joking to an extent but it looks really bad when they do that..
Posted: 11:05 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Georgie
Well, then they need to show some discipline and lay off those low pitches (in a perfect world, of course)!
Posted: 11:07 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 TBT
Not a particularly fun game to attend.
Posted: 11:17 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Don M
The way to hit sinker ball pitchers is to take the ball and hit it to the opposite field.. Lefty’s hit it to LF, Righty’s to RF..
Because when you have a guy like Howard try to pull the ball, its a ground-ball double play..
The few times we hit the ball hard..but in the air, it was a line-drive, never anything with enough backspin to carry deep in the park
Derek Lowe, Brandon Webb, Chien Ming Wang… lots of pitchers have had a ton of success using that pitch.. but if you elevate it and it doesn’t actually “sink” the ball can get crushed which is what happened to Wang this year for the Yankees.. and why Utley and Burrell were able to hit late-game HRs off of Lowe in the playoffs..
Posted: 11:23 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 ed
do any of you think moving Jimmy down would help him to,and if the Phightin’s are having trouble with the sinker get Lidge to show them what to look for as the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand or one of the catcher’s to tell them how the ball reacts. can’t hurt.
Posted: 11:35 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Geoff
The only sinkerballer they still crush is daniel cabrera – and thats because hes one of those guys that has 4 pitches: A sinker that doesnt sink, a slider that doesnt slide, a cutter that doesnt cut, and a curball that doesnt curve.
Posted: 11:39 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Bruce
Give credit where credit is due. I tip my hat to Braden Looper. He comes from the old school of pitching that Jamie Moyer excels in. His performance with zero strikeouts is evidence that location, location, location matters more than velocity. A sinkerballer like Looper will have success when he’s sharp and is able to upset the timing of hitters. It really doesn’t matter who is the opposition.
Posted: 11:51 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 ActuallyChilled
all star game is promoted so early bc it became a pr stunt.
totally agree. i seriously think that 2nd half play from the previous year should be at least displayed to compare as well
Posted: 11:51 AM on April 23, 2009
Posts: 0 Mike D
We do seem to have trouble against sinkerball pitchers.
Looks like this was this season’s first “I really wish we’d saved up some runs from last night for tonight” game.
C’est la vie. We’ll be okay once Jimmy gets going – Blanton looked good.
Posted: 11:51 AM on April 23, 2009