Phillies Nation

With the Phillies 9-3 loss to the Atlanta Braves, the Phillies dropped to second place in the National League East.  While the Phillies offensive struggles have been frustrating, it’s not time to press the panic button — yet.

Part of this loss can be blamed on defensive mistakes by Ross Gload and Ryan Howard.  Gload, who played in place of Jayson Werth, dropped a fly ball.  However, the most costly error was by Howard, who completely missed a ground ball that potentially could have been two outs.  The miscues led to two unearned runs, and if not made, the outcome could have been much different.

The Phillies were held scoreless until the seventh inning.  Tommy Hanson cruised along, allowing just three hits.  He was lifted in the seventh inning after allowing a two-out double to Raul Ibanez.  Pete Moylan came in relief and gave up three straight doubles as the Phillies were able to cut the lead in half.  Unfortunately, Troy Glaus broke the game wide open at the bottom half of the inning.  Glaus’ three-run home run off Chad Durbin put the game in the books.

There were some positives though.  Brad Lidge returned from the disabled list (Nelson Figueroa was designated for assignment) and tossed a 1-2-3 inning.  His slider was impressive, as he struck out one batter.  The other positive?  They weren’t shut out.

Today, the offensive struggles carried over defensively.  There is no question that the Phillies need to snap out of this slump, but it is still very early in the season.  In previous seasons, the Phillies have gone through similar woes.  This series with Atlanta is key, however, and they must win if they want to get back into first place.

Philadelphia Phillies (28-21) at Atlanta Braves (28-22)

Joe Blanton (1-3, 5.63) vs. Tommy Hanson (4-3, 4.06)

Time: 1:05, Turner Field
Weather: Clear, 65
TV: Comcast SportsNet
Twitter: @philliesnation

This is a big series.  Due to the Phillies’ offensive hiatus and the Braves’ five game win streak, the Braves find themselves a half game behind the Phillies.  If the Phillies want to stay in first, they need to find their bats.

The Phillies certaintly can not count on breaking out of their slump against Tommy Hanson.  The young righty has proved that his rookie year was no fluke, and that he is the real deal.

The Phillies pitching has been great of late.  Joe Blanton has been one of the few that has struggled, however.  In addition, his numbers against the Atlanta Braves are not pretty.  Regardless, no matter how well Blanton pitches, the Phillies need to score.

Your gameday beer: The Trippel Belgian Style Ale from the New Belgian Brewing Co. of Colorado is a nice American version of the tripel. There might be a little too much banana flavor in it, but it’s worthy of a drink or two with its sweetness. I’d enjoy some barbecued chicken and corn on the cob with this. –By Tim

Have a nice Memorial Day!  Go Phillies!

There aren’t too many complaints about the Phillies’ pitching of late.   The starting pitchers and bullpen have dazzled hitters over the past couple of weeks.  Jamie Moyer continued his success against the Florida Marlins, but unfortunately wasn’t perfect.

Moyer limited the Marlins to just one run on four hits over six innings of work.  He struck out two.

The lone run came off the bat of Ronnie Paulino, who singled on a ground ball to right field, bringing in Hanley Ramirez.  The sixth inning run broke the tie, but the Phillies were never able to produce runs offensively.

Anibal Sanchez limited the Phillies to just three hits over 6.2 innings.  He struck out seven.  The Phillies did not have any luck against the Florida bullpen either.

The Phillies left eight men on base, and were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.  The 1-0 loss makes it the fifth time the Phillies have been shutout in the last eight games.

The Phillies managed to take two out of three from the Marlins, but they are still lost offensively.  The Phillies despertely need to find their bats.

Philadelphia Phillies (28-20) at Florida Marlins (24-26)

Jamie Moyer (5-4, 4.55 ERA) at Anibal Sanchez (4-2, 3.23 ERA)

Time: 1:10, Sun Life Stadium
Weather: Sunny, 85
TV:Comcast SportsNet
Twitter: @philliesnation

No, it wasn’t a dream.  That really happened.  Roy Halladay pitched a perfect game!.  It’s still unbelievable.

Many would assume that the Marlins would be bummed after getting no-hit, but Cody Ross had a different approach to the perfect game.  “It’s the best pitcher in baseball.  It’s not embarrassing,” Cody Ross said.   The Marlins are probably going to come out swinging today.

While we are all still thinking about perfection, Jamie Moyer will take the hill against a team he has had so much success against.  Moyer is 13-5 with a 3.18 ERA against Florida.  At Sun Life Stadium, his ERA is a minuscule 1.66.

