NIGHTCAP MAY 16

May 17, 2009   ·   philliesmania   ·   Jump to comments

Phillies Mania ANALYSIS

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Philadelphia	0	0	3	0	4	0					7	9	0
Washington	1	0	0	1	3	X					5	9	0

Friday night the Phillies went through their bullpen like a knife through butter. In Charlie Manuel turned to J. Happ to close out the last 2 innings that happened to be extra innings. The Phillies got the win but they lost the services of Happ who was the starter for the Saturday night game, the second game of a day/night double header.

So the Phillies plucked Andrew Carpenter from the farm to start. Drew had a solid 3 and ½ innings or so but he ended up being charged with 5 earned runs when he seemed to run out of gas in the 4^th inning. Hopefully he will take this experience back and work that much harder to get back now that he has his debut under his belt. The proverbial “cup of coffee” as they say.

In the 7 to 5 win, the Ibanez Raul-es, continued. After a 2 HR, 4 RBI afternoon, Ibanez went 2 for 3, 3 RBI’s, and another HR. His 13^th of the year. Raul went yard in the 5^th, while Ryan Howard planted a seed in the grass deep in Center Field for his 8^th HR of the year.

Ibanez has 35 RBI’s on the year, ranking him up there with “Prince” Albert Pujols. Howard now has 28 and Utley punched in his 24^th of the year.

The offense is coming into form. Especially in the power department. And Werth and Rollins are trying to re-establish the bag theft numbers. Now if the pitching can settle in to a reasonable groove the Phillies should be poised to overtake the Mets without waiting for the annual Mets September collapse.

The Nationals are a perfect example of why pitching is important. They are presently just as potent of a line up as the Phillies. They are scoring 5+ runs a game. But they are yeilding over 6 per game. OUCH! The Phillies staff is not far enough behind that for my liking. I think the arms are basically there. However the Phillies have the level of talent that does not have a wide margin of error.