Getting It Done

Over the last week, the Phillies have figured out how to get it done, one way or another. The starters seem to finally be settling in, and, since Nelson Figueroa gave up a few runs last Monday against the Cardinals, the bullpen has remembered how to pitch. Since my last post, the Cardinals series finished up with Roy Halladay turning in a pretty disappointing performance: 7 IP, 9 K, 3 BB, 2 R, 1 ER. I say "pretty disappointing" mostly facetiously, but it is a credit to his high level of talent that many of us considered that outing a disappointment. Still, the offense continued to look alive and scored seven runs to provide more than enough insurance to get Halladay the win, his sixth on the season.

(Photo courtesy of Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Friday night was easily the highlight of the Phillies season thus far. Jamie Moyer pitched a complete game, two hit shutout. Yes, that Jamie Moyer. The who only said "cool, just doing my job" after finding out how his performance made history. The one who is nearly a year older than the previous record holder for oldest player to pitch a shutout, Phil Niekro, was when he threw a four hitter in 1986. Which happens to be the year Jamie Moyer had his major league debut. I just want to emphasize that so you don't lose track of how old he is. Yes, Moyer, at the age of 47 years, 188 days pitched a shutout, and this is not a record that's likely to ever be broken. Except if Moyer does it again. As I've mentioned before, he's one of only four pitchers to be making starts at his age in all of baseball history. And two of those four only made one start, so he's already in uncharted territory. Moyer performed this feat a day after Robin Roberts, one of the greatest pitchers in Philadelphia history and a master at finishing games, passed away at the age of 83. Roberts must have been smiling down on Jamie Moyer Friday night.

Moyer with the jersey of Robin Roberts, which will hang in memoriam for the rest of the 2010 season

(Photo courtesy of Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Saturday afternoon was another loss from lack of offense. Joe Blanton had a quality start, and he didn't give up a hit until the fifth inning, but the Phillies missed opportunity after opportunity to drive in some runs, and the Braves scored the three runs they needed in the sixth. The bullpen was solid, except for the always-a-concern Danys Baez giving up a run in the ninth. The bullpen limited the damage, but it didn't really matter without any runs to back that up. It did matter the next day...

Say it ain't so, Joe

(Photo courtesy of Ron Cortes/Philly.com staff photographer)

Cole Hamels came to the mound to go for the series win against the Braves, hoping to replicate his 8+ inning gem from last Tuesday night. Unfortunately, he had one of his bad innings today in the fifth, though he limited the damage to three runs after beginning the inning with a walk to Braves pitcher Kenshin Kawakami. The Phillies scored five runs, including one on Jayson Werth's 100th career homer in the third inning. The bullpen had to pitch four innings today, and they did so without giving up a hit. Chad Durbin pitched a perfect sixth and seventh and continues to look like he's back in 2008 form. Jose Contreras continued to look unhittable in the eighth. Finally, Brad Lidge had his first save of 2010, and he is doing a good job at raising our hopes that his 2009 pitching is a thing of the past. I hope that's not false hope.

 (Photo courtesy of H. Rumph Jr./AP)

Around baseball, the second no-hitter of the season and the 19th perfect game in baseball history was thrown today by... Dallas "#$#@ A-Rod" Braden of the Oakland A's. For the second season in a row, the Tampa Bay Rays were on the losing end of a perfect game. If this year should come to another Phillies-Rays World Series, as Sports Illustrated predicted before the start of the season, I sure hope the Rays offense of today shows up and not the Rays offense of nearly every other game this season. But I'm getting far ahead of myself. For now, it's on to Colorado for another road trip, and may this one go better than the last one.

Fans and Pitchers

Lately, the focus at Citizen's Bank Park has been on a the antics of a few fans and the performances and injuries of a few pitchers. First, the fans. During Monday night's game, a 17-year-old fan decided it would be a great idea to run out on the field, after his dad told him not to do so, and was chased around before being tasered by a police officer on the field. This incident would have gotten almost no attention had a taser not been involved, but such is life and yet another story involving Philadelphia sports fans went around national media. This spotlight might have led to a fan deciding last night during the 9th inning to run out on the field once again, though no tasers appeared this time. I don't care for the use of tasers in situations like this, where no threat was posed and the perpetrator had nowhere to run but "around." If the officer legitimately believed that a threat was posed in that moment, I won't second-guess him on that. If he used the taser because he wanted to have the situation resolved more quickly, then that's using force out of laziness and inexcusable. In any event, let's hope the fan on the field streak doesn't continue tonight.

