Week In Review – Panic Sets In

Panic is setting in.  I mean, how could it not?  The Phillies are only 16 games into the season but however you look at it, .500 ball is not winning anything.  The pitching, per usual, has upheld their part of this baseball bargain but the offense has failed to cash in any of their chips this season.

Like I said it is still early, and baseball season is a marathon and not a sprint.  There is plenty of time left for the Phillies to figure this whole thing out.  And my guess is that they will.

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Offensive Woes The Phillies as a team have hit seven home runs this season.  For the month of April last season the Phillies had hit 23 homers, well off the pace of this year.   Matt Kemp of the Dodgers already has hit 8 home runs himself.  Combined with Andre Ethier, the two have 43 RBIs.  The Phillies have only managed 42 runs total this year.

At the forefront of these offensive struggles are the injuries of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard.  How close are they to returning? And is the season still salvageable once they do get healthy?

A couple of the games this week reminded how much we miss these guys and how bad the Phillies offense is struggling.

RISP woes plague Phils in loss to Giants

Phils waste Lee’s 10 inning masterpiece

Will Phillies make the necessary changes?

Bats fall silent in San Diego

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Pitching Bright Spots It hasn’t all been bad this week for the Phillies.  Cliff Lee put together an incredible outing the other night against the Giants throwing 10 scoreless innings.  Lee still only finished the game with 102 pitchers and unfortunately it wasn’t enough.  The Phils ended up losing 1-0.

Vance Worley had a career outing against the Padres, striking out 11 hitters.  He is now averaging over a strikeout an inning (21/19) in his second season with the big club.

Roy Halladay ‘battled’ Tim Lincecum outlasting the righty going eight innings and allowing only two runs.  It wasn’t quite the match up everyone was expecting to see as Lincecum couldn’t quite get it together.

Cole Hamels once again shined against San Diego.  He is now 4-0 versus the Padres.  The offense waited a lithe but finally scored some runs for our lefty and the Phillies won.

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More Bad News The Phillies sent Cliff Lee to the disable list to join Utley and Howard.  Lee has an oblique strain and the assignment is retroactive to right after his last start.  The Phillies brought up Joe Savery to take his roster spot.

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Like I said, it’s still to early worry too much but a little frustration is warranted.  This is a tough team and they will bounce back.  I just hope its not too late.

Phillies (7-9), five games back in NL East.