reCAP: Philadelphia Phillies vs. New York Mets

7/20/13

Welcome back to the unofficial second half of baseball. The Phillies have a .500 record and are ready to start the post all-star break on the right foot. Two of the Phillies players have already stayed in New York this entire week. Cliff Lee and Domonic Brown played in the all-star game. Lee allowed a run in his one inning of work and Brown struck out on three pitches in his only at bat and misjudged a flyball in left field that allowed the AL to score the third and final run. Moving on to last night’s game, the Phillies turned to Kyle Kendrick as the Mets started Jeremy Hefner. Hefner has been pitching better than the Phillies last saw him in April. Hefner has had nine quality starts in his last 10 starts. During that stretch he has a 4-2 record, with a 2.14 ERA. Kendrick has had a solid first half. He is 8-6 with an ERA of 3.68. He is on pace to have a career high in wins. The Mets had no drastic changes to their lineup, but the Phillies made a switch that seemed likely at some point during this season. Jimmy Rollins was back in his familiar leadoff position. John Mayberry Jr. will be the Phillies’ starting centerfielder since Ben Revere broke his foot and will be out for six to eight weeks. Erik Kratz returned from a torn meniscus and will be the Phillies’ backup catcher. Humberto Quintero will be used as the third catcher. Will Hefner keep up this hot streak he’s been on or will Kendrick hold the Mets in check?

Who would have thought that this would be a slugfest? The Phillies won this game 13-8. I will not get into detail of every run that was put on the board, but I will tell you the highlights of the runs scored. Michael Young, Chase Utley, and Domonic Brown all hit homeruns for the Phillies. David Wright and Marlon Byrd hit homeruns for the Mets. Mayberry Jr. and Brown had multi-RBI games.

Kendrick was cruising along until the middle innings. He allowed six runs in the fourth through sixth innings. The Mets knew Kendrick was going to throw strikes so they attacked Kendrick early in the count and had a very easy time getting on base. Six of Kendrick’s seven strikeouts occurred in the first three innings of the game. The bullpen made it nerve racking as they allowed six batters to reach base. Only Justin De Fratus allowed two runs, which was a two run homerun to Wright.

Hefner was terrible. He lasted two plus innings and his stretch of having 10 great outings came to a halt. He allowed eight of the Phillies’ 13 runs. Greg Burke and Josh Edgin allowed the other five runs to score. Hefner kept his pitches up in the zone and the Phillies hit the pitches they were capable of hitting.

Overall, the Phillies exploded out of the gate early. In the early part of the year, this team was incapable of scoring 10 runs in a game. Now they’re starting to hit the ball. I think the Phillies are hitting the ball better because it’s hitting season. The weather is hot out and the ball carries out of the ballpark better when it’s hot. It was one of those nights when you knew that pitching would not be a big deal. One team had to outscore the other to win this game. The Phillies are now in second place, but it didn’t help that the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds won last night. It would have been nice to pick up a game on either one of those teams in the standings.

Can the Phillies keep up their winning ways like they did last night? Sound off and stay tuned until next time…

reCAP: Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies

7/11/13

The Phillies have been on a roll lately and have won three games in a row. In the second game of this series, the Phillies had great pitching by Cole Hamels, but like we saw in the first game of this series, there was ninth inning drama in the second game. Cliff Lee took the mound for the Phillies in the third game of this series. He’s having a great year which is why he is an all-star for the National League. Gio Gonzalez started for the Nationals and he’s not having quite the year he had last year. Gonzalez has also been linked to the many players in this biogenesis clinic that’s being investigated by Major League Baseball. Could steroids have played a part of how Gonzalez has performed the past two years? The Phillies had no changes to their starting lineup while the Nats used the lineup they used in game one of this series. Denard Span was back in the leadoff position and played centerfield. Span replaced Scott Hairston. Bryce Harper went back to playing left field and Wilson Ramos is back behind the plate replacing Kurt Suzuki. Will Lee or Gonzalez pitch the better game?

This will be easy to tell you how the scoring happened. The Nationals hit four solo homeruns. The Nationals hit back-to-back homeruns in the fifth inning by Anthony Rendon and Wilson Ramos. They also hit back-to-back homeruns in the sixth inning by Ryan Zimmerman and Jayson Werth. Darin Ruf hit a solo homerun for the Phillies only run in the seventh inning. Rendon scored the Nationals’ fifth run of the game in the ninth when Jake Diekman made a throwing error when he threw the ball to first base. That was your final score; a 5-1 Phillies loss.

