Phillies Nation

Cole Hamels did what Roy Halladay, Kyle Kendrick, Cliff Lee and Joe Blanton couldn’t do before him — won a game for the Phillies to end a four-game losing skid.

Hamels pitched eight shutout innings as the Phillies won, 4-1, in the final game of a three-game home series with Washington. The Phils will now travel to St. Louis for four games.

Some observations from Wednesday’s game:

- The Phillies have won two games against the Nationals since last August 20, and both of them have been gems pitched by Hamels. He beat the Nats on May 6 in a game remembered more for his plunking of Bryce Harper than his eight innings of one-run baseball.

- Hamels is obviously very, very good. He carried a no-hitter into the sixth and looked absolutely dominant in all but one inning.

- Hamels leads the majors with seven wins.

- Carlos Ruiz had three hits in his first-ever appearance in the four-hole. So it doesn’t look like his spot in the batting order will affect a swing that refuses to go cold.

- In the last four or five days, Shane Victorino has looked the best he has all season. He homered and doubled to drive in two on Wednesday and is now batting .267/.330/.439.

- The Phillies bunt a lot and run a lot. Maybe it’ll end up being a positive. Maybe it won’t net them anything. Wednesday’s suicide squeeze was exciting, as Juan Pierre sacrificed in Mike Fontenot from third base. But Pierre was also easily out at first base earlier in the game retreating after a hit-and-run resulted in a shallow flyout. That’s the danger of playing too much small ball.

- Jonathan Papelbon is filthy. The Phillies shouldn’t have committed that much to a closer, but if you’re going to, this was the guy. His fastball and splitter can disappear in any count to seemingly any batter.

- It’s pretty amazing that the Phillies have ONE complete game this season, and it was from Blanton.

(AP)

It could have been their ninth straight win over the Braves. It could have been their first three-game winning streak of the season. It could have been Roy Halladay’s 108th win without a loss when pitching with a four-run lead.

It could have been a victory that put the Phillies over .500 for the first time since the first game of the season, and it could have moved them to within one game of the Braves for second place in the NL East.

But instead, the Phillies blew a six-run lead with Halladay on the mound, came back on Carlos Ruiz’s indescribably satisfying bat-flip three-run homer, melted down behind Jose Contreras and Michael Schwimer, tied the game in the ninth off Craig Kimbrel, but eventually lost on Chipper Jones’ walkoff two-run bomb in the eleventh. (See Ian Riccaboni’s full recap below.)

It was a hard loss to take, sure. But I don’t know… for some reason this didn’t hurt as bad as it should have.

Maybe because it felt kind of historic. Ruiz set the single-game franchise record for RBI by a catcher. Halladay was yanked in the middle of an inning for only the second time since June 2008. It sucked to blow numerous opportunities, for a team built on pitching to blow two leads of four or more runs. It sucked to watch a usually anemic offense score 13 runs and lose.

But really, if you’re a fan of baseball, you loved this game. Chipper narrowly missing a walkoff homer and then coming back a few pitches later to seal the deal. It wasn’t a walkoff, but I remember when Jimmy Rollins did the same thing in 2007. It’s cool, and you had to expect it with Brian Sanches in his third inning on the mound.

There are certainly things for fans to be upset over. Bullpen usage was not one of them. Chad Qualls was unavailable after pitching three times in four days. If you bring Jonathan Papelbon in for Sanches in one of those innings, you’re down to just Kyle Kendrick.

Sure, Papelbon gives you a better chance of prolonging the game, but pitching Kendrick or even Joe Blanton there changes the next few days. And as much as I hate when people say, “It’s only [insert month],” it really makes little sense to redirect the course of the next few games when it could or could just as easily not mean an extra-inning win on May 2.

I’m a die-hard Phillies fan who refuses to hide that fact even as I attempt to make a professional career out of this. But I’m a die-harder baseball fan, if that makes any sense, and Wednesday night’s game was tremendous theater for anyone who loves this game.

