Roy Oswalt and Jimmy Rollins Key Phillies Wild 12-Inning Win Over Padres

A great outing by Roy Oswalt, and a three-hit, two-run night for Jimmy Rollins highlighted the Phils’ 3-2 win over the Padres in a wild 12-inning affair at PETCO Park.

The win—combined with losses by the Giants and the Braves—left the Fightins two games behind the Braves in the NL East and a half game in front of the Giants in the wild card shuffle.  That’s the easy part. The hard part is putting this game, itself, into words and perspective as there were enough twists and turns to satiate the psyches of optimists and pessimists alike.

Encouraging News No. 1:  Oswalt was brilliant, yielding only six hits and no walks in eight innings.  He looked every bit the ace, and having thrown only 102 pitches—while retiring the last 13 Padres—one can easily make the case that he should’ve been out there in the bottom of the ninth.  More on that later.

More Good News: Rollins looked like the spark plug the Phils will need down the stretch to earn a playoff spot.  He took two pitches to start the game and then slapped a single into left.  He started a two-out rally of sorts with a seeing-eye hit up the middle in the third, and he pulled a double down the line to start the 12th, scoring with a great slide on Placido Polanco’s single.

One more:  Hanging Chad Durbin pitched a strong final two innings to earn the win. It wasn’t his fault that Oswalt wasn’t rewarded with a “W.”

Bad News No. 1: The offense looked flat again, and I daresay Latos-intolerant.  Okay, inspired puns aside, at least their inability to do much against a great young pitcher like Mat Latos can be somewhat justified.  The 22-year-old ace showed why he came into the game leading all pitchers in baseball in both WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched) and BAA (batting average against).  Of course, the Phils also looked completely overmatched against closer Heath Bell, who pitched two full (non-stressful) innings for the first time this season.

More Bad News:  Ryan Howard is struggling and maybe he’s saving it all for one of his patented huge Septembers.  Let’s hope so. He went 1-5 with a walk, but also struck out four more times (three of them looking), and left five men on base.

Open question:  Did both Utley and Howard return to the lineup too soon?

And Then, there’s Lidge:  One hates to beat up on such a good guy, but you had to feel for Oswalt when Lidge blew the game in surreal fashion for his erstwhile Astros buddy.

During the wild bottom of the ninth, Lidge threw 25 pitches, but it felt like 55.  Old friend Matt Stairs greeted him with a solid single to right before being replaced by the requisite pinch runner, Jerry Hairston. Pesky David Eckstein bunted Hairston over to second. Lidge appeared to panic, and bobbled the bunt but regained just enough composure to get the out at first.

Miguel Tejada—one of very few known quantities in the Padres anonymous lineup—grounded out to Polanco for the second out.  The fun was just beginning.  The Phils elected to walk the dangerous Adrian Gonzalez with the base open, and Lidge promptly crossed up Ruiz by almost throwing a strike on the first free toss.  Ruiz made a great catch, and there was no further drama on the next three lobs.

From here, it got downright preposterous.  Although many of Lights-on Lidge’s offerings did not have enough bite to chew oatmeal, he started Ryan Ludwick with two apparent strikes that the former Cardinal fouled weakly down the right field line.  Of course, with two outs and an 0-2 count, Lidge promptly hit Ludwick in the wrist with another fastball that tailed in. 

With the bases full, Lidge threw two balls to Chase Headley, then battled back to a 2-2 count before..are you ready…committing a balk that was so obvious that the Phillies did not emit a murmur of protest.  With the bases still full, Luis Durango (who should be fined for swinging at the first pitch) hit a grounder that almost ate up Ryan Howard at first.  But alas, the game went into extra innings.

Give the Phillies credit for keeping their heads and rallying to win a game that felt like a must-win on the heels of a humiliating four-game weep at home at the hands of the lowly Astros.  Perhaps, with 34 games left to play, they will regain their mojo and look once again like the best team in a flawed National League.

Whether they can do so with an inconsistent lineup that desperately needs Utley and Ryan to be themselves is questionable. 

And whether they can do so with a closer capable of  throwing away a great outing by Oswalt with a sequence of intentional base on balls (the first throw almost a wild pitch), hit batter, and balk is highly debatable.

These questions will get answered in the next month or so.  For now, Phillies fans can savor the end of their losing streak and life precariously atop the wild card standings.

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Philadelphia Phillies Swept, Still Looking for Second-Half Magic

Facing the Phillies at home in the second half over the past few seasons has not exactly been a walk in the park. It’s been more like a run. Lots and lots of runs for the Phillies.