Moyer will be opposed by Anibal Sanchez, who has a no hitter on his resume.  Sanchez has struggled against the Phillies, going 2-5 with a 5.70 ERA against the Phillies.  When he is on, Sanchez has no-hit material, but is wild when he is off.  The way the Phillies offense has been going, the edge could go to Sanchez.

This would be a perfect time for the Phillies to turn around their offensive struggles.  It would also be a nice time for a sweep.

Your gameday beer: Affligem Blond is a Belgian beer, really my favorite nation for beer. It’s yellow/gold, very light and has somewhat of a banana lace smell. Can’t beat that combination. When facing a guy who has baffled you all his career, you need to rethink strategy, take your time, focus on every little pitch. That makes Affligem Blond a nice beer for tonight. For a food pairing, I’d go with clams. – By Tim

GO PHILLIES!

Few and far between in life are the moments that feel immediately historic. Instants where a period of reflection takes place so quickly after the happenstance, that you have yet to fully fathom the monumentality of what just occurred.

We will all forever remember where we were when Roy Halladay pitched the 20th perfect game in the 135-year history of major league baseball. Every single one of us. Forgetting our own personal recollections of Halladay’s masterpiece decades from now would be harder than remembering them.

For example, I can easily envision myself waxing poetic forty years from now, recalling to my grandchildren about how I watched this game with my father, the night after his 56th birthday. It will always stand out to me because my dad lives in a “DVR-world,” as he so eloquently puts it. A world where he sacrifices the actual viewing of a live game in order to fast forward the idle time between pitches.

But it just so happened that of all nights, this was the night he chose to sit down with me in the living room and watch Roy Halladay fillet the fish.

There are two roads I can take you down at this point – The Road of Analysis and The Road of Reflection. Odds are, you’ve read the ESPN recaps. You’ve been to Phillies.com and you’ll eagerly anticipate Jayson Stark adding his oodles of fascinating tidbits.

So, rather than waste your time and repeat what you can find on any other website, let’s make this moment personal for all of us. Let’s discuss the sentimentality of this Billy Chapel-like performance. Tell me your stories. In the comments section, write and tell me where you were when this game took place; what made it memorable; what made it special.

Because that is exactly what it was – special. The jittery, bubbly feeling we were left with when Ryan Howard sprinted from the first base bag to the pitchers mound, or after Carlos Ruiz and Halladay embraced felt eerily similar to the moment etched in time when Brad Lidge struck out Eric Hinske. Both were feelings of satisfaction, pride, and, most importantly, relief.

Jim Bunning

Halladay’s perfecto was the second in Phillies history and the first since Jim Bunning’s 1964 gem. Until now, any of us under the age of 50 have never truly experienced one of our guys pitching a perfect game.

My dad was nine years old when Bunning man-handled the Mets. He clearly remembers watching it in the basement of his friend Stevie’s house, a boy who is now a middle-aged math teacher at my former high school. For my dad, this was the one shining moment during a dark period of both Phillies baseball and American history.

Much like many other young children, my dad was deeply wounded by John F. Kennedy’s assassination the year prior to Bunning’s perfect game. Just as he remembers being in Stevie’s basement watching Bunning, he remembers playing football with his friends and dedicating a touchdown to the memory of JFK the day he died. Both represented those aforementioned “immediately historic” moments – one glorious, the other tragic.

After Bunning’s perfecto, we all know what happened to the ’64 Phillies. Many of you older fans can probably tell me exactly where you were on the final day of the 1964 season, too, when it sunk in that the Phils had let a massive lead slip away. You can tell me where you were when Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were killed, and where you were at the end of 60s when “one giant leap for mankind” was made.

That’s the point. These are moments when statistical analysis does not matter, moments when groundball-flyball ratios and criticisms of pinch-hitting Wes Helms for the fleet-footed Cameron Maybin are secondary to the unforgettable mark a perfect game leaves in each of our hearts.

Unforgettable was the rocket Wilson Valdez launched from deep short to nail Maybin at first base, the scorched one hopper that Juan Castro snagged at third, or the game-ending groundout from the bat of Ronny Paulino. And of course, Halladay being Halladay, most of his praise was re-directed to Ruiz for calling such a magnificent game.

Whether or not you care about the personal reflections I’ve outlined in this space, take this moment for what its worth and just smile. Let’s embrace this feeling and talk about stats tomorrow.

