SPLITTING HAIRS (PHILLIES POST 9/7/10)

September 7, 2010   ·   philliesmania   ·   Jump to comments

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OSWALT WAS OKAY, THE BULLPEN WAS STRONG, AND OFFENSE GOT IT GOING IN THE TWIGHLIGHT WIN BUT THE OFFENSE AND THE BULLPEN SUCK IN THE AFTERNOON LOSS!

 

PIRATES ACTUALLY BEAT THE BRAVES THOUGH AND SO THE PHILLIES GAIN A HALF GAME ON THEM!

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Young Vance Worley started for the Phillies in the afternoon game so you were worried to begin with. But it was flat out embarrassing that an already anemic struggling offense decided to mail it in and not even show up.

 

 

Worley was decent enough to keep the Phillies to a 2 to 0 deficit through 5 mediocre to solid innings. He was visibly a little charged and thus nerves likely skew his performance somewhat. Honestly they should have let him go at least another inning as he seemed to have settled in to a rhythm of sorts. His pitches looked varied and showed promise I thought. Especially for his first start. Yeah he made a couple big mistakes but he also minimized the damage.

 

Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	PC-ST	ERA
V Worley (L, 0-1)	5.0	6	2	2	1	5	1	76-49	3.00
D Herndon	1.1	2	0	0	0	0	0	17-11	4.15
A Bastardo	0.1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1-1	5.28
C Durbin	1.1	2	2	2	0	3	1	26-16	4.01
M Zagurski	0.2	2	3	3	1	1	0	24-14	7.50
N Robertson	0.1	1	0	0	0	0	0	7-4	5.45

 

Frankly the offense let him down plain and simple. And then to add insult to injury Durbin and Zagurski threw in the towel and surrendered 5 more runs. Worley may not have been Bob Gibson out there but he clearly did not deserve too lose. With 2 outs, no one on and the Phillies offense clearly with their heads up their rear ends in the bottom of the 5th there was no point in having Domonic Brown wave at three pitches for the gaining confidence Worley.

 

 

Sure you needed offense but with 2 outs and the top of the order coming up in the 6th did you really need to pull that move? I mean the team has played non stop for 21 days and the fact that Kendrick imploded in the 4th inning the day before and you had a game a few hours later and 2 more on Tuesday and Wednesday was it really a good idea to go to the bullpen at that moment?

 

OFFENSE?: Since AUGUST 19th they have been horrific with few exceptions. A line up like this should never suffer these types of stretches. These guys are clearly ignoring reminders and stubbornly assuming they are going to ust flail at pitches and the magis is going to return.

 

• 3 hits! REALLY?

• 5 Walks

• 1 for 5 with men in scoring position

• Far too many fundamentally flawed at bats – especially from a championship club

• Clearly fatigue is hitting the cranium and judgement areas

 

GAME 2? :

 

• 10 hits and 5 walks is much better

• 5 for 12 with men in scoring position is acceptable and solid

• 7 runs is an explosion based on recent outings

• Victorino led off and went 3 for 5 with and RBI and a run scored

• Polanco a double, a triple, 2 RBI’s, a walk, and 2 runs scored

• Utley also had 2 hits and he too had 2 RBI’s and he scored a run

• Howard had a walk

• Rollins had a hit and a run scored batting 5th – Werth had a game off

• Ibanez had 2 hits, including a double and an RBI and he scored

• Domonic Brown walked twice

• Ruiz scored, walked and had an RBI

 

 

Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	PC-ST	ERA
R Oswalt (W, 11-13)	7.0	6	4	4	1	7	3	111-79	3.09
J Romero	0.0	0	0	0	1	0	0	5-1	3.66
R Madson (H, 11)	1.0	0	0	0	0	1	0	8-6	2.83
B Lidge (S, 21)	1.0	1	0	0	0	2	0	21-11	3.38

 

 

Oswalt was not his sharpest and the long ball killed him but he kept the boys in the game nevertheless. The bullpen came in this time and shut down the Florida Fish.

 

For Roy his being a little off could have spelled trouble. Oswalt came in with the lowest run support of any starter in the majors at 2.85 per outing. He was 0-5 in five starts when giving up four or more runs. He was elated that he was rewarded with some help on a night he did not have his dominant stuff.

 

Lidge has been pretty consistent over his last 12 outings. He has been money with just a few shaky moments. Maybe not as dominant as 2008 but that is unrealistic to expect ever again.

 

The offense needs to take stock of their approach and win out this series. They need to pass the Braves before the head to head I believe.