The Astros sure didn’t make it look too hard this week. They held the Phillies to seven runs in four games, as they swept the four-game series from Philadelphia, which isn’t cruising as easily to the postseason as they did in 2009, when they won the National League East without much of a fight from the other four teams in the division. 

The fans let their displeasure be known, as according to the Phillies radio broadcast, a good amount of the fans in attendance on Thursday were already gone by the ninth inning of the 5-1 loss to the Astros.

This year the postseason is anything but a lock. The Phils sit a half-game back of San Francisco for the Wild Card, and three games back of the Braves for the National League East lead.

If the season ended today, Philadelphia wouldn’t make the playoffs, which would be absolutely shocking considering the main core of the team that went to the World Series last year and won it in 2008 has stayed intact, doing nothing more drastic than swapping Cliff Lee for Roy Halladay in the rotation.

Since the All-Star break, the Phillies, who are notorious for going on blazing-hot second-half runs, are 23-17. They’ve been solid, but certainly not spectacular, which has a lot to do with injuries to Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Shane Victorino, among others.  They’ve benefited from neither the Giants or Braves going on a run, but if the Phillies continue to play inconsistent baseball, they’ll miss the postseason for the first time since 2006.

“I don’t know what to say,” manager Charlie Manuel told the Phillies official website after the Phillies’ 5-1 loss on Thursday afternoon.  “All I can say is we have some guys, (Ryan) Howard and (Chase) Utley who need to get their timing.”

Utley returned on August 17th from thumb surgery and is hitting .235 with no home runs and three runs batted in since his return.  Howard returned from an ankle injury just six games ago, and has just three hits in 24 at-bats with no home runs and one run batted in. 

Life will not get easier for Philadelphia anytime soon.  They head to California to play three games each with the Padres, who just happen to have the best record in the National League, and the Dodgers, who just swept the Brewers in Milwaukee. 

Luckily for the Phillies, they still have six games remaining against the Braves, who have just refused to go on a big run to leave Philadelphia in the dust.  They do not face the Giants or Cardinals again, which means if it comes down to “Wild Card or bust” for the Phillies, they’ll have to take care of their own business, then look up at the out-of-town scoreboard and hope.

Rest assured, the playoffs are not a long shot for the Phillies.  But for the first time in a few years, there’s probably just as good a chance of Citizens Bank Park being empty in October as there is of it being jam-packed, just like it has been for the past 107 games.

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Phillies’ Future Helping the Present: Five September Call-Up Prospects

After a tough 120 games, a major league team can be beat up or even fatigued. An expanded roster is always just the boost needed to help that team over the hump.

For a team like the Phightin’ Phillies, who are known to take the hard route to success, September call-ups are absolutely crucial.

The Phillies have an amazing group of talent in the farm, and with the amalgamation of that and the amazing group in the big leagues, you can be sure the Phils will not be easy to hold off.

As of late, the Phillies have been struggling to score runs, and their bullpen has never been known to scare anyone off, so more than likely the team will need to think about those few areas.

Being that the Phillies are famous for their firepower, I don’t believe there should be much concern about the offense. More attention, however, should be on strengthening the bullpen.  

This called into my mind a few prospects that could help the Phils hunt down the Braves and hold off the Giants.

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Philadelphia Phillies Must Play Their Game, Not Their Opponents’

Plain and simple, the Phillies play to the level of their competition. If they’re playing a good team, they’re going to pick their game up and come up with the plays they need when they need them in order to win.

We saw the best example of that right before the All-Star break in their four-game series with the Cincinnati Reds.

It wasn’t always pretty, but four consecutive wins, three in extra innings, showed the Phils can pull out close wins against good teams.

It’s something championship-caliber teams have to do.

However, with the recent four-game series against the Houston Astros, we see a glimpse of why the Phillies might not be World Series material.

Even though they will play up to their competition when they need to, they can also play down to the level of a bad team long enough to get swept and really put themselves in a hole for a playoff push.

And, again, it’s a problem that comes back to Charlie Manuel.

Of course it’s also on the players to understand they must approach every game like it’s the middle of October, but the manager’s job is to make sure his team is in the right frame of mind and playing to the best of their abilities.

Right now, Manuel’s not doing that.

He did a great job of keeping the team together through the injuries and getting the backups to play at a high level, but now that the pieces are all back in place, it seems like he quits doing his job and takes it for granted.