We could go the rest of our lives without seeing another Phillie retire twenty-seven men in order.

In case there was any question, tonight showed why the Phillies and their fans wanted Roy Halladay. He is perfect.

Throwing just the second perfect game in Phillies history, Halladay held on for a 1-0 Phillies victory.  He threw 115 pitches to 27 Marlin batters and retired them all in order – 11 via strikeout.

To say his pitching was masterful would be an understatement.  He pelted the bottom corners of the strike zone, threw curveballs with full counts, and absolutely commanded the game along with his battery mate Carlos Ruiz.

We’ll leave the questions about the offense for another night.  Perfect games do not happen too often.  It was just the 20th in the history of baseball.  This one accounted for Halladay’s seventh win of the season and helped his ERA dip to 1.99.

May 29, 2010 will go down as a great day in Phillies history.

Congratulations, Roy!

Philadelphia Phillies (27-20) at Florida Marlins (24-25)

Roy Halladay (6-2, 2.22 ERA) at Josh Johnson (5-1, 2.43 ERA)

Time: 7:10, Sun Life Stadium
Weather: Scattered Storms, 86
TV: Comcast SportsNet
Twitter: @philliesnation

Although the Phillies scored just 3 runs last night, they escaped with their first victory of the week taking the opener from the Marlins. They look to continue the run-scoring carousel with a win in balmy Miami, where we’re likely to see some rain tonight.

Fortunately, the Phils have their ace starting, even though he is coming off his worst start of the season in which he coughed up eight hits, seven runs and two walks in just 5 2/3 innings. The silver lining however is that Halladay only threw 99 pitches, so he should be well rested for tonight’s game. Last season after throwing back-to-back complete games, he lasted just lasted 3 innings in an interleague match against the Fish – he left after 43 pitches with a sore groin. Roy boy beat the Marlins earlier this season, going 8 innings allowing two runs on eight hits.

Pitching for the Marlins will be Josh Johnson, one of the team’s most reliable starters. Johnson will be looking to close out the month with another low-scoring appearance. He has allowed just 6 runs in five starts in May and is riding a 18+ inning scoreless streak….Just what Phillies fans want to hear…and in case you haven’t noticed, the Phillies haven’t hit a home run since Russ Gload’s lame duck shot on Sunday.

It would be a bit of an overstatement to say the Phillies offense broke out of their slump last night, but they certainly showed signs of improvement. As was noted in the Mets series, the Phillies were not moving runners to help their scoring chances. Last night witnessed Chase Utley’s second stolen base of the season as well as well-timed double steal that helped secure the winning run. After leading the NL in swipes last season, the Phils currently sit 13th in the league; and there’s more to blame than just Jimmy Rollins’ injury.

After shifting around the lineup last night, here’s Charlie Manuel’s scorecard for tonight:

Tonight’s Lineup: Victorino CF, Valdez SS, Utley 2B, Howard 1B, Werth RF, Ibanez LF, Ruiz C, Castro 3B, Halladay P

Your Gameday Beer – Hoegaarden
On this warm Memorial Day weekend, good beer is a must. I’ve always like Hoegaarden, which can be enjoyed in small sips with good food. It flows smooth and tastes like citrus. Have some barbecue chicken with it. – By Tim

GO PHILLIES!

Placido Polanco – resting a sore elbow and is listed as day-to-day; DNP Friday and is not starting tonight

J.A. Happ - went on the DL on April 16 with a left forearm strain; scheduled to throw live batting practice on Sunday

Brad Lidge – went on the DL on May 15 with right elbow inflammation; making a rehab appearance with Clearwater tonight

Ryan Madson – went on the DL on April 29 with a broken right big toe and had surgery on May 3; currently rehabbing in Clearwater

Jimmy Rollins – went on the DL on May 22 with a right calf strain (re-aggravating his injury from earlier in the season); currently rehabbing in Clearwater

Had the Phillies traded the package of Lou Marson, Jason Donald, Jason Knapp, and Carlos Carrasco for Cliff Lee alone, the deal would have been lopsided. But the incomprehensible addition of Ben Francisco by Indians GM Mark Shapiro made the trade an absolute fleecing.

Francisco had put together several productive seasons in Cleveland, playing nearly everyday and hitting third. In 2008, Francisco hit 15 homers and 32 doubles in 447 at-bats for the Indians, compiling a league-average .332 on-base percentage in his first full season as a major leaguer.

