The State of Pitching

OMG, a post about sports!!!!

MLB needs to hold a summit meeting in the off-season to discuss the state of pitching, particularly starters. I got this idea after hearing the news about Stephen Strasburg's latest injury.

 I've never seen a season where there were so many early exits, skipped starts, innings limit issues, pitchers shut down for the season, multiple times on the disabled list, etc. This has led to what seems to be an endless stream of pitchers called up to make their major league debuts...and then shortly after that they're on the DL as well.

Baseball has a lot of problems, but this is a crisis to me. They need to evaluate their training and workout programs as well as how they handle pitch counts and innings limits (face it, not only did the Nationals screw up their playoff hopes in 2012 with how they handled their end-of-season Strasburg shutdown, the last two seasons he's been oft-injured.)

What do you think of my idea?

Holy Cow, A Sports Blog Post!

I was planning to write a little post about the Eagles, with their season beginning tomorrow and all, but events have inspired me to make this post about a few different topics.

For one, the Phillies are 6 1/2 games behind St. Louis for the second NL Wild Card because the Cards lost while the Phils, after a long delay, were rained out. People think of last year, when other teams made huge comebacks to get into the playoffs -- that very same St. Louis team not only got in, but eliminated the Phillies and won the World Series -- and think that the Phils could do the same.

But it's so extremely unlikely. The Phils have to pass not only the Cards, but the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Pirates and Brewers. The Pirates are fading fast. (Sorry, Kurt.) They're 9-19 over the last month. But the Brewers are on fire, 15-4 in their last 19. In addition, the Phils have no games left against any of these teams, which means even if they finish strong, they'll have to rely on all of these other teams losing enough games to get the Phils in. So there's really no reason at this point to get excited.

On another baseball note, normally I'd enjoy a team that's been an underdog for so long making a strong run at a championship. But then there's the Washington Nationals. From this spring's sad attempt to keep Phils fans out of their ballpark, to Jayson Werth's various comments since he left town, to their butthead general manager whining like a baby when Cole Hamels hit their hyped rookie Bryce Harper with a pitch, to their continued mediocre attendance despite a new ballpark and a winning team, I've developed a bit of a dislike for the Nats.

And the last straw is how they've completely mishandled Stephen Strasburg.

Quick Review: How Do You Know

The bad news is that, despite a cast including Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson, there's not much to "How Do You Know," another romantic comedy that's mostly lacking in both categories. It's harmless but it's just not all that interesting. Witherspoon plays Lisa, a softball player just cut from Team USA. Softball is her life and she isn't ready to move on. She begins seeing Matty (Wilson), a not-too-bright pitcher for the Washington Nationals. (We are told at one point that he makes $14 million per year. This was filmed pre-Jayson Werth, so clearly this is a work of fiction. But the one scene of Nationals Park did show a half-empty stadium.) At the same time Lisa meets George (Rudd), an executive at some sort of firm -- it's not really clear what it does -- run by his father (Nicholson). George finds himself the target of a federal investigation and is trying to deal with that and his feelings for Lisa. The romantic byplay between Lisa and George, and Lisa and Matty, is always in fits and starts. You just wonder why any of these people want to be in a relationship with the other.

So that's the bad news. What's the good news? I have another excuse to look at this picture of Rudd. Duh. My grade: C-minus.

Phillies Werthless

Ha ha, punny post title. Jayson Werth went for the money instead of an opportunity to keep winning. I figured he'd get a large enough contract from someone that he wouldn't return to the Phillies, but I would never have expected that it would be the Washington Nationals -- not the Yankees, not the Red Sox -- that landed him. To do so they gave him a 7-year deal worth $126 million. You can't fault Werth. He was signed for pennies on the dollar (relatively speaking) by the Phillies in 2007 coming off a wrist injury. Even with salary increases after that, they got four years of good production out of him at a bargain price. The Nationals are overpaying, but it's the only way that sad-sack franchise is going to sign anyone of quality at this point.

It's just a shame that the Phillies couldn't find a creative way financially to make a deal that would have persuaded Werth to stay. The platoon of Ben Francisco and Ross Gload or Domonic Brown (who was so bad in Winter League play in the Dominican that he was removed from the team; the Phillies' saying he was "tired and sluggish" comes off as spin doctoring) will not match Werth, at the plate or, especially, in the field. And the best of the free agents may be, God forbid, Jeff Francouer. Barring a clever trade, the Phillies are weaker in right field. Their spin is that if the players who struggled or were hurt last year improve on their numbers, they'll more than make up for the loss of Werth. But none of them can play right field and their own position at the same time, so even if the offense is fine there's still a defensive hole.