Bottom line is, there’s absolutely no reason for the Phillies to have lost four straight games to the Astros, as well as the numerous games they’ve lost to other subpar teams such as the Washington Nationals, Chicago Cubs (another four-game sweep), and Pittsburgh Pirates.

The good news, however, is that the 76-50 San Diego Padres (weird still, right?) are next up for the Phils, so they’ll probably find a way to win this series and get everyone to stop talking about their pathetic display against the Astros and two former Phillies starters.

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Phillies’ Joe Blanton: Viable Playoff Pitcher In 2010?

Joe Blanton, the pitcher most notably remember for hitting a homerun vs. then Tampa Bay Ray, now White Sox Pitcher Edwin Jackson.

Blanton has had his fair share off up and downs, but I’m here to let you know if his ups and downs, may produce an up or down for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Blanton consistently throws a high-80s to mid-90s fastball, with a straight change-up, a slider, and a 12-6 Breaking Ball in his repertoire, has been having his trouble this year. Blanton suffered a strained oblique in Spring Training, and was on the Disabled List to begin the season.

Since his return to the Phillies’ roster, he has been the No. 4 starter behind Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Jamie Moyer.

Since then, the Phillies have placed Moyer on the Disabled List, and acquired Roy Oswalt, who we all know can play left field now as well as pitch.

Blanton has been terrible in the first Inning, as since the All-Star Break, Blanton has a ERA (Earned Run Average) of over 10 in the first inning, allowing one HR, and three walks. 

Although in his latest three starts vs. San Francisco and two vs. Houston, he has dimmed down the first inning fireworks, but can his fireworks show start to explode again?

Assuming Blanton pitches in the playoffs, would he pitch both as a fourth starter and a long reliever?

With the struggles of relievers J.C. Romero, Danys Baez and sinkerballer David Herndon, does Blanton’s performance affect the roles of not only Kyle Kendrick, the fifth starter in the Phils’ rotation, but of the bullpen pitchers of Romero, Baez and Herndon?

So, after considering that, consider Blanton all time in postseason play is 2-0, pitching 34.2 Innings, with a 3.89 ERA and 30 Strikeouts. So, it seems Blanton can hold his own on the mound, but does the Blanton-of-old return?

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The Road To October: Analyzing the Phillies Competition

The Phillies have had a good year this year.  They may not be first in their division or the Wild Card, but they are close to the leaders in both.In this article, I am going to talk about all of the teams that the Phillies are close to in the division and Wild Card races.  Let’s start out by looking at the Phillies themselves:

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MLB History: Can Jayson Werth’s Batting Average With RISP Be Beat?

There are times when an idea, a theory, or a point needs to be made with extensive evidence, logic, and explanation. The idea/theory/point can be so subtle, so complex, so involved, that the importance of it is not immediately clear. Some ideas take a lifetime to understand.

I am not here today with such an idea.

This is my 150th article with Bleacher Report, and I am going to use it on a point that does not require much discussion. It is a point whose relevance, like the very truths referenced by our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence, should be self-evident.

As of Wednesday night’s game, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Jayson Werth is batting .300 with a .913 OPS. With the bases empty, he is hitting .333 (including last night’s solo home run). With men on base, his batting average drops down to .255.

And with runners in scoring position, his batting average is an appalling .157.

Like I said, I won’t spend much time discussing this point, except to say the following: This is a historical number.

I have searched about 50 players from throughout baseball history for whom season splits are available on baseball-reference.com, and I have only found one player whose batting average with runners in scoring position dipped so low.

His name was Don Wert, and he played for the Detroit Tigers in 1968. He matched Werth’s current .157, but his overall batting average was .200. He was not exactly a great hitter.

There was also Curt Blefary, who hit .165 with runners in scoring position that same year, but also only hit .200 overall.

When it comes to guys who were actual hitters, who actually had decent full-season batting averages, forget it. You can’t find a player who has performed so poorly with runners in scoring position.

Luke Scott, for example, who is currently hitting .295, dips down to a shocking .186 with runners in scoring position, but even that is almost 30 points higher than Werth.

Mark Reynolds, on the other hand, is hitting .212 on the season, but with runners in scoring position, he’s hitting .271.

And there’s Rob Deer in 1991, when his RISP-AVG dipped down to .168. To put that in perspective, Deer hit .179 that season, so his average with runners in scoring position was only 11 points lower than his season average.

Werth’s is 143 points lower. Shocking.

