Tagged: playoffs

The 2012 Phillies: A Season to Forget

The torture that was the 2012 Phillies season is finally over.  And sadly, it ended just as I predicted before the season even began; without a playoff bid.  I was hoping to be wrong about that.

Since the Phillies won the World Series in 2008, each year they have taken exactly one step backwards.  So this year, missing the playoffs seemed like their destiny.  They lost the World Series in 2009; lost the NL Championship Series in 2010; lost the NL Division Series in 2011; and now, the next logical step has arrived.  The Phillies will go home early without even a sniff at a post-season run.

Remember happy days like these?:

For now, they are gone :O(

The first casualties of the 2012 disaster are already accounted for.  Bench coach Pete Mackanin, hitting coach Greg Gross and first base coach Sam Perlozzo have all been given their walking papers.  More fallout is probably on the horizon, but it will probably involve players, not coaches.

So who else should stay and who should go?  Here are some thoughts, starting with the offense:

In 195 at-bats, Kevin Frandsen hit .338, which led the team.  And for an entire month, he played with a stress fracture in his leg, yet he still kept hitting.  I say put him at 3rd base and get a back-up in case of injuries.

If the Phillies do not re-sign Juan Pierre, they are insane.  He hit .307 in 394 at-bats, led the team in stolen bases with 37 and he is the best bunter you can find anywhere.

Bring Shane Victorino back!  After a depressing second half with the Dodgers, his price will go down, possibly to the point where the Phillies can afford to resign him.  John Mayberry Jr. and Domonic Brown can platoon and then the Phils need another outfielder or two.

Needs to Go:  Nate Schierholtz, Ty Wigginton, Michael Martinez.  Martinez is good defensively, but hit only .174 in 115 at-bats.  They can find a better utility guy.  And we are stuck with Laynce Nix for one more year unless someone is willing to trade for him…not likely.

Back-up Catcher:  In – Erik Kratz; Out – Brian Schneider.

Relief Pitching:  Jonathan Papelbon stays and probably Antonio Bastardo.  I will also put in votes for Jeremy Horst and Phillipe Aumont.  The maybes are Jake Diekman and Justin DeFratus, although DeFratus needs to be 100% healthy, which I feel is still in question.  Michael Stutes may return, but no one is sure in what condition.

Please Go Away:  Josh Lindblom – trade him (if anyone wants him).  He has been awful.  This team needs some veteran help in the pen.

Please Come Back: Ryan Madson!

As for starters, unless someone’s arm falls off, stick with the usual 5: Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay (pray he gets healthy), Vance Worley and Kyle Kendrick.

And of course, all the usual suspects, like Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Carlos Ruiz, etc… will be back.  But will they be healthy?  That is the looming question.

To give an idea of how badly the injuries hurt the team this year, consider this: I may be missing some, but by looking at the team stats, at least 49 different players made an appearance for the Phillies this year, rotating in and out of the 25-man roster.  Also, only 2 players of those 49 reached 400 or more at-bats; Rollins (632) and Mayberry (441).  That is scary.

So the season is over and the healing (quite literally) shall begin.  Do you have any thoughts you would like to share about this season?  Feel free to leave comments below. 

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Photo by Jenn Zambri Photography

Trading Places: Phillies Out; Nationals In

Watching the Phillies win a game against the Nationals last night and seeing the Nationals celebrate instead was like being in the Twilight Zone.  Not many teams get to pop the champagne after a loss.  But before the game even ended, the Nats were celebrating as the Braves lost, making Washington the new National League East Champs.

It was quite a role reversal for the Phillies who, prior to this disastrous year, won that title 5 years in a row.  Sadly, they have officially traded placed with the Nationals.

It was a somber win that will guarantee the Phillies a winning record to end the season.  But even that small accomplishment cannot make-up for the fact that the Phils have missed the playoffs and will go quietly into the off-season with many questions.

Perhaps less of a question now is Kyle Kendrick, who appears to finally have his act together.  He pitched 7 scoreless innings last night and should be a starter next season.

Kevin Frandsen continues to hit, with 2 singles last night, even with a stress fracture in his leg.  Still, he does not appear to be an option for 3rd base next year, despite his efforts.

Rookie Darin Ruf keeps slugging away and his triple last night scored the Phillies only 2 runs.  But his future is also uncertain, as are many futures of players on this team.  Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard are hurt again; Roy Halladay had a bad year.

The Phillies still have many questions left to answer.  And they still have 2 games left to play.  Game time is 7:05pm tonight.