There's a lot of spin going on now, but make no mistake: even with that pitching staff and most of the same players that have contributed to four NL East titles, two NL titles and a World Series championship, even if you feel that despite losing to the Giants in the 2010 NLCS they're still the team to beat in the National League, the Phillies are a weaker team than they were a few days ago.

Phils leave DC with bad game, bad hair

The Phillies finished a strange road trip with a 2-5 record. After the 4-game sweep at the hands of Houston the Phils won twice in Washington, but looked less than impressive. They finally started scoring runs, but most of them were on solo home runs, and Brad Lidge has finally lost his job as closer (at least for now) after another near-disaster. But last night they failed to finish a sweep against the worst team in baseball. Jimmy Rollins, who hadn't made an error in ages, made two last night. Joe Blanton, who's been stringing together quality starts for the last three months, reverted to his April-May form. The offense got two runs in the first and then were shut down until the 9th, when the woeful Nationals nearly let an 8-2 lead disappear.

An error, an infield hit and a walk was followed by a pinch-hit grand slam by Matt Stairs that ended two streaks. Stairs broke an 0-for-30 slump with his first hit since July (or, as a caller to sports-talk station WIP put it the other day: "The last time Stairs got a hit I had two kids and now I have three" since his wife gave birth recently). The Phils also had hit 17 consecutive homers without runners on base before the slam.

A Rollins single, a wild pitch, a Shane Victorino double and a Chase Utley infield hit later and it was 8-7 with the possible go-ahead run on first. But Ryan Howard grounded into a double play to end the game. The Phils' lead is now down to 5 games over Florida. They return home for 4 against the almost-as-woeful-as-Washington New York Mets.

Speaking of Victorino, what is he thinking with this hair?

Phillies: Time To Panic?

There seems to be a new trend for the Phillies: injuries to pitchers' obliques. Clay Condrey has been out since the end of July and is seemingly less likely to return at all this season. Today it was reported that Ryan Madson was unavailable for the four games the Phils just lost in Houston, and may not be able to pitch tonight in Washington. Most alarmingly, rookie J.A. Happ was supposed to start yesterday but suffered his oblique strain on Saturday -- during batting practice, of all things.

In addition, there's some concern about whether J.C. Romero will be ready soon, and today there are Twitter posts from local beat writers that Scott Eyre, who's inherited Romero's lefty specialist role, felt a pain in his left elbow. He said he's not worried about it, as it was "sharp and quick." The rest of us will be plenty worried for him, though.

Jamie Moyer stepped in as an emergency starter yesterday and, as he did with his three previous bullpen outings since being removed from the rotation, did a fine job. However, the team has stopped hitting. They've scored 4 runs or fewer in their last 13 games. They were 5-4 in the first 9 thanks to strong pitching. Then came the mess in Houston. Cole Hamels regressed (again), Brad Lidge blew a save (again), Cliff Lee got smoked for the second consecutive start, and yesterday Chan Ho Park coughed up the game in the 7th inning.

Despite all of that, the Phils maintain a 6-game lead in the NL East (7 in the loss column). The question is, assuming a Mets-like collapse isn't in the offing (and it likely isn't, because their opponents the rest of the way aren't that strong and the Braves and Marlins have weak spots as well), will this team be ready for the playoffs? The Phils were knocked out of the first round in 2007 by a red-hot Colorado Rockies team. That was not deeply depressing at the time. A similar result this year, after their championship run last year, will not be taken with good humor.

MLB 2009 at the halfway point

Before the season started I previewed both the National and American Leagues on the Outsports blog. The All-Star break is the unofficial midpoint of the season, as teams have actually played a little more than half their games. The pointless (despite that crap about deciding which league gets home-field advantage for the World Series) exhibition game is now over and the season is about to resume. That got me wondering, how well have I done so far? Here's how I called each division, and how things have actually turned out so far:

AL East: Tampa Bay, Boston, NY Yankees, Toronto, Baltimore
The Red Sox and Yankees have the two best records in the AL, with Boston up by 3 games, thanks to a surplus of starting pitching and their 8-0 record against the Yanks. The defending AL champion Rays are in third, trying to recover from a poor start. The Blue Jays and Orioles are living up (down?) to my expectations, although the last-place O's are only 8 games under .500 -- probably because they gave up pretty quickly on Adam Eaton. Toronto is now contemplating trading ace pitcher Roy Halladay (to the Phillies, pleasepleasepleaseplease!).

AL Central: Minnesota, Cleveland, Chicago White Sox, Detroit, Kansas City
The Tigers are one of the AL's surprise teams and hold a 3 1/2-game lead over the White Sox and a 4-game bulge over the Twins. A win on May 7 gave the Royals an 18-11 record; since then they're 19-40. The Indians have been a big disappointment, falling to the cellar with the AL's worst record.