Twenty-eight runs on 36 hits in a game billed as a pitcher’s duel? Eight half-innings of multiple runs? A game-tying grand slam off the era’s most dominant pitcher? A game-tying infield single off one of the game’s most dominant closers? Perhaps the last walkoff home run of Chipper Jones’ career?

If I told you that you could watch all of that on a Wednesday night in exchange for a Phillies loss, I think you’d take it.

Or maybe you’re a bigger fan of the team and the city than the sport. There’s nothing wrong with that.

I’d personally just give up one game in the standings for 11 innings I’ll always remember.

The Phillies again did little offensively, but a win’s a win. It’s still pretty sad to go 1-1 when your starting pitchers give you 17 scoreless innings over two games.

- Vance Worley struck out a career-high 11 and allowed seven baserunners in seven innings as the Phillies won, 2-0. He struggled with command to the first three batters of the game then threw his two-seam fastball anywhere he wanted against an overmatched Padres lineup.

Worley is 1-1 with a 2.37 ERA and 21 Ks in 19 innings.

- The Phils scored a first inning run when Juan Pierre took an extra base after walking. Placido Polanco hit a line drive to left field and when Will Venable bobbled the ball, Pierre reacted quickly enough to slide safely into third. Jimmy Rollins followed with a sacrifice fly. The second run scored on a passed ball in the ninth inning.

- The win was the Phillies 12th in a row at PETCO Park, where they are 13-1 since 2008. The Phillies are 22-7 against the Padres overall in that span.

- Worley said to Gregg Murphy on CSN after the game, “It was good to get that win after what Cliff [Lee] did last night. That was ridiculous, I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

- No offensive issues were rectified in this game. The Phils went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and stranded six.

- John Mayberry has overtaken Polanco as the Phillie struggling most. He went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and since Opening Day has nine strikeouts, eight groundouts, seven popouts and four flyouts to go with four singles. (h/t: David Hale (@DavidHaleTNJ)

- Cole Hamels faces Edinson Volquez Friday night at PETCO Park at 10:05 p.m. on Comcast SportsNet. Hamels in his last start struck out 10 Mets — three on fastballs, three on changeups, two on cutters and two on curveballs. He had everything working last Sunday, in case you were busy watching the wild instant classic in Game 3 between the Flyers and Penguins.

Placido Polanco is batting .179 this season.

The Phillies had a chance to win their second straight series at AT&T Park on Tuesday night, but that’ll have to wait 24 more hours. The Giants were victorious, 4-2, as Joe Blanton lost his second game of the season.

- The Phillies’ struggles with runners in scoring position reared their ugly head again. The Phils were 1-for-11 with RISP, delivering only one run in such situations despite having runners in scoring position in six different innings.

- Placido Polanco continues to look like he’s completely done. In the top of the fifth inning, Polanco came to the plate with Freddy Galvis on second base with two out. It was the kind of situation in which you used to feel confident in Polly. Now, not at all. He can’t drive the ball, he can’t make solid contact of any kind. Another 0-for-4 night dropped his average to .179, and he has just five line drives in 33 balls put into play. It’s gotten so bad for Polanco that he did his little “home run hop” on a fly ball to center field in his fourth at-bat. He’s so unused to good swings right now that he thought THAT was a real charge.

- John Mayberry hasn’t been much better than Polanco. The power we saw in 2011 is nowhere to be found, but it would be nearly impossible for Mayberry not to run into 8-10 homers as the season goes on. So at least with him, there’s a bit of room for optimism. His swing is just too long right now. When the Phillies loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth inning, Mayberry weakly popped out to first base on a fastball right down the middle. His head wasn’t on the ball.

- The Phillies stole two more bases Tuesday. They are 12-for-13 swiping bags.

- Madison Bumgarner was hittable and this game was winnable. These are the ones that frustrate you… not because the Phillies fell to 5-6, but because this looked like the kind of game they could lose in the playoffs. Starter gives up three or four runs, offense can’t capitalize on opportunities.

It’s a familiar formula. And it can happen easily when a team refuses to walk (they had one on Tuesday) and seldom produces extra-base hits.