So I put it to you, baseball fans.

Let’s find a real hitter (as in, not a guy who hit .200 for the season) whose batting average with runners in scoring position was as low or lower than Werth’s current .157, because it has to be out there. Just to set some parameters, let’s say that this player must have qualified for the batting title for the season, and must have hit at least .250 for the year.

We can do this.

And if you can find me a guy and you live in Philly, I’ll buy you a cheesesteak.

That you will have earned it is self-evident.

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com.

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Is Jayson Werth More Leading Off?

The Philadelphia Phillies had won 21 of 28 games between July 22nd and August 22nd.

They did this in large part without their two best position players, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. However, all is not well in Philadelphia. The Phils have just dropped three haphazard games in a row to Houston, in what is shaping up to be the worst series of the year. They have also scored two runs or less in six of their last seven games.

Starting pitching this great can only last so long when you have Kyle Kendrick and Joe Blanton as your fourth and fifth starters. The resurgence of Ryan Madson has temporarily shored up the bullpen, but Brad Lidge remains a question mark. This team needs hitting, and with the trade deadline passed, it will have to find extra runs from within the organization.

Luckily, that shouldn’t be hard to do. With a few tweaks to the lineup, the Phillies could still run away with the division. The single most important move they can make is to find a new leadoff hitter.

Jimmy Rollins, for all his fielding prowess and clutch hitting, is sporting an inexcusable .336 OBP out of the leadoff spot this season. With each passing game it becomes more apparent; when the Phillies win it is generally despite Rollins, not because of him.

In past years the Phillies have accepted Rollins as a leadoff hitter because there was no alternative. This is not the case in 2010. Jayson Werth has an .390 OBP this season, good for 11th in all of baseball and fifth in the National League.

Since the All-Star break he has been even better, hitting .341 with an other-worldly OBP of .442. Though not nearly as fast or smart on the base paths as Rollins, Werth did steal 20 bases in both 2008 and 2009. In 2010 he has not been quite as successful on the bases, stealing only eight bags in 11 chances so far.

However, the middle of the order is so powerful that speed at the top is not as important as one might think. Manufacturing runs has never been one of this team’s strengths. It is far more important that Werth simply finds a way to get on base, and at this, he is exceptionally proficient.

Stealing bases is irrelevant as long as Utley and Howard are hitting bombs behind him.

The most obvious counter-argument to Jayson Werth leading off is the right handed power that the Phillies would then lose out of the middle of their order. In 2009, when he hit 36 home runs, the argument held weight. In 2010, with Werth on pace to hit 22 home runs while driving in 80, the argument falls flat. For whatever reason, Werth has not been hitting for power this year. However, he is still on pace to score 100 runs.

If he had been leading off since opening day, he might have scored 150. Furthermore, plenty of right-handed hitting has emerged this season that could supplant the void left by Werth and successfully support the big lefties.

The most obvious improvement has come from Carlos Ruiz. He has hit .329 against left-handed pitching this year with more walk-offs than you can shake a stick at.

The other guy who could potentially move up in the order is Shane Victorino. He has hit lefties 117 points better than righties in 2010, and he has hit for power in stretches that could become longer and more frequent if he starts seeing more pitches to hit.

Earlier in the season it would have seemed crazy to move Werth out of the middle of the order. He was presumed to be a powerful right-handed bat in a lineup starved for them.

Since then, things have changed and, if the Phillies want to make the playoffs, drastic in-season adjustments will be necessary. Werth has lost his power, but he has also further developed his already formidable knack for getting on base.

At the same time, Carlos Ruiz and Shane Victorino have shown that they can hit higher in the order and effectively break up the left-handed trio of Utley, Howard, and Ibanez.

Every time Jayson Werth works a walk, every time Jimmy Rollins swings at the first pitch, and every time a Phillies slugger hits a solo home run, the lack of a lineup shakeup becomes more and more inexplicable.

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2010 MLB Playoff Race: Are the Philadelphia Phillies the New Yankees?

Everyone knows what it means: your team is flush with money and run by talentless slobs, who can make up for an inability to develop high quality talent within the farm system by simply buying other team’s high quality talent.  

You are the evil empire, pricing every other team in baseball out of the market for the best players in the game.  

You represent everything that is wrong with baseball and, what’s worse, your fans are front-runners, having forged artificial lifelong allegiances to the best players money can buy, acting as though they are somehow special for having taken part in a travesty.