I thought Lee pitched well. I know he allowed four runs, but they were off solo homeruns and he really wasn’t knocked around. Nine hits is a lot of hits allowed in a game, but if you take away four of those hits, the Nationals didn’t do a lot of damage on the base paths. The problem with Lee was that he threw too many strikes and the Nationals were prepared to attack early in the count. He threw 76 pitches in seven innings, which is great, but I thought he would pitch the full game. Luis Garcia made his major league debut and boy did he come out of the gate throwing fireballs. Justin De Fratus and Jake Diekman are examples of why this bullpen is a terrible bullpen. I like Diekman’s stuff, but he allows inherited runners to score. De Fratus on the other hand is simply not a good major league pitcher. He threw a meatball to Rendon and committed an error that should have been an easy throw to first.

Gonzalez pitched a solid game. He threw a lot of strikes and kept the ball down in the zone. There were innings the Phillies could have done damage to Gonzalez, but I will get into that in my next paragraph. Tyler Clippard and Rafael Soriano pitched scoreless eighth and ninth innings and wrapped the game up easily.

Overall, the Phillies used bad management that cost them this game. In the third inning when there were runners on first and second, Charlie Manuel should have let Ben Revere bunt to move the runners over to scoring position. There would have been one out in that inning instead of the two that did happen when he grounded into a double play. Then in the fifth inning, the same situation happened with one out and Charlie told Lee to lay down a bunt to move the runners over. This I don’t understand because Lee has more pop in his bat than Revere. Another example of bad management is what I stated above about Lee. He threw 76 pitches yet got taken out after the seventh inning. He could have easily pitched the whole game yet Charlie wanted to use Kevin Frandsen as a pinch hitter because he has more pop in his bat. The weird thing is that Frandsen did what Lee could have done as well; a bunt down the third base line for Zimmerman to field. Zimmerman is an easy target because he’s a terrible fielder and has an awkward throwing motion. I really hope the Phillies bring their A game tonight and win this series.

Will the Phillies win this series against the Nationals? Sound off and stay tuned until next time…

reCAP: Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies

7/10/13

The Phillies took care of business in the first game of this four game series against the Nationals. They did the little things to win the previous game, and had superb pitching too. The Nationals made it interesting in the ninth inning, but Jonathan Papelbon slammed the door after allowing two runs to score on sacrifice flies. Last night the Phillies sent Cole Hamels out to the mound while Washington handed the ball to rookie Taylor Jordan. The Phillies made a roster move yesterday. They demoted Phillippe Aumont to the minors and purchased the contract of Luis Garcia. Garcia had been out of baseball for two years and has impressed the Phillies with how hard he throws. The Nationals made a change in their starting lineup last night. Scott Hairston replaced Denard Span as the leadoff hitter. Hairston played in left field while Bryce Harper moved from left field to centerfield. Also, Kurt Suzuki replaced Wilson Ramos in the lineup at catcher. Will the Phillies make Jordan look like a Cy Young pitcher or will they give Hamels run support?

The Phillies made a rookie starting pitcher not look like Cy Young for the first time all year. Jayson Werth may have started the scoring for the Nationals in the second inning when he blasted a solo homerun into left centerfield, but the Phillies got some breaks that went their way later in the game. In the fourth inning, Domonic Brown looped a single into right field that Werth nonchalantly didn’t make the catch which should have recorded the final out of that inning. Instead, it made the game tied at one. The other break happened in the sixth inning when Chase Utley hit a roller to first base and Adam LaRoche airmailed a throw over second base which allowed Ben Revere to score. Michael Young gave the Phillies a few insurance runs as he laced a double into right centerfield that scored Jimmy Rollins and Utley. There was another ninth inning drama that occurred last night. This time Antonio Bastardo stirred the drama instead of Papelbon. Bastardo allowed Wilson Ramos to hit a pinch hit RBI double to make it a 4-2 game. However, he got Hairston to pop up to Utley and the Phillies survived another close game and won the game.

Hamels repeated what John Lannan did in the first game against the Nationals. Hamels was spectacular. He had some quick innings up until the later part of the game. He was mixing up his pitches well and had great location. His changeup was masterful, his curveball and cutter had some bite, and his fastball was located well. The one moment that stood out for me in Hamels’ performance was when he got out of a bases loaded jam in the eighth inning. He struck out Ryan Zimmerman and got Werth to fly out to deep right centerfield. It had me nervous because Hamels threw a fastball right over the plate to Werth and, as Charlie Manuel said, Werth was close but no cigar. Hamels allowed six hits, one walk, and struck out four batters in his eight innings of work. Bastardo was getting behind in the count to three of the five batters he faced. That’s never a good thing when you come into the later innings of a game. It will make the fans want to munch on a full bottle of Tums.