Courtesy AP

The Phillies offense finally came to life Wednesday night in a 7-1 win over the Miami Marlins.

Here are some assorted notes on the win…

• Roy Halladay out-dueled Josh Johnson to even up their personal Phillies-Marlins series, 2-2. His other win over Johnson came in that little perfect game thing he threw on May 29, 2010.

• Freddy Galvis is now tied for the team-lead with four RBI.

• Hunter Pence just keeps on raking. He’s 7-for-19 (.368) with a team-high 11 total bases, and he continues to scald singles up the middle.

• Speaking of raking, how about Carlos Ruiz? He’s 6-for-13 on the season with a double and a homer, and was 23-for-48 in the spring. Add it all together and Chooch is 29-for-his-last-61 for a .475 batting average.

• How amazing is Halladay, seriously? He’s allowed one run in 15 innings this season. Last year, he allowed one run in his first 21 innings. The season prior, he allowed one run in his first 19 innings as a Phillie. Talk about hot starts…

• The Phillies’ big inning was due mostly to errors. An error by the second base umpire calling Juan Pierre safe, an error by Giancarlo Stanton, poor fielding in left by Logan Morrison. There was also the lucky bounce off Johnson’s leg that gave Placido Polanco an RBI single to start the rally. But whatever, a scuffling offense’ll take it.

• The Phillies have a major league-high eight stolen bases and haven’t been caught once. Only one other team in baseball (Toronto) has one steal without being caught.

• Johnson is just off right now. He’s allowed 21 hits in 9.2 innings after allowing just 18 hits in 41 innings last April. The pitcher the Phillies faced Wednesday is not the man that has stifled them with a hard, heavy sinker in years past. Have all of the injuries sapped a bit of his effectiveness?

The saga continues Thursday as Joe Blanton makes his first start of the season against Marlins lefty Mark Buehrle. Only five Phillies have ever faced Buehrle. Polanco is 14-for-35 (.400) lifetime against him, as the two faced off quite a bit in the AL Central.

Buehrle has never pitched at Citizens Bank Park.

Antonio Bastardo was a prime reason the Phillies blew so few saves in 2011.

The Phillies’ opening series at PNC Park drew up a very specific formula for the season.

The big strength was starting pitching — Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Vance Worley combined to produce this line: 20 IP, 9 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 14 K.

The big weakness was offense — the Phillies hit .204/.264/.255 with three extra-base hits.

The unit that blew Sunday’s series finale, however, was the bullpen. Say whatever you want about offense, when you allow seven baserunners over the final 2.2 innings, that is the root cause of a loss.

In Sunday’s game, the Phillies used Michael Stutes in the seventh inning (allowed two runs), Kyle Kendrick and Antonio Bastardo in the eighth inning of a one-run game (blown save) and David Herndon in the ninth, with the score tied 4-4.

This type of setup could be used in many games this season, especially those started by Worley or Joe Blanton. The Phillies right now don’t have a specific eighth-inning reliever. They don’t have a Mike Adams or a Ryan Madson of old.

They have an Antonio Bastardo who has lost velocity and may have to nibble more, leading to even worse control. They have Stutes, who is coming back from shoulder soreness in the spring and may have had his best success before the league knew what to expect from him. They have Kendrick, a career starter/long-man who has the exact skill set you don’t want coming out of the ‘pen late. They have Herndon, a groundballer who leaves too many pitches high in the zone and routinely allows early baserunners.

All of these pitchers could have good seasons. All of these pitchers could struggle mightily. No conclusions are being formed after three games, these are simple facts.

What it boils down to, however, what we saw first-hand in the three games at PNC Park, is that the Phillies will be playing in so many one-run games that the bullpen’s success or failure will determine the season. If the bullpen is as good as it was last season, the Phils can win 94-96 games. If it’s average or worse, they could win 88.

I don’t think many folks realize just how critical the bullpen was to the team’s 102 wins last season. The Phillies’ bullpen, as a unit, blew just three saves in the first 110 games of 2011. That’s not just ninth-inning blown saves, either. That’s blown saves in any inning.

