The Cardinals announcers made an interesting point during today’s game about how the Phillies baserunning seemingly adopted the laid back attitude of Charlie Manuel. Runners were not aggressive today and may have precluded some runs being scored. For instance, when David Eckstien (who only has an ok arm) made an over the shoulder catch running into centerfield, Bobby Abreu had a chance to score. Also, David Bell conveniently forgot to slide into home and was easily tagged out by Molina in the 8th. Though the Phils had the lead for the better part of the game, this passive approach to baserunning contributes to the inordinate number of Phillies left on base. Today was no exception with 12 men stranded. The Phils are a legitimate base-stealing team (10th in the league) but other base running decisions must improve. Pat Burrell and others should not be getting picked off. Now, I’m not one to complain after the Fightin’s nearly put a picket fence up on the scoreboard to complete a season sweep of the NL Champs, but when you’re four games under .500 every little thing counts.
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