 (Photo courtesy of Matt Slocum/AP)

Second, the pitchers. Brad Lidge and Joe Blanton are back, and thus far (in a very small sample of pitching) seem to be in good form. Ryan Madson is out for two months after he broke his toe from kicking a folding chair in frustration. Being so familiar with frustration lately, Madson should be able to identify with all the Phillies fans who now want to kick him for injuring himself in such a stupid way. With Madson out until mid-July at the earliest and J.A. Happ out for at least the rest of May, the pieces that were supposed to fall into place with Blanton, Lidge, and J.C. Romero returning from injury remain as muddled as ever. As with this time last year, the Phillies 5th starter, Kyle Kendrick this year and Chan Ho Park in 2009, has not pitched well (more on that over in the Phillies Zone). It would be nice to say that Kendrick is on a short leash at this point, but as they point out in the post I just linked to, there isn't much of a viable alternative waiting in the wings. For now, we just need to hope that Roy Halladay continues doing what he does best, Blanton stays consistent, and Hamels continues his return to his pre-2009 form (more on that later) so that only two days out of five are a concern.

You think my toe looks bad? You should see the chair.

(Photo courtesy of Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Monday night's game was not the best for a Phillies team hoping to continue the momentum from two straight Mets beat downs on Saturday and Sunday, but there were silver linings. Though they lost 6-3 in the end, Blanton looked like he was ready to continue where he left off last year, as a reliable third starter who can last through the 6th or 7th inning on a regular basis. Leaving him in to start the 7th during this game was a questionable decision on Charlie's part, as was bringing in Nelson Figueroa to get out of a two out jam, which Figueroa was not able to do without letting four runs score, two of which were charged to Blanton. Besides the silver lining of Blanton's performance, Brad Lidge pitched a scoreless 9th while notching two strikeouts. Being down 6-2, it was not exactly a high pressure situation. That would come during the following game.

 (Photo courtesy of Stephen M. Falk/Philly.com staff photographer)

Last night's game, with apologies to a timely Raul Ibanez triple in the 7th, was the Cole Hamels, Brad Lidge, and Carlos Ruiz show for the Phillies. Hamels looked phenomenal. He pitched nearly effortlessly through eight innings, except for a jam when, in the 5th, Albert Pujols came to bat with the bases loaded. He then popped out to 2nd on the first pitch. Otherwise, Hamels struck out eight, walked two, and came out for the 9th and gave up back to back doubles to tie up the game at 1-1. Brad Lidge came in with Yadier Molina on 2nd, got a ground out that advanced the runner, then a strikeout and a fly out. The only base runner he allowed was an intentional walk to Colby Rasmus. Both Hamels and Lidge hit velocities with their fastball that haven't been seen from them in a while, or ever in Hamels' case. So far, Lidge appears back in the mid-90s and his slider has the bite that it was lacking last season. Hamels was regular throwing 92-94 mph and even hit 95 once. He also threw his cutter and curveball effectively. On the Cardinals' side, Adam Wainwright also pitched incredibly well, with the only Phillies run coming on a sac fly by Carlos Ruiz to score Ibanez in the 7th following Raul's triple. Ruiz proved to be the hero of the game, when, after Contreras pitched a scoreless 10th, Ruiz hit his first walkoff homer since 2007 off of Blake Hawksworth. Chooch, with the 4th highest OBP in the majors right now, is in Señor Octubre form early this year.

(Photo courtesy of Ron Cortes/Philly.com staff photographer)

I don't have much else to say at this point, but it would be nice to see Kendrick make a decent start tonight. Even when Happ is healthy again, either Kendrick or Moyer will have to be in the rotation, and neither has inspired much confidence so far. I wouldn't be shocked to see the Phillies making a deal with Pedro Martinez again or even John Smoltz halfway through the season to bolster the rotation. As of now, if things keep going as they're going, outside help may be necessary. Fortunately, the 1-2-3 in the Phillies rotation is shaping up to look much better than it did for most of last year. For now, once again to all those injured: get well soon.

First Series Loss: Reflections Looking Forward

Today was the first series loss for the Phillies this year, and the torrid offense of just days ago decided to take the weekend off, scoring only one run in the last two games. While offenses go through ups and downs, this was quite the precipitous dropoff for a team that went into yesterday's game averaging 7.7 runs a game. If not for a Jayson Werth solo homer in the bottom of the ninth yesterday, the Phillies would have been completely shut out by the Marlins this weekend. First for some recaps of this series against the Fish and then some general thoughts.