We all know what is meant by the phrase “the new Yankees.”  The only question is: are the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies it?

If you ask a group of bitter Washington Nationals fans—because hey, who wouldn’t be bitter after five whole years of losing—then the answer is yes.

If you ask any reasonable baseball fan, the answer is: pah-lease.

Truth be told, the Yankees and the Phillies are not without their similarities. Chief amongst them, and contrary to popular opinion, both teams are in fact capable of “growing” their own talent.

Don’t forget, the core of the New York Yankees dynasty from 1995 to 2010 has been the Big Four–Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte—who all came up through the Yankees system and have led the team to five championships in 15 years.

Throw in recent Yankees legend Bernie Williams and new Yankees star Robinson Cano, and that makes six Yankees homegrowns who have been absolutely essential to the team’s success.

The Phillies have also grown their own, with the All-Star double play combination Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard all having come up with the Phillies.  So, too, did catcher and fan favorite Carlos Ruiz come up with the Phils, as well as 2008 NLCS and World Series MVP Cole Hamels, starter Kyle Kendrick, and reliever Ryan Madson.

But that is pretty much where the similarities between these two franchises end.

The Yankees, of course, have spent the last 15 seasons buying up all of the most high priced talent in baseball, making big runs at the biggest free agents and pricing all other comers out of the market.  

So it is that the Yankees, over the years, ended up with Mike Mussina, Roger Clemens, Kevin Brown, Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Bobby Abreu, Johnny Damon, Mark Teixeira, and Hideki Matsui.

Whenever the Yanks have had a chance, they’ve snagged the best player available.

More importantly, and herein lies the rub, the Yankees have been able to absorb the big contracts gone bad (Pavano, Wright, Brown, Giambi) and continue to acquire top-flight talent, where other teams would be absolutely crippled by the devastating effects that a big-contract player not contributing on the field can have.

And then you have the Philadelphia Phillies.

First of all, it is worth pointing out that the 2008 Phils won a championship without big-money players, almost to a man. The Rollins ($8 million), Utley ($7.785 million), and Howard ($10 million) combo were not yet making elite money, while Hamels ($500,000) was still making peanuts.

The biggest contract on the team belonged to Pat Burrell, who was making $14 million, and only Geoff Jenkins, Jamie Moyer, Adam Eaton, and Brett Myers were making between $5 million and $8.5 million.

Meanwhile, the starting lineup was filled with guys like Pedro Feliz, who’d been run out of town in San Francisco; Shane Victorino, a Rule Five draft pick from four years earlier; and Jayson Werth, who signed for cheap with the Phillies in 2007 after missing all of the 2006 season.

And one of the biggest keys to the Phils’ 2008 World Series run, Brad Lidge, was picked up off the scrap-heap in a trade with Houston after an up-and-down season at a point in his career when he was hardly considered elite. He made $6.3 million to pitch for the Phils in ’08.

At the end of the day, the team’s payroll in 2008 was about $80 million.

But this isn’t about 2008. This is about 2010.

You can’t blame Washingtonians for looking at the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies and seeing the New York Yankees.  After all, so few Nationals fans actually go to the ballpark—indeed, it took the help of about 30,000 Phillies fans to sell out Opening Day in D.C. this year—that they probably don’t even know what a quality baseball team looks like.

Thus, for a Nationals fan to look at the Phillies and see an Evil Empire isn’t surprising.  But the differences between the Phils and the Yanks aren’t subtle.

It would be easy, for example, to accuse the Phils of ruthlessly snatching up free agent talent on any whim. The Phils are selling out every game (100 in a row and counting) and Phillies merchandise is flying off the shelves.  Certainly there is more money to be spent in Philadelphia on the hometown team than ever before.

But most of that money, thus far, has been spent just in keeping the players the Phillies already have. As noted above, in 2008 the Rollins-Utley-Howard combo made just under $26 million combined. Just two years later, that number is about $43 million and climbing.

Hamels, Werth, Victorino, and Madson all make real money now as well.

Ostensibly, a considerable amount of balleyhoo could be made over certain pitching acquisitions the Phillies have made over the last two seasons, but it would ring hollow.

Since the beginning of the 2009 season, the Phillies have acquired Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, and Roy Oswalt; that’s three Cy Young Awards and one of the National League’s best pitchers from the last decade.

Surely this reeks of New York Yankee style player acquisition.

But unlike the Yankees, the Phillies have had to pay a price.

For one thing, it isn’t like the Phillies bought Lee, Halladay, and Oswalt, the way the Yankees would have.