AL West: LA Angels, Oakland, Seattle, Texas
The Angels also got off to a slow start but now have a 1 1/2-game lead over the Rangers, who have unexpectedly gotten better pitching. Maybe even more of a surprise is that the Mariners are just 4 games out. The A's sit well out of the race, and presumably will trade Matt Holliday for prospects.

NL West: Arizona, LA Dodgers, Colorado, San Francisco, San Diego
Despite losing Manny Ramirez to a 50-game suspension because he was trying to get pregnant -- hey, why else would he take a women's fertility drug? -- the Dodgers have baseball's best record. However, the Giants (7 games back) and Rockies (9 out) have been better than expected and could make it a race if LA falters, or at least challenge for the Wild Card. The Diamondbacks have been the biggest flop, while the last-place Padres started well but quickly sank to the bottom of the division.

NL Central: Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Houston, Pittsburgh
The top five teams in the division (Cardinals, Brewers, Cubs, Astros and Reds) are within 5 games of each other. The teams aren't very far over .500, if at all, with the Cubs seriously underachieving. The Pirates were in the pack for a while, but what may be the worst ownership in baseball doesn't seem to give a damn about trying to win, as they continue to make bizarre trades, sending away talented players just headed into their prime for even younger, more raw and undeveloped players.

NL East: Philadelphia, NY Mets, Florida, Atlanta, Washington
It's been a bizarre season in this division. The Phillies had a poor home record and a stellar road record, their starting rotation was hideous early and only somewhat improved since; they then hit interleague play and hit a wall, only to return home and get hot against weaker NL teams. The defending world champs have pulled 4 games ahead of...the Marlins, who have a poor bullpen and shaky defense but otherwise have been strong. The Braves have the best starting pitching in the division but their hitting is severly lacking. Still, it's been enough to put them ahead of the Mets. The Mets' injury woes, shoddy defense and lack of power are making New Yorkers miserable. As for the Nationals, the worst team in baseball, well...just read this post on Outsports.

Sweep the Mets, sweep the Mets...

...always fun to sweep the Mets!

The way the season has gone, it's probably still premature to say the Phillies have finally righted the ship after today's 2-0 win to finish off a three-game sweep of the reeling, injury-riddled New York Mets. They've had good stretches before and then slipped, but once again a lot of things seem to be falling into place. They got three consecutive strong starts -- today it was Joe Blanton with 7 1/3 shutout innings. The bullpen didn't allow a run all weekend, with Brad Lidge getting two saves by striking out five of the six batters he faced. Jimmy Rollins homered to lead off the first today, also singled and walked; in the last 4 games he's batting .467 with a .556 on-base percentage, a slugging percentage of .867, 5 runs batted in, 2 runs scored and 3 walks. And it's the first time the Phils have won a series at home against a team other than the pitiful Washington Nationals.

And while the Phils' defense was sparkling all weekend, the visitors' wretched sixth inning yesterday (two dropped foul pops and a horrendous throw from the outfield that wasn't cut off, allowing a run to score) tells you all you need to know about the New York Mess. Even their ace, Johan Santana, couldn't save them today.

Talkin' 'bout my Phillies

The first real post here (not that the first one isn't real, but...) just has to be about your defending World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies. It has been a surreal season thus far. It began with all of the attendant pomp and ceremony commemorating the 2008 champs, which was tempered by the death of legendary broadcaster Harry Kalas. The starting rotation, a strength down the stretch and in the postseason last year, got off to a horrendous start. It's gotten better but was weakened by the likely season-ending injury to Brett Myers. The bullpen was strong at the start but stints on the disabled list by Brad Lidge and Scott Eyre (and, as of tomorrow according to reports, Clay Condrey) caused a cascade of role adjustments and a series of lousy performances.

The offense kept the team afloat for much of the year despite a season-long slump by leadoff hitter Jimmy Rollins. Raul Ibanez has been a godsend, putting up MVP-like numbers, but is now on the DL himself, and since then the team hitting has really taken a nosedive. Strangest of all, the Phils have a 23-9 record on the road, best in the major leagues, but are only 13-22 at home, second-worst in the majors (ahead of only the woeful Washington Nationals), after a just-completed 1-8 homestand, among the worst in team history.

Despite all of this, the Phils are in first place, 1 1/2 games ahead of the New York Mets in the NL East. It makes for a glass half-empty/half full debate: despite their many issues the Phillies are still in first place; or, despite all of their problems the Mets are right in the hunt -- and since both teams have struggled, the Florida Marlins and Atlanta Braves are not far behind.

With all of this going on, especially lately, it would be easy to be outraged. I've been more annoyed than angry, though. I guess coming off a long-awaited championship will do that. Besides, I've figured all year that it will come down to September, and we all know what's happened to the Mets the last two Septembers.

Next up for the Phils is a road trip (what a relief) that starts with a World Series rematch against the Tampa Bay Rays.