Jordan was brought back to reality and was shown why he’s only a Double A pitcher pitching in the big leagues. He was good through the first three innings when the Phillies hitters were seeing him the first time around. However, when the Phillies faced Jordan the second time around, they were getting pitches to hit and scoring runs. Jordan has decent stuff, but he has to not get predictable. Early in the game, he kept throwing pitches to the same location. Jordan had some luck go his way when the Phillies grounded into three double plays. Craig Stammen and Ian Krol pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings out of the bullpen and held the Phillies hitless.

Overall, the Phillies are on some surge. They have won six out of their last eight games and are only 5 ½ games out of the second wildcard spot. They are also 1 ½ games out of second place in the NL East. The Phillies keep having these crooked number innings when they score a lot of runs in one inning and then shut it down offensively. That’s what the Phillies use to do during their five year playoff run. What’s different this year from years past is that the Phillies are finally learning how to play small ball and manufacture runs without relying on hitting the three run homeruns. Hamels seems like he’s turning a corner after having an extended two day breather as he has won in his last two outings.

Can the Phillies keep this winning up with Cliff Lee on the mound tonight? Sound off and stay tuned. Gio Gonzalez will oppose Lee.

reCAP: Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies

7/9/13

The Phillies are on a pivotal ten game homestand. They won two out of three games against the first place Atlanta Braves. Now the Phillies get to host the Nationals for four games. It would be ideal for the Phillies to sweep the Nationals, but we will see what this Phillies team can do in this must-win series. The first game of this series started with an ugly pitching matchup. John Lannan started for the Phillies while Dan Haren (fresh off the 15-Day disabled list), got the nod for the Nationals. The Nationals acquired a batter from the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs traded Scott Hairston (Notorious Phillie killer) to the Nationals for a Minor League prospect. Hairston will be a right handed bat off the bench. The Nationals sent Tyler Moore to the minors so they can make room for Hairston to be on the Major League roster. The Phillies had some devastating news last night in which Ryan Howard was going to be out six to eight weeks due to a torn meniscus. The latest Howard would be able to return is in September. For now, Darin Ruf is the new starting first baseman as he got the call up from Triple A. Who’s going to step up in Ryan Howard’s absence? Who will pitch the better game?

It was surprising to see that this was a low scoring game. Especially since two terrible pitchers were pitching last night. Domonic Brown started the scoring in the first inning for the Phillies as he hit a line shot that hit Haren in the leg. The ball rolled past him and allowed Ben Revere to score to make it a 1-0 game. Ruf drew an RBI walk to make it a 2-0 game. Jimmy Rollins made this a 3-0 game in the sixth inning when he hit a line drive into right field. That made a tumbling Revere score from second. Things got interesting in the ninth inning when Jonathan Papelbon allowed two runners to reach base. Jayson Werth and Adam LaRoche both hit sacrifice flies to score the only two runs the Nationals scored in the game. The game was over on a Chad Tracy pop up and the Phillies won the first of this four game series 3-2.

What’s there to say about Lannan? This guy pitched one of his best games of the season. He pitched eight strong innings, allowed four hits, walked two, and struck out four batters. The best thing about Lannan was that his changeup was effective, threw strikes, and kept the ball down in the strike zone. Papelbon pitched an erratic ninth inning. In the end, he got the job done.

Haren was terrible last night. Although he didn’t allow many runs, the Phillies could have easily knocked him around if they had better situational hitting. Haren pitched five grinding innings. He allowed seven hits, three walks, and struck out seven batters. Fernando Abad pitched the sixth inning and gave up what now seems to be a costly third run. Ross Ohlendorf and his funky looking windup pitched scoreless seventh and eighth innings.