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Photoshopping by Jenn Zambri Photography

Playoff Elimination: Check; Howard Injury to End Season: Check.

The end of this Phillies season seems to be a long, painful check list of unfortunate events.  And there are still 4 games to go, so the list may not yet be complete.  Let us see where we are so far:

– The Phillies have been eliminated from the playoffs.

– Ryan Howard dropped a warm-up bat on his toe and broke it, ending his season.  That makes 2 straight seasons that will end with a Howard limping off the field.  Maybe the Phillies need to invest in a lot of bubble wrap?

– Rookie pitcher Tyler Cloyd has been shut-down early with a “tired arm.”

– In what seems like an attempt to get the media to talk about anything other than the worst Phillies season in a long time, the Chase Utley 3rd base experiment has been deemed “over.”  He will not play 3rd base.

– Speaking of 3rd base, the Phillies have absolutely no idea who will play there in 2013.

– Last night, Roy Halladay pitched fewer than 6 innings for the 6th time this season and gave up more than 3 runs in a game for the 9th time, unofficially announcing to the world that getting old sucks.

– For the 6th time in his career, Jimmy Rollins will end the season with at least 100 runs scored.  However, he will also finish having batted well under .250 for 4 out of the 6 months of the season.  He also came in 4th in all of baseball in fly ball outs and 2nd in the National League.

I think those were enough depressing thoughts for the day.  On a happier note, despite Halladay allowing 4 runs in 5 innings last night, the Phillies did pull out a 9-5 win over the last place Marlins.  5 players had a multi-hit game, including Utley who picked up 3 RBI.

The win puts the Phillies dead-even at 79-79 for the season with 4 games to go.  The goal in these last several games should be to finish above the .500 mark.  They will go after the Fish one more time today at 1:10pm.

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Head shot by Jenn Zambri Photography

A Ruf Day for the Nats in Philly

The fact that Nationals came into last night’s game with the best record in baseball was simply fuel for the Phillies fire who were determined to give their Division rival a tough time.  Nats pitching got Ruf’d up by the Phillies who homered 3 times in the game and won by a score of 6-3.

Carlos Ruiz smashed a 2-run shot in the 3rd and Domonic Brown added another homer in the 6th.  But the biggest bang of the evening came off the bat of rookie Darin Ruf in the 2nd inning.  His first major league hit wound up being a home run to left center field.  That was a fitting start to his major league career as Ruf had already hit 38 homers this year in Double-A ball.

But the best part of Ruf’s homer was watching him get the silent treatment in the dugout for the entire inning.  Not even the bat boy would acknowledge the rookie.  Ruf tried to give him a fist bump and was totally denied.  Finally, after a lot of muffled giggling and players attempting to maintain their composure, he was mobbed by his teammates.  That had to be some kind of record for blowing off a rookie after his first home run.

After the game, Ruf told reporters, “That was very loving of them…The longest silent treatment of all time, I guess.”  Welcome to the Bigs, kid.

Game 2 with the Nationals starts tonight at 7:05pm.

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Photo by Philly.com

Loss to Braves Kills Phillies Playoff Hopes

While they are not “officially” out of it yet, the Phillies have dropped to 5 games out of the Wild Card race after 2 straight losses to the Braves.  With 4 teams in front of them and only 9 games to go, the Phillies playoff hopes are all but dead.

On the mound today, Cliff Lee put forward a valiant effort, working in and out of trouble throughout the game.  Despite his many challenges, he kept the Phillies in striking distance.  Lee struck out 11 and allowed only 1 earned run over 8 innings.  But the offense did little to help him.

Tim Hudson is a great pitcher, but the Phillies made him look totally unhittable.  John Mayberry Jr. and Kevin Frandsen accounted for the only hits in the game for the Phils; yes, 2 hits…total.  The only run they scored involved a walk to Jimmy Rollins, a Braves error, a sac bunt and a sac fly.

The sun was quite an issue today as well as clouds rolled in and out over the ballpark.  Some plays in the field were solid, and others looked a bit complicated as the shadows wreaked havoc.

And then there was a little controversy over whether or not Frandsen was out of the box when he bunted.  He was called out and manager Charlie Manuel apparently thought holding the umpires hand might help his cause:

Or maybe not…

So the Phillies went on to lose the game by a score of 2-1, all but eliminating their playoff hopes.

Here is the full Photo Album from the game.

And the only good news of the day…I won a signed Cole Hamels bat in the Sunday Season Ticket holder Fan Appreciation Day event!  Whoo hoo! 