It is unrealistic to expect that sort of effort this season. It’d mean the Phillies would allow the tying run(s) to score after the starter exits in just 1.9% of the next 107 games.

But this was the missing piece of the discussion when comparing last year’s team to this year’s. Yes, last season the Phillies were without Chase Utley until May 23, and the second base fill-ins combined to hit .211 with no home runs. Yes, last year’s team began the season without Hunter Pence.

But last year’s team also saw a mixture of solid bullpen work and incredible late-inning luck that doesn’t figure to carry over. Getting leads will be one hardship for this team. Maintaining them will be another.

Are the Tigers the best in baseball with Fielder and Cabrera?

With Opening Night minutes away and the first slate of games set for a glorious Thursday afternoon, now is a good time to rank the 30 offenses in major league baseball. This isn’t a formal ranking of teams, but a ranking of starting lineups.

There just seem to be many misconceptions out there about certain teams. People are praising the Rays and Angels as two of the top-five teams in baseball, ignoring the fact that both have relatively poor lineups. So without further ado…

30) Houston Astros

Carlos Lee is the only power bat and Jordan Schafer strikes out way too much to be a leadoff batter. There’s no way he lasts in that role all season. Jose Altuve and J.D. Martinez could surprise some people, but overall this lineup is young and full of easy outs. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Jamie Moyer toy with it on Friday.

29) Oakland Athletics

Yoenis Cespedes certainly helps, but you know you have very little offense when Coco Crisp and Seth Smith are batting in prime run-producing spots. Both are nice players. But they aren’t No. 3 and 4 hitters.

28) Chicago White Sox

Eww. Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko batting third and fourth but a series of black holes elsewhere. Nobody else gets on base with any regularity. Not A.J. Pierzynski, or Alex Rios, or Alejandro De Aza, or Alexei Ramirez. Gonna be a rough year on the south side of the Chi.

27) Chicago Cubs

Just not much there. The Cubs are probably OK with not competing this season. The projected 1-2-3 of David DeJesus, Darwin Barney and Starlin Castro might hit 400 singles and make 1,200 outs. None of them walk. None of them are overly fast. Unless Alfonso Soriano and Bryan LaHair combine for 125 extra-base hits, this team will struggle mightily to score runs.

26) Pittsburgh Pirates

Andrew McCutchen is an incredible talent and the type of player all 30 teams covet, but he’s not a game-breaking offensive talent. He can hit doubles, steal bases and work the count but he doesn’t yet have 30-home run power and he is a lifetime .276 hitter. There simply isn’t enough protection around him. Neil Walker is productive but fits better as a fifth or sixth batter than a cleanup hitter. And the Pirates are again planning to give Garrett Jones close to 500 plate appearances. Jones’ power is overrated — 20 home runs over a full season isn’t as valuable as you may think, especially when it’s packaged it with a low batting average (.254 career) and OBP (.323).

Continue reading Ranking the Offenses: 30-1

Matt Cain has spent the majority of his career as an underrated No. 2 starter to Tim Lincecum on a team that couldn’t score runs. Because of awful run support, Cain was just 54-60 from 2007-11 despite pitching to a 3.26 ERA, the seventh-best mark in the game during that span. Next on that ERA leaderboard comes Cole Hamels, at 3.31.

Cain signed a five-year extension Monday worth a guaranteed $112.5 million and a potential for $126 million. It is the largest deal for a righthanded pitcher in major league history.

Underrated no longer, Cain’s deal sets the tone for Cole Hamels’ impending mega-deal. It’s a semi-disastrous precursor for the Phils. Cain is 11 months younger than Hamels and has had a similarly dominant postseason run to a World Series title. After that, though, the similarities start to sway strongly in Hamels’ favor.

Hamels has averaged one more strikeout-per-nine innings over his career than Cain, as well as one fewer walk. That is significant. Over a full season that’s 20-22 more strikeouts and 20-22 fewer walks. Hamels also has a six percent edge on Cain in groundball rate – 43% to 37%.

