Worrying About The Phils?

It's been a while since I've said a whole lot in depth about the Phillies, so let's do so now, in a point-counterpoint deal as my mind just goes back and forth with their issues...

Point: The Phils are 55-33, the best record in the majors.
Counterpoint: They had the best record last season, and look where it got them.

Point: The offense continues to struggle way too often. Of their 88 games going into this weekend's series with Atlanta, the last three games before the All-Star break, they've scored fewer than four runs in 46 of them. That's over half, if you're math-challenged.
Counterpoint: In those 46 games they're 18-28. That's a .391 win percentage, which is much better than most, if not all, teams. That's a testament to the performances of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels. In their other 42 games, the ones where they've hit the magic four-run target, they're 37-5 (with two of those losses coming this week, oddly enough).

Point: That rotation is so formidable.
Counterpoint: If the offense continues to put pressure on them to be excellent instead of merely good so often, might they not weaken just enough so that, come October, they're not quite as excellent as they need to be? And with Roy Oswalt out with his back problem and Joe Blanton (remember him?) not yet ready to return, the Phils have to keep Kyle Kendrick in the rotation along with youngster Vance Worley. (By the way, with all the praise of Worley, how do we know that Worley 2011 isn't Kendrick 2007 -- promising now but ultimately not all that great?)

Point: The hitters who have been slumping so much will come around. And they'll get a big right-handed bat at the trade deadline to help protect Ryan Howard.

Phillies: The U Word Resurfaces

The end of the Phillies' season played out very much like most of the season itself: with a lack of offense. So often the team's bats went south this year that it shouldn't have been a surprise when it happened in the playoffs, especially against the solid pitching of the San Francisco Giants. And yet, somehow, it was. Because they told us all year long that when it really mattered, they'd be fine. After the three consecutive shutout losses against the Mets at Taxpayer Bailout Field. After losing three of four to the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates (the worst franchise despite the best ballpark). After losing 6 of 7 coming out of the All-Star break. After falling 7 games behind Atlanta in the NL East. After the four-game sweep at home against the also-ran Houston Astros. They always told us they'd turn it around.

And they did, for a while. The Phils roared to their 4th straight NL East title and the best record in the major leagues. And you couldn't ask for a better beginning to the postseason than Roy Halladay pitching a no-hitter in his first-ever playoff start. But during the entire postseason the team struggled to score, often needing subpar fielding from the Reds and Giants in order to get some runs. Their lack of hitting with runners in scoring position was excruciating, especially in NLCS Game 6, in which the Phils scored twice in the first, and Giants' starter Jonathan Sanchez was so shaky that he was removed before getting an out in the third inning. But they never scored again. They were 2-for-11 with RISP and both of those hits came in the first. Making things worse, the Phils' own fielding let them down at times.

And so I feel the need to use a word to describe this team that hasn't applied in a few years now:

Phillies: Same Old, Same Old, Sort Of

I sensed a bit of panic after the Phillies lost the first game of the NL Championship Series on Saturday night. I didn't actually see any online comments that were pessimistic and I didn't hear anything on WIP. Well, I actually didn't listen to the station at all. I just had a feeling that there was a little bit of worry setting in.

That's almost understandable considering our city's pro sports history. But anyone who's watched this Phillies team the last four seasons has to realize that they aren't beaten until they're actually beaten, and to panic prematurely is just silly. And after Sunday's 6-1 win, the series is tied at 1-1. Just like last year's NLCS. So they lost the first one instead of the second. Big deal.

Saturday night was actually hyped somewhere as the greatest pitching matchup in postseason history, with the Phils' Roy Halladay and the Giants' Tim Lincecum. But the final score was 4-3, not 1-0 with a no-hitter. Halladay gave up a pair of solo homers to Cody Ross, and those would've been the only runs he allowed, except that with two outs and a runner on first in the 6th, Raul Ibanez misplayed a deep fly by Pat Burrell into a double that made the score 3-1, with another hit right after making it 4-1. And while Lincecum was good enough to get the win, the Phils had some opportunities to score but didn't take advantage. So when Halladay pitches again, I'm sure he'll be fine.

Game 2 was dominated by Roy Oswalt, who (despite also giving up a home run to Ross) outdid both of the Game 1 starters on the mound and, with the Phils holding on to a 2-1 lead in the 7th, on the bases. He led off the 7th with a single, moved to second on a Shane Victorino bunt and scored on a Placido Polanco single, running right through the stop sign of third-base coach Sam Perlozzo. Unlike the first game, where the Phils' 3 runs all scored on homers, their 6 runs Sunday came without the benefit of the home run. That is a good sign for the next 3 games in San Francisco's AT&T Park.

The Phils need to stop giving up home runs to Cody Ross. If they do that, they'll be fine.

