Phillies Nation

YES! THank you!!! Its about time

If Happ isn’t lights out when he gets his chance, where do you go from here? You act like Happ is an ace and should be starting when in reality he is in the pen because he couldn’t win a spot in the rotation. I agree he deserves a chance but people here act like he is superman and they will be sorely disappointed when he is not

Don’t get me wrong Tim, I agree with you completely Happ needs his shot and thats why I push for a 6 man rotation for a few weeks and let the worst pitcher at the end of the few weeks go to the pen. Cario is a waste of space on the bench anyway so bring up a reliever and we would be set.

The comments you see around here make me wonder if everyone things Happ is the next Hamels, like he will solve all our problems. I just hope everyone knows what to expect from him and isn’t disappointed if he goes 7 innings and 4 ERs

How do you make that conclusion that we think hes an ace? Hes better than Jamie Moyer and Blanton right now…he has dominated at times. he has been very consistent. theres NO reason not to give him a chance…tahts ridiculous man…its mid may…season is well underway. its not “too early’ anymore..

the season is a whopping 20% completed. Time to panic right Geoff? I dont always disagree with everything you have said in the past, but come on. 20% done.

Yeah does anyone remember Ryan Madson the guy who was a great prospect of being a 2-4 starter?

We jerked him around so much moving him from the pen to the rotation that we ruined him has a starter and got lucky with him becoming an excellent back of the bullpen guy.

What about Gavin Floyd? we can do this all night.

Happ has not be dominate… he has done his job and got his outs. But starting and coming in out of the bullpen are two completely different things.

Happ deserves his chance, he’s proven everything he needs to be a starter. Especially with the way the starting rotation is going. Plus, he’s pitching against the Blah-tionals.

I can’t wait to see how he does!

Go PHillies!!!

Charlie has really “protected” Happ. He has only pitched in back to back games 1x this year and only has pitched 6 1/3 innings in May. Moyer has to go to the DL to get himself right. If past performance is an indicator Happ should make the most of his chance this Saturday.

Mike baby stop already. No where in my post to this article did I go on about Moyer being done or not. My point to this article is pointing out that it is way to early to say this season is done, because Geoff is acting like its panic time, and we have no chance of doing anything. Might want to read the posts to this article. Yes I was defending Moyer in the other articles, not this one.

We have so many arms that aren’t ready… they will not be helping us this year. Carrasco is the only one who looked suited to do something this year and it seems like that is not panning out.

Happ is not a savior, he is a 4-5 guy in the rotation and you would hope he could give you 6-7 innings with only 3-4 ERs but in reality those expectations are extremely high for a guy making his first start this season. There is a reason he did not make the rotation coming out of spring training so I can’t understand why people expect him to come out and be an Ace.

If happ can keep the team in the game and not fall behind 4-0 by the 3d inning he will be doing a great job compared to the other starters (besides hamels). Expectations are low. 6ip, 3er. Is that so realistic for him? Absolutely.

I know I am looking forward to seeing how Happ does in non-mop up/being mopped up long innings.

Thanks Justin it’s nice to find someone out here who agrees with what your saying. I have been saying the same thing about Moyer and Happ that you just said. People here seem to expect that Happ and Carrasco and the rest of the minors are like Peavy, Johan, CC and King Felix and Charlie is holding them back. Happ will pitch well hopefully, but that will not change a thing he will stay in the pen and the rotation will stay the way it is. Its the long relievers job to pick up games like this where there is a double header and we dont want anyone pitching on short rest.

And I still stick to a point I made last night. I think Jaime is pressing trying to get win #250. Many pitchers and position players have done this in the past. It always seem so difficult to get that milestone victory or homerun. Tom Glavine had similar issues going for his milestone a few years ago and I think we are seeing that from Jaime.

Once they pulled Happ for a pinch-hitter last night it became pretty clear that Happ was the starter on Saturday.. otherwise there would have been no reason not to let him keep throwing..

I think Happ will give a strong performance.. I don’t know how long he’ll be able to go as he hasn’t thrown more than 3-4 innings on a regular basis in a long, long time..

I was thinking last night that Condrey is reminding me a lot of Durbin last year.. both in his effectiveness, and the way he’s getting used a lot.. in all kinds of situations.

I hope that they don’t burn him out like they did with Chad last year, because it’s a great thing to have multiple effective arms in the bullpen in the 2nd half of the season.

PtheB: Why keep bringing up the Hamels-Happ comparison? I’m not doing that… Hamels is a superb No.1 starter… all I said is Happ COULD be (read: has the potential) a superb No.5 starter… I never said he’ll be our next “superhero” or that he has “Hamels’ talent” so stop putting things out of context.

I think he’s good, and he has PROVED he can be a good starter. So what’s your beef?

I like how people are saying he didn’t pitch well enough in ST to win a spot in the rotation, it came down to the wire and some people thought Park pitched better, I always thought Park deserved to be in the pen. yes he has had two good starts and I am happy about that, and hope Park pitches well the rest of the year, but Happ is a starter, he pitched well in his spot starts last year what makes you think he can not do that again this year. And long releif guy is not the same as a closer or set up guy in the pen. It is not going to screw with his head,

Exactly, beta sigma shag.

I think the bottomline with Happ is the following

He is a freshness. period
No he will not be Steve Carlton maybe not even Terry Mulholland, but
He has to be better than several of the starts we have seen.

He gets people out, in other articles we talk about Moyer not making it through the lineup 2x well Happ throws harder and it will be harder for a lineup to adjust to him the 2x and 3x time through

I think he will do fine as long as we can support him with good fielding and hitting

Manny,

I agree with you Happ as earned the opportunity and as has prooven that he can start. I think you are on the money that he will be a superb #5 if he is better than that score one for us, if not than he is a #5 win-win. He has been very effective in the bullpen as well, but we are missing consistency there too, I think we either put Park or Moyer there. Personally I think Moyer would be better there since coming in for 2-3 innings does not allow the other team to adjust to him.

Happ should do well against the nationals and he should have always have benn the #5 starter Park should be in the pen and stay there !! as for Moyer i will never understand why he was signed again but as for who will replace him in the rotation and it will happen everyone seems to be throwing a lot of names around except for the one guy who is going to get the call to came up and that is Mr Kendrick !! you can yell,rant,rave and scream all you want but he WILL be the one they call up fill any spot in the rotation he has the most major league experience and was sent to AAA to work on a few pitches and get his head straight and so far he has preformed well at AAA.

It’s a double header, since you dont want any of your pitchers to throw on short rest you use a spot starter to keep everyone on their schedule.

Charlie said after this game Happ will return to the pen and everything will stay how it was.