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Photos by Jenn Zambri Photography

Howard’s 300th; One Win and a Loss Against the Braves

The Phillies won their 4th straight game Friday night in the opener against the Braves that included a pre-game salute to Chipper Jones.  Jones will retire after 19 years with the Braves after this season.  The Phillies gave Jones a painting of one of many home runs he hit in Citizens Bank Park.

Jones received a number of salutes while the Braves traveled to away games this year.  And to thank the Phillies, Jones went 0-for-4 in the home teams’ 6-2 win over his Braves.  Thanks, Larry.  And Happy Retirement ;o)

However, the tables were turned on Saturday afternoon.  The Braves found their bats and Roy Halladay hit another brick wall.  Clearly, not all is well with Halladay as he claims.  He has had only a few good starts since coming off the DL; the rest have been very un-Doc like.

This afternoon, Halladay did not even make it through 2 innings.  His final line had 7 earned runs in 1.2 innings on 5 hits and 3 walks.  It was ugly.  Charlie Manuel looked on in disbelief before he finally ran out to the mound to lift Doc from the game.

With the Cardinals win today, the Phillies could ill afford any more losses.  But the offense was weak today against the Braves pitching.  The only excitement came when Ryan Howard hit a milestone home run; it was the 300th of his career, putting him in 2nd place behind Mike Schmidt all time for the Phillies.

Howard has now hit a home run in 4 straight games.  Seeing his bat wake up again is a pleasant site.  However, the Phillies are still in a dire situation as far as the playoffs are concerned.  The loss today knocks them back to 4 games out of the Wild Card behind 3 other teams with only 10 games to go.

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Howard head shot by Jenn Zambri Photography

Phillies Annihilate the Mets in Finale of 3-Game Sweep

On Thursday night, the Phillies gave the Mets a spanking and then some.  It was an outright stomping to the tune of 2 touchdowns and a safety.  If you are not a football fan, that is the baseball equivalent of 16 runs.

The 16-1 pummeling began with an 8-run 1st inning.  The Phillies went all the way through the line-up, batters 1-8, before a single out was recorded by the Mets.  The starting pitcher was lifted from the game 7 batters in and his final line read 7 earned runs and zero innings pitched…ouch.  The next pitcher who came in hit Erik Kratz with a pitch to force in another run.

This was the first time the Phillies had their first 8 batters reach base to start a game since 1975.  It was also the first time since 1912 that they scored at least 8 runs in the 1st inning while on the road.  Know what else happened in 1912?  The Titanic sank.

For the Mets, this was a game to forget, if they can.  For the Phillies, it was a nice opportunity to bump up their batting averages and stats.  Here are those than benefitted the most from the Mets’ ineptitude:

That is a lot of hitting.

With 2 outs in the 9th the night before, Ryan Howard hit a 2-run homer to win the game.  And with 2 outs in the 9th last night, Howard smashed a Grand Slam home run, adding insult to injury for the Mets.  The Phillies scored 7 runs in that final inning.

Rookie pitcher Tyler Cloyd quietly had a great game in between all the offensive fireworks.  Cloyd gave up only 1 run on 3 hits over 8 innings.  He was the only starter in the game who did not get a hit for the Phillies, but since he pitched well, he is forgiven ;o)

Despite the sweep of the Mets though, the Phillies are still 4 games out of the Wild Card race as the Cardinals keep winning.  They are running out of games quickly.

Of the 12 remaining games, the next 3 are at home against the Braves.  Game time tonight is 7:05pm.

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Lee’s Effort Returns Phillies To .500

After a disastrous weekend in Houston, the Phillies managed to crawl back to the .500 mark after a 3-1 win over the Mets on Monday night.  Cliff Lee pitched extremely well, allowing only 1 run over 8 innings.  His strong performance kept the Phillies in the game against tough knuckleballer, R.A. Dickey.

For the offense, Jimmy Rollins is on a serious hot streak.  It seems lately that even when he slips up, luck is on his side.  He struck out in the 1st inning last night to start the game, but wound up being safe at first base anyway on a passed ball.  He eventually scored on a Chase Utley sac fly.  Rollins ended the game with 2 runs scored, a home run and a walk.

The home run was interesting; the ball snuck over the right field wall but appeared for a moment to have dribbled off the glove of outfielder Scott Hairston.  Then without prompting, the umpires decided to review the play and correctly called it a home run.  That is the first time I have seen any MLB umpire voluntarily review a play without first being harassed by a manager.  It is about time.