Overall, the Phillies have been winning games at an easier rate. They have been scoring more runs and have been getting good games from their starting pitching. The bullpen has been a concern all season, which is why I think Lannan pitched eight innings. I was calling for Lannan to be lifted from the game after the sixth inning due to throwing a lot of pitches. I kept thinking that the Nationals were going to have one big inning against Lannan. This was in part of what happened in his last start against the Pittsburgh Pirates when he allowed four runs in the fifth inning. However, the only difference is that the Pirates made Lannan grind his way through five innings whereas in this game, Lannan was cruising along in his eight innings of work. Both the Phillies and the Nationals had the same kind of offense last night. Nine out of the ten hits the Phillies had were singles. Five out of six hits for the Nationals were singles. The Phillies should have had at least five runs through the third inning because Haren was pitching that bad. They had the bases loaded in the first inning and had to muster their way to score two runs. Any good team would have had five runs in this situation. The Phillies ran into their old habits by swinging too early in the count like they did in the third inning when they had a chance to score a run.

Is the Phillies offense back? Sound off and stay tuned tonight as Cole Hamels takes the mound for the Phillies. Rookie Taylor Jordan will start for the Nationals.

reCAP: Philadelphia Phillies vs. Pittsburgh Pirates

7/4/13

It only took one inning for the Phillies to win the first game of this three game series against the Pirates. The sixth inning told the outcome of the game. The Phillies scored three while the Pirates scored one in that frame. Last night was the second game of this series. John Lannan and Jeff Locke took the mound for their respective teams. Locke has been one of the great surprises for the Pirates as he has had a great first half of the season. He’s won seven games and has only one loss. His ERA is a microscopic 2.06. He could have some all-star consideration too if he keeps up this great pitching. Lannan had a solid start in his last game against the Los Angeles Dodgers and got his first win of the season. At the same time, his offense helped him out dearly as he was given a 15 run lead to work with. The Phillies were without Ryan Howard as he has to rest his ailing knee. John Mayberry got the start at first base hitting sixth in the lineup. Domonic Brown will take Howard’s spot in the lineup and hit fourth. Travis Snyder and Garrett Jones are both out of the lineup. Gaby Sanchez will replace Jones at first base. Jose Tabata, fresh off the 15-Day disabled list, will take over in right field for Snyder. Brandon Cumpton, the starting pitcher last night for the Pirates, was demoted to the minors to make room for Tabata on the Major League roster. Will either team score more than three runs in this game or will pitching be the theme of this game as it was in the previous game?

In a stunning turn of events, there were more than three runs scored not by one team, but by both teams. Russell Martin had two RBI’s in this game, but the big blow was Pedro Alvarez’s three run homerun in the fifth inning that made it a 4-1 game. The Pirates scored their final run on a wild pitch. Ben Revere started the scoring for the Phillies in the fourth inning by looping an RBI single into left field. Kevin Frandsen got a pinch RBI single in the sixth inning. Also in the sixth, Michael Young was safe on an error by Jordy Mercer to make it a 4-3 game. The Phillies had a glimmer of hope in the ninth inning when Domonic Brown hit a two run homerun to make the game 6-5. However, that glimmer of hope faded when Delmon Young struck out to end the ballgame. The Pirates got back in the win column with a 6-5 win.

Lannan had a terrible game. He had to battle his way to pitch five innings. He never had a 1-2-3 inning and he was not sharp with his pitches. Even though through the first four innings were clean zeroes, he was bound to have one bad inning. It happened in the fifth because the Pirates’ hitters were seeing him a second time in the game. They knew what pitches Lannan was going to throw and how fast or slow his pitches were. Phillippe Aumont was atrocious. He relieved Lannan in the sixth inning and opened the floodgates when it was a 4-3 game. He put two runners on base and recorded one out. Jake Diekman was great, aside from that wild pitch he threw that ultimately decided the game. Getting five strikeouts in 1 2/3 innings is very impressive. Joe Savery was pretty good too as he stranded one guy on base in the eighth inning.

Locke pitched an OK, but not a good game. He pitched easily through the Phillies hitters during the first go-round. When they saw Locke the second time around, they got on base more often and scored a run. They could have scored two runs off of Locke, but Lannan is slow, did a terrible slide into home plate, and was called out. The Pirates bullpen didn’t look as dominant as it has been all season. Justin Wilson allowed two inherited runners to score. Jeanmar Gomez and Mark Melancon pitched clean innings in the seventh and eighth inning. Jason Grilli almost blew the game when Brown crushed his two run homerun into right field.

Overall, the Phillies kept fighting, but it was not enough to make up for their blunders in this game. The bullpen will obviously be a reason of why the Phillies lose games. The breaks simply didn’t go right for the Phillies. There’s nothing else to say about this game. However, there is one thing I will say about this Phillies team; and that is they can compete with some of the top teams in the National League.

Is it too early to talk about the Phillies being buyers or sellers? Sound off and stay tuned until next time…