Friday's game was Roy Halladay's third start as a Phillie, and once again he did not disappoint. He went 8 strong innings and only gave up two runs. He probably would have completed another game if the field had not turned into a giant puddle by that point from all the rain, a puddle that no amount of Diamond Dry seemed to be able to quell. David Herndon came in for the 9th to protect the 8-2 Phillies lead, and proceeded to get charged with four runs on five hits, only two of which left the infield. The soaking wet infield. Herndon did what the Phillies have kept him around to do: induce groundballs. Unfortunately, ground balls hit into soaking wet turf don't tend to have the same bounce that they would get on dry ground. Madson had to come in to the record the save, which he did, thankfully. It was one quite an ugly 9th inning for the Phillies even though it resulted in a win, but once that win was notched, it was easy to look back and say it was mostly bad luck. It was certainly hard to do that as it was happening. Fortunately the offense had provided more than enough insurance against such bad luck, including solo homers by Polanco and Utley (his fifth in four games) and three RBI on two Juan Castro singles. Unfortunately, that was the last we saw of most of the Phillies offense.

(Photo courtesy of Tom Mihalek/AP)

Saturday night was Jamie Moyer's second start of the year, and as I've pointed out before, he made history with this start by being the first non-knuckleballer to make more than one start at the age of 47 or older. Unfortunately, he showed his age in the first inning, giving five runs including a three run shot to Ronny Paulino, who the Phillies possessed for the 2008-2009 winter but traded him to the Giants for Jack Taschner. In retrospect, not one of the best moves that Ruben has made. Back to the game at hand, Moyer then looked stunning for the next five innings, giving up two hits, no runs, and striking out seven. If that Jamie Moyer takes the mound all the time, he'll be able to keep his career alive a good while longer. If not, we'll see. The other story of the game was the lack of a Phillies offense, except for the Jayson Werth solo homer in the bottom of the 9th, making the final score 5-1 Marlins. I'd say that became the bigger story of the game after today's performance.

Today's game was at times painful and at times great to watch. Specifically, the Phillies offense was painful and Cole Hamels was great. Despite losing 2-0 to the Marlins, I consider this game to be a net positive going forward. The offensive slump is annoying, to be sure, but seeing Cole Hamels pitch 8+ innings with 2 ER (one of which was credited to him but batted in on a double given up by Madson) and  8 Ks was reassuring. First, Hamels is now the only pitcher other than Roy Halladay to pitch past the 6th inning so far this year, and he not only went past it, but he blew past it, throwing devastating change-ups and largely settling into a rhythm after giving up a solo homer to Dan Uggla in the 2nd. The offense, on the other hand, had some issues beyond the fact that they scored 0 runs. A ground rule double by Ben Francisco cost Jayson Werth the chance to score the tying run from first base in the 6th.  He could have scored later on in the inning when Ruiz flied out to center and Cameron Maybin's throw went to the backstop. However, Werth was too tentative in his running and stayed at third, and Hamels grounded out to end the inning. A forgettable day for the bats, but a great day for Cole Hamels.

 (Photo courtesy of Ron Cortes/Inquirer Staff Photographer)

With this latest loss, the Phillies have now lost three of their last four games. This is not cause for alarm, but certainly cause for concern, with the shaky Kyle Kendrick starting the next game at Atlanta on Tuesday and the probable starters after that being something of a murky situation. This murkiness came after it was announced that J.A. Happ has had some left arm soreness which could cause him to miss his last start. That arm trouble could definitely explain why his velocity was a little off in his start last Thursday and why he walked six batters in 5.1 innings. The last thing the Phillies need right now is another player to succumb to the injury bug. Here's hoping for good news when Happ throws a side session during the off day tomorrow. For now, the Phillies leave Philadelphia on a low note after an otherwise great season so far. The question marks are there for this team, but so is incredible potential.

In an un-Phillies related note, last night was quite the crazy night around baseball. First, the Cardinals and the Mets played a 20 inning game, where the first run of the game was not scored until the top of the 19th inning. I had been watching the game in the 9th inning and left my house for a few hours, got back and turned on my TV again, and assumed that Fox was replaying the game. Until I saw that it was the top of the 18th. And Felipe Lopez, a position player, was pitching for the Cardinals. I enjoyed the ride from there until the end of the 20th, and if you missed out on this game, go read the recap. Jayson Stark will undoubtedly write something about it as well in the coming days.

Another note around baseball: Ubaldo Jimenez, the Rockies number one starter and flamethrower, pitched the season's first no-hitter last night. In case you were wondering, the last time a no-hitter and a 20 inning game happened on the same night was back in 2003 when Kevin Millwood pitched a no-hitter for the Phillies against the Giants and the Cardinals beat the Marlins 7-6 in 20 innings. I mention that mostly to bring up the fact that no one has pitched a no-hitter for the Phillies since. I, for one, would have no problem with another no-no from one of our starters one of this days.