Instead, the Phillies have given up a veritable baseball team worth of players to acquire these guys–including Jason Knapp, Carlos Carrasco, Jason Donald, Lou Marson, Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor, Travis d’Arnaud, Anthony Gose, Jonathan Villar, and J.A. Happ.

And, for that matter, the Phillies have given up all of those players and have only two pitchers to show for it; the Phillies had to get rid of Lee, knowing they wouldn’t be able to afford him once he became a free agent, in order to acquire Halladay. Throw in the fact that Oswalt cost them a very promising Happ, and one almost begins to wonder if the Phils even came out ahead in the deal.

Does this sound like the New York Yankees? Is there any doubt that if they’d wanted to, the Yankees would have acquired Lee, Halladay, and Oswalt and signed them all to long, big money contracts?

There shouldn’t be any doubt, since that is exactly what they did with C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Javier Vazquez over the same period of time.

And consider this: after coming incredibly close to acquiring Lee from the Seattle Mariners this summer, the Yankees dropped out of the chase for him. Why? It is thought that the Yankees don’t want to give up talent now when they know they can get Lee this offseason for free.

Is that an option the Phillies had?

In truth, the only “big-name” free agents the Phillies have acquired during their current reign of terror have been Raul Ibanez and Placido Polanco. An Evil Empire those two do not make.

At the end of the day, from the perspective of the Washington Nationals—20 games back and 20 games under .500—it could certainly appear as though the Phillies have taken on the identity of the greatest monolithic force the sports world has ever known.

However, from closer up, the distinguishing factors between the Phillies and the Yankees are as obvious as can be.

To compare the tortured and convoluted front office moves that the Phillies have made to the whimsical and careless free-spending way of the New York Yankees is to speak from a position of ignorance.

But the Washingtonians, in only their sixth year as a baseball fan-base after over 30 years without baseball, are still in their baseball infancy, so we’ll just consider it the ignorance of youth.

 

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com.

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Ryan Howard Ejection Wasn’t Worth It

Ryan Howard cost the Philadelphia Phillies a game they desperately needed last night in the NL East playoff chase.

The Phillies are 2.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves for first place in the division. With the Braves losing last night, the Phillies had an opportunity to make up a game on the division leaders.

Instead, Ryan Howard was ejected in the 14th inning while arguing a check swing that resulted in his fifth strikeout of the night.

The Phillies went on to lose to the Houston Astros 4-2 in 16 innings.

Howard struggled mightily all night at the plate. He went 0-7 on top of his five strikeout performance.

It was his seventh and final at-bat that proved to be his worst one of the night as he was ejected.

With Howard’s ejection, left fielder Raul Ibanez had to move to first. The Phillies had no players left on the bench after the incident prompting Manager Charlie Manuel to insert pitcher Roy Oswalt into left field.

Oswalt, hitting .150 on the season proved to be the final out of the game as he grounded out to third with the game tying run on first. The Astros took advantage of the Phillies’ situation by intentionally walking Chase Utley after Placido Polanco had also walked.

That brought Oswalt to the plate and effectively ended all hope to Philadelphia’s chances.

Ryan Howard should have been smarter in this situation and kept his cool knowing that the Phillies could not afford to lose a player. As soon as third base umpire Scott Barry said Howard did not check his swing Howard became enraged and the Phillies chances of winning the game went down in flames.

Even though Howard was having a rough night at the plate, Phillies fans would have much rather seen his eighth at-bat of the night with a chance to win the game, than to see Oswalt’s first at-bat of the night with very little chance to even tie the game.

The Phillies have won the division the last three years. They have come on strong at the end of the each season to do so.

This year looks to be no different as the Phillies have gone 14-7 in the month of August. Games like this won’t help their cause.

There is no guarantee that the Phillies would have went on to win this game, but Howard would have given them their best chance win. Howard has spent enough time out of the Phillies lineup this season. He needs to do everything he can to stay in it for the rest of the season.

Howard was not the sole reason the Phillies lost the game. They were unable to capitalize on the momentum they gained after Jimmy Rollins tied the game with a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth.

The Phillies were playing at home against an inferior opponent and still couldn’t score enough runs in 16 innings to come away with the victory.

This was a game that Philadelphia needed to win and one that could come back to haunt them at the end of the season.

Ryan Howard needs to be the leader that he was paid to be. He needs to get the Phillies back on track if they are going to win the division for the fourth straight season.

 

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