More Randomness: Phils, Birds, Softball...Yarn? Chicken?

Submitted for your approval...or not...

• The Phillies finally had a day off after 24 games in 23 days. In that stretch they went 15-9 and have regained the NL East lead for the first time since May. The lead is now a game over Atlanta. Still, with Brad Lidge having elbow issues and Jimmy Rollins leaving their last game with a hamstring problem (that Charlie Manuel says wasn't serious and was due to dehydration; of course, he also said Ryan Howard's ankle injury wouldn't cause him to miss any games just before Howard went on the disabled list for nearly three weeks), and Placido Polanco's saying his elbow is broken (though he continues to play), and the team's general inconsistent hitting all season, it won't be smooth sailing the rest of the season.

• Meanwhile, the NFL is back. The Eagles start on Sunday, and that day they're wearing 1960 throwback uniforms as part of the commemoration of their 1960 championship team. Yes, that was 50 years ago. And yes, that was the last time the Eagles won a championship. So if you wonder why Eagles fans get a little (a lot) crazy, wonder no more.
  
  
  
  

The Hot Word And The Cold Phils

Thanks to the "word verification" procedure to cut down on spam on blog comments, I now have an entry in the Urban Dictionary. When I was replying to a blog post by my friend Walt the generated word I had to enter in order to reply was "fabylla." So I claimed it as my own and gave it a definition...

fabylla (adj.) Fabulous to the extreme; more wonderful than even chocolate chip cookies: "That party was so off the hook, it was fabylla!"

It's the hot new word, darlings! I don't care if two miscreants on UrbanDictionary.com gave it "thumbs down." They are clearly not fabylla like the rest of us.

Also not fabylla, not remotely fabylla: the Phillies. They've been swept by the Atlanta Braves, they finished the road trip 2-7, they've lost seven of their last 9 and 11 of their last 15. With today's 2-1 loss they've scored a grand total of 14 runs in the last 11 games...although they finally got a home run last night, from Ryan Howard, for the first time in a week. The Braves now lead the Phils by 2 1/2 games in the NL East. It's early June, it's hardly an insurmountable gap, they haven't had Placido Polanco the last few games, they're still missing Jimmy Rollins, there's clearly no reason to panic just yet, but it's still incredibly annoying. The Phillies are unwatchable right now, unless Roy Halladay is pitching, and for a team with this much talent that is unfathomable.

Phils: Great Start, But...Phanatic: Great. Period.

It occurs to me that I haven't discussed my baseball team since the season started. There are lots of good things happening with the Phillies...and some things that are bad not so good.

Good: The Phillies are off to a 7-1 start, their best start since 1993. After the last few years of poor starts, this is a refreshing change.
Not So Good: All of their games have been against woeful Washington and hideous Houston (who still hasn't won a game).

Good: The Phillies are scoring runs in bunches. In their 8 games they've scored 11, 8, 5, 8, 9, 2, 7 and 14.
Not So Good: Again, all of this is against Washington and Houston.

Good: In the only game they didn't score 5 or more, the Phils still won 2-1 thanks to Roy Halladay, who pitched a complete game. He's won both of his starts, allowing just one earned run in 16 innings, walking 2 and striking out 17. Halladay has completely lived up to his reputation so far. J.A. Happ won his first start as well without allowing a run...
Not So Good: ...but Happ was in and out of trouble. He only lasted 5-plus innings, throwing 104 pitches. And the rest of the rotation has fallen far short of Halladay's excellence.

Phillies: Here They Come To Save The Day

It's been a long, tough winter. Budget crises at every level of government, not to mention in millions of households. The absurd path to something resembling health-care reform. The Pope and his church continuing to minimize the importance of doing something about the child molesters in their ranks. The earthquake in Haiti. The horror that is this season's American Idol. A slut named Tiger Woods. "From Paris With Love."

And in more "important" areas locally, a pro football team that ended the 2009 season in heinous fashion and looks to spend 2010 falling fast into mediocrity, a pro basketball team that fell fast from mediocrity into incompetence (but no one cares anyway) and a pro hockey team that was touted as a championship contender, only to fall into a desperate fight to barely make the playoffs so they can be first-round cannon fodder. Speaking of stuff falling, let's not forget Snowpocaplypse, Snowmageddon and Snowverkill.

Enough bad news. Winter, like Donovan McNabb, is gone. Spring has sprung. You can tell because the Phanatic (as you can tell by the photo above, taken on Wednesday) has gone red for a week. The Phillies are back! The 2010 season starts Monday at 1 pm in Washington, with Roy Halladay making his Phils debut. Halladay! Celebrate! Now we've got Roy Halladay...and it's time to celebrate...okay, no more channeling my inner Madonna.