The next year, a June slump skewed Francisco’s numbers – he hit .141/.221/.176 in 95 plate appearances during the month. But once June turned into July, Francisco started hacking. He hit .321 with a 1.043 OPS in July, slugging five homers and nine doubles in 94 plate appearances.

And then Mark Shapiro traded him to the Phillies, a team that killed two birds with one stone by acquiring an ace in Lee and a much-needed righty bench bat in Francisco. It defied logic. Had Francisco’s June slump carried over into July, maybe it makes a smidget of sense. But Shapiro essentially gave away a young, productive, cheap outfielder for nothing.

Francisco will make $470,000 this year. He has such little big-league service time that he has not even entered his arbitration years. From 2011-2013, it would be a shock to see Francisco make in excess of $1M. He won’t be eligible to test the free agent market until 2014. Francisco is the ideal fourth outfielder; a cheap, high-upside player.

Even if Shapiro believed that Francisco did not fit into the Indians immediate future, there was such a small cost in keeping him that Francisco could have easily stuck around and been a fourth outfielder in Cleveland. It’s like if I traded you a roll of paper towels for $20…and then you also threw in a roll of paper towels.

Francisco made his Phillies debut last year in time for a road series in San Francisco. He started three of the four games (two in centerfield) and went 4-for-12 with two doubles. In his second start – which also happened to be Cliff Lee’s first – Francisco hit a double that just missed leaving the massive AT&T Park, and twice crushed fly balls that fell just short of the left field wall. It was quite the first impression.

All told, Francisco hit .278/.317/.526 with the Phils in the final months of 2009, with 14 extra-base hits in 97 at-bats. If you were to extrapolate Francisco’s numbers with the Phillies to a season of 600 plate appearances, he would have projected to hit 29 homers and 50 doubles. This is not to say that he definitively would have produced those figures, just that he was very productive in limited time.

This year, Francisco has struggled a bit, mostly due to the fact that he has only seen 32 at-bats in 47 games. He has started only five times despite the fact that Raul Ibanez has gotten off to a slow start, especially against same-handed pitching.

In his career, Ibanez has not been one of those lefties that struggles against southpaws, but this year has been a different story. Ibby is hitting a mere .214/.283/.357 against lefties with only three extra base hits. May has been kinder to Ibanez than April was, but it still is not as if he represents a massive upgrade over Francisco, especially against lefthanded pitching.

So, why hasn’t Francisco gotten any tick? Well, first off, the Phillies have only faced lefthanded starting pitchers in 13 of 47 games. Of those 13 games, Ibanez has started nine and Francisco has started four. Francisco has not exactly made the most of his limited opportunities, going 3-for-16 in those four starts with two doubles.

But Francisco has an OPS 10% better against lefthanded starters than his career mark, so that 16 at-bat sample size is the definition of useless. The man needs at-bats to be effective as a pinch-hitter and provide value, so giving him more opportunities against lefthanded starters seems to be the best way to accomplish this. A former pinch-hitter himself, Charlie Manuel has stated often that keeping a non-starter fresh and able to produce in such situations requires somewhat frequent at-bats.

It doesn’t need to be a strict platoon, but a more favorable ratio must exist for Francisco than one start every three or four times the Phils face a lefty.

It happened! The Phillies scored a run; actually they scored more than that, beating the Florida Marlins 3-2. Kyle Kendrick was outstanding for six innings, allowing just five hits with no earned runs. KK did not walk a batter, the first time he’s done that in a win that he started since April 26, 2008 against Pittsburgh.

You’ve undoubtedly heard the ugly streaks the Phillies had been on: 31 innings since a run was scored and a full week since winning a game. That futile period is over, finally. Five games felt like fifty as one of the most explosive offenses in baseball fell silent for far too long.

Tonight, Raul Ibanez snapped the drought in the 4th inning by ripping a triple into the right-center field gap to score Ryan Howard. It wasn’t a crooked number, but it made the team, and the fans, feel better. Momentarily, anyway.  The Phillies were still in the hole 2-1 at the time before Howard brought home Chase Utley to tie the game.  In the 7th inning Chase Utley would score Shane Victorino on a ground out to shortstop and just like that, a win was possible.

In the 9th inning, Jose Contreras would make an already tense mood even more uneasy as he allowed two runners to reach base.  Contreras would eventually nail it down with a strikeout of Cody Ross and a pop out from Ronny Paulino to give the Phils their first win since last Friday against Boston.

Let’s keep it rollin’ boys.  Two wins can happen.