Domonic Brown provided the other run with a solo shot in the 7th to give the Phillies a little more breathing room.  Jonathan Papelbon nailed down the save in the 9th.

This win was a nice lift for the Phillies who remain 3.5 games out of the Wild Card race with 15 games to play.  Realistically, the horrendous Houston weekend probably killed any shot they had at the postseason this year.  So while it is great to see this team playing well, as far as the playoffs, don’t hold your breath.

Game 2 with the Mets is tonight at 7:10pm.

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Photos by Jenn Zambri Photography

Houston: The Phillies Have Problems

Just in case the Houston Astros were previously unaware, it should be clear today that both teams, especially the Phillies, have serious problems.  What problem could be bigger than being the Astros, the worst team in baseball, you say?  The answer is: Being beaten in 3 out of 4 games by the worst team in baseball.  And all that happened while the Phillies hopes for the postseason continue to quickly dwindle away.

I had said previously that it would take a miracle for the Phillies to make the playoffs this year.  I stand corrected.  It will actually take 3-4 large miracles, including the complete collapse of several other teams in the National League who are ahead of the Phils in the Wild Card race.  Quick, someone call a priest; Last Rights may be in order shortly.  The Phillies are on life support.

Bad plays, errors and walks plus a sporadic offense contributed to the embarrassing losses against the Astros.  Worse, 2 of the 3 losses came against starting pitchers who began each game with an ERA above 5.00, including yesterday’s shut-out loss and today’s 7-6 disaster.

Roy Halladay gave up 3 runs in 6 innings, but the Phillies still had the lead when he left the game.  And then, for what feels like the 1,000th time this year, the bullpen blew it again.  The 4-run 7th for the Astros included an error and 3 walks, one for each Phillies pitcher, although 1 was intentional.

The offense left runners stranded all over the place, 8 in all, while going only 3-for-12 with runners in scoring position.  Jimmy Rollins had 3 hits and Ryan Howard picked up 2 RBI, but only after being humiliated by the Astros twice; they intentionally walked Chase Utley twice to get to Howard.

With 15 games remaining, the Phillies cannot afford more than a loss or two until the end of the season.  Plus, they need a lot of other teams to lose as well.  It does not look good, folks.

The Mets are up next.  Game time Monday night is 7:10pm.

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The Phillies Are Optimists

The Phillies have definitely been playing better lately.  They are 3 games back in the race for the 2nd Wild Card spot with 17 games left to play.  And so early this morning, the Phillies decided to send out Postseason ticket invoices to all of their season ticket holders in the hopes of making a run.

I wonder how many fans will actually bite?  Will you or will you not shell out $400-$500 or more for 2-3 playoff tickets that the Phils may or may not play?  If they do not play, the Phillies will kindly keep your money, without accruing interest of course, and apply it towards next year’s season ticket bill.

Today, I am asking myself that very question.  Let us examine the recent evidence.  On Thursday, the Phillies dropped a depressing game to the worst team in baseball.  Many rookies were involved in the loss, making it slightly more understandable.

Then last night, the team put a whooping on the Astros and won by what was still too close a score for me, 12-6.  Jimmy Rollins led off the game with his 20th home run of the season.  He is now the Phillies season leader in homers, not typical for either a lead-off hitter or a shortstop.  In fact, only 11 other shortstops in baseball history have had 20 home run seasons 4 times or more, like Rollins.

Hits from Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and John Mayberry Jr. turned that 1st inning into 4 huge runs to start the game before Cole Hamels even stepped onto the mound.  Hamels was not super-sharp, but 3 earned runs over 7 innings was sufficient.

Mayberry continued to pound out hits and went 3-for-5 with 3 RBI.  Howard also had 3 RBI on 2 hits.  Another big blow came from Domonic Brown with a 2-run mega-long homer in the 7th.  He hit the ball so hard the Astros pitcher actually fell to his knees in a semi-Wayne’s World gesture of, “We’re not worthy!”  Ok, maybe not…he was probably just depressed.

Still, with all that offense, the Phillies committed 3 errors in the game which allowed 3 unearned runs to the Astros….again, the worst team in baseball.  That kind of sloppy play is what might keep them from making the postseason.

So will you be digging deep into your pockets for potential postseason tickets?  We have, according to my invoice, until 9/21/12 to decide.  That is 5 more games; 2 with the Astros and 3 with the Mets.  Decisions, decisions…

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Photo by Jenn Zambri Photography