Archive for May, 2010

The Phillies have suffered through what has nearly been 5 straight shutouts. Were it not for a perfect game and Cameron Maybin’s antics afield, the Phillies could be in the midst of one of the worst 5 game losing streaks of history.

As bad as that sounds, it’s not like the offense is broken. There’s a lot of angles to approach illustrating that, I’m going to take the easiest and link you to some other articles:

-Bill Baer at Crashburn Alley advises patience while citing research from JC Bradbury (basically, slumps happen)

-Pat Andriola at THT Live wonders if we’re trying too hard to contextualize a random occurrence

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Some of you have noticed my post rate is way down. I’m in the midst of moving from Minnesota to D.C. I’ve also started writing for The Hardball Times Live. I’m excited about the opportunity to write about league wide activities. If you head over to the THT Live page you can find my articles about Buster Posey and Stephen Strasburg. The Carlos Santana profile will be published tomorrow. I will still be posting here as needed.

That’s us, right now.

Back to back shutout losses. For the first time since 1998, AKA the Dark Ages. To the fucking Mets. Blanton gave up a homer to this fucking guy.

It’s a long season. We’re still in first. The Mets are still in last, and not really a threat anyway.

All the same, we are playing some awful baseball right now.

Hamels tomorrow to avoid the reverse brom job. The way things are going, he’ll have to throw a no-no for us to win.

Ugh.

Looks like Minaya’s brother knows how he got those smelly fingers.

You do NOT stand when your player has a 0-2 count in the opposing stadium.  Let alone whistle.

Well, either that or he was trying to get some of that Shitty Field shit out of his teeth.

Yep.

In case you haven’t heard, Jimmy strained his calf.  Not this.

With the quarter pole of the MLB season approaching this week, and with a streak of posts by Ryan Edmund that simply must be stopped, it seems as good a time as any for a State of the Phillies Address. Platitudes and neverending ovations are not, strictly speaking, necessary, but the latter would be appreciated. H/T to MooseWithFleas for the general concept and some statistical legwork.

Since we never play our reserves, I’ve declined to analyze their performance, but everybody else gets the treatment after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

According to reports, Jimmy Rollins could rejoin the Phillies as early as today. This is excellent news as it brings to an end the platoon of Valdez and Castro at short, who were hitting a combined .244 and had a .251 OBP in Rollins’ absence. Before Young James’ injury, he was getting on base at an impressive clip (.381/.739/.516) and showing a new level of discipline at the dish, drawing seven walks from the lead-off spot.

Jimmy’s return should trigger a domino-effect of ass-kickery throughout the lineup. Presumably he’ll take back his lead-off spot, returning the red hot Shane Victorino to his previous run producing spot in the seven-hole. Since Jimmy’s injury, Shane has been one of the best hitters in the NL with seven homers, 27 RBI, and slugging .566. That’s all from the lead-off spot. Hopefully he can keep hitting like he has been from a place in the line-up where he’ll be hitting with, statistically, more men on base.

Also likely to be returning from injury on Monday is Carlos Ruiz who is making a case for his first All-Star appearance. (Chooch, incidentally, has himself a new fan club.) Before spraining his knee, Ruiz was in the top 3 in the NL in batting average with .345. He’s currently ineligible to be on the leaderboards since his injury has caused him to fall just below the plate-appearances per game threshold of 3.1, but that .345 would currently be good enough to tie him for second place with Marlon Byrd. It’s worth mentioning that Chooch’s replacement since his May 12th injury, Paul Hoover, has been uncharacteristically kickass. Hoover, who had 31 career starts before this May, hit an even .500 over 13 plate appearances and scored five runs in the series against the Brewers.

The Phillies offense will be back to full strength just in time for an opportunity to really pull ahead of the rest of the NL East. This week sees the Phils, who are four games up on the Marlins and Nats, who are tied for second,  matching up with three under-performing teams all outside of the division while the rest of the teams mostly play tough teams or interdivisional matchups.

Then on Friday, when Major League Baseball kicks off interleague play, (boooo! hissss!) the Phils welcome the slumping Red Sox to The Bank for a three game set, while the rest of the division are slated for series that look like they could go either way, except for maybe the Subway Series in New York. (#lolmets)

If you don't like reading, here's that last paragraph in a handy chart.

It’s not a stretch to say that the Phillies should be expected to at least win three out of their next four games, and based on how the Sawx have been playing, the Boston series easily looks winnable. A 5-2 homestand certainly is possible and that might be a conservative figure.

Following this week, the NL East plays mostly intra-divisional games and a strong showing in those next games could vault the Phillies even further ahead in the division as the rest of the teams beat up on each other.

If the Phillies can continue to play the kind of baseball they have been playing with their depleted roster in May there’s no reason to believe that they won’t be able to play better still now that all their offensive weapons are back in the lineup. The Phils are a team that is capable of really putting a hurt on the rest of the division and the second half of May will give them the opportunity to do just that and reassert the notion that they are, in fact, the best team in the National League.

• In his May 9th post “Fear the Beard”, Liney incorrectly stated the amount of whiskers that comprise Jayson Werth’s Beard. It is actually 14,237.
• Ryan Edmund claimed on numerous occasions in his May 8th post entitled “05/07/10 Game Recap” that Matt Diaz of the Atlanta Braves had undergone gender reassignment surgery to transition away from being a man. We could not independently verify this report and have since redacted all mentions of it.
• In a post submitted May 10th with an unprintable title, Chris used a string of racial epithets that were inappropriate. Responding to staff concerns about the piece, Chris shouted “I [expletive removed] own this [expletive removed] newspaper and I’ll [expletive removed] write what-the-[expletive removed]-ever I [expletive removed] well want.” while waving a pistol. The staff initially respected his viewpoint however, after sobering up, Chris requested the article be removed in its entirety.
• In his May 5th post “Contreras the Closer” TheRuckus claimed that he was smarter than Long Drive contributor Ryan Edmund. While this is completely true, he misspelled Edmund. It was corrected in a following revision.
• The A Team doesn’t actually know anything about the sport of baseball, so his May 7th post ” Phillies Top 10(ish) Prospects (Updated)” bares no semblance of truth and should be regarded as a work of clever fiction.

Check out my contribution to Chicks Dig the Long Ball‘s Cocks in the Hen House column. I put together a roster full of dude’s who are out of work JUST LIKE ME!

We are through the looking glass, people.