Cain’s only real advantage on Hamels is his microscopic home run rate, which is due in large part to the monstrous confines of AT&T Park. Giants pitchers have annually maintained home run rates lower than league-average under pitching coach Dave Righetti, and Cain is perhaps the best example.

If Cain is worth a guaranteed $112.5 million, or $22.5MM per year, what does that make Hamels worth?

Continue reading Cain’s Contract Puts a Hurt on the Phillies

We’re about 200 days from major league free agents being able to sign with teams other than their own. One such player is Cole Hamels, whose contract with the Phillies ends after the 2012 season. If Hamels isn’t re-signed within six days of the end of the 2012 World Series, he can sign elsewhere.

I’ve been documenting Hamels’ contract status for almost a year. It began last May with a comparison of a Hamels deal and the contract signed by Tigers ace Justin Verlander. It continued in late-August after Jered Weaver signed a team-friendly pact with the Angels.

As time has worn on, those two deals have become less and less meaningful with regard to Hamels’ impending payday. We aren’t looking at numbers like $85 or $90 million. We’re looking more so at a figure close to $120 million.

I wrote several months ago that a five-year, $100 million contract with a sixth-year team option at $22 million (with a $12 million buyout) would likely get Hamels signed. He gets his $20 million per season but the Phillies avoid handing out a six- or seven-year deal. The contract would be worth, at most, $122 million and at least $112MM.

On Wednesday, CSNPhilly.com Phillies insider Jim Salisbury reported that talks between the Phillies and Hamels have progressed, especially in the wake of the Dodgers being sold for $2 billion to an ownership group that will seek to make a splash in the coming years.

Continue reading Here’s How a Hamels Deal Gets Done…

So we’ve learned that Chase Utley probably won’t be ready for Opening Day, a reality many of us assumed but wanted badly not to hear this season.

In the last episode of Phillies Nation TV, Pat asked why Utley hadn’t yet seen an inning in the field or a plate appearance against live pitching. It was a valid question that offered more and more room for pessimism the longer you thought about it.

Sure, resting Utley was logical. But if he was going to be OK, why not give him an inning a week or a few at-bats just to catch him up to speed? Jimmy Rollins has dealt with plenty of injuries to his lower-half and he’s been out there regularly this Spring. It just didn’t bode well and on Monday, Phillies Nation (the collective, not the site), awoke to a nightmarish scenario that may turn out to be passable, but may usher in the end of the Chase Utley era in Philadelphia.

That’s the longer-term scenario we’re looking at here. Utley is 33 with a contract that expires after next season and knees that will never get better. The last part of that sentence has been stated both subtly and explicitly by Charlie Manuel and Ruben Amaro.

Utley is missing cartilage in his knee, and as Amaro put it Monday, “you just can’t grow back cartilage.” There is likely bone-on-bone friction in Utley’s knee(s), and all you have to do is imagine the feeling of moving laterally with bones rubbing each other to understand why such a cautious approach is necessary and why Utley is probably destined for DH-duty in his next deal.

This isn’t a curable condition, it’s one you attempt to manage, but the fact remains that nobody in the Phillies organization knows what is going to happen with Utley in 2012, much less 2013 and beyond. I can guarantee you that nobody in the front office is thinking about how to approach Utley’s next contract because no one knows what he’ll be 18 months from now.

It’s an incredibly sad situation. Utley was on a Hall-of-Fame pace through the end of 2009, when he was averaging a .301/.388/.535 slash-line with 32 homers and 43 doubles in full seasons while playing elite defense (top-1 or top-2 in the sport) at a premium position.

Utley was the player that separated the Phillies from other teams.

This was before Roy Halladay, and for half of 2009, before Cliff Lee. It was after Cole Hamels’ stellar postseason run but before he turned into a four-pitch demon. Utley was what was different about the Phillies. A patient hitter who could hit the ball anywhere, for power and average, reach balls to his left and right that 25 second basemen can’t glove and run the bases exceptionally.

Now, he’s a shell of that.

Continue reading The Utley Era Wasn’t Supposed to Go Like This