NL East Showdown: Breaking Down Philadelphia Phillies Vs. Atlanta Braves

The Atlanta Braves come to town this week for a three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.

The Phillies currently have a three-game lead in the NL East over the Braves, and the San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies surging out west, the Braves may very well be playing for their postseason lives.

Here’s a breakdown of what to expect from this showdown.

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Is Charlie Manuel Retiring as Philadelphia Phillies Manager?

Charlie Manuel is 66 years old, and has had complications with his health in the past.

Three of his contemporaries have either announced retirement, or will be announcing retirement.

As we know, Bobby Cox, 69, is calling it quits after the conclusion of this season. Joe Torre, 70, has also announced that he is stepping down. There has also been a buzz about Tony LaRussa, 65, looking into walking away from the game as well.

Dennis Deitch, of the Times Staff, asked Charlie if he’s thought about hanging it up soon. His response was:

“If it’s baseball, I don’t think I’ll ever say I’ve had enough of it,” Manuel said. “I have a lot of respect for those guys. They probably feel like they have things they want to do, but when they get out they might want to come right back.”

With Torre being the oldest manager currently in the MLB retiring, and Cox, the second oldest retiring, this would make Manuel MLB’s current oldest manager in the league. He has Cito Gaston, of the Toronto Blue Jays, beat by two months and 13 days.

The current average age of managers in the league now is 55 years old. The youngest being the Seattle Mariners interim manager, Daren Brown, at 43.

There are currently 10 managers who fall into the range of 50-55 years old, five of whom are 53 years old.

 

Fortunately for Philly fans, if it were up to Manuel, Philadelphia would hold the two oldest managers of all-time.

When asked when he would think about resigning Manuel responded, “I can see myself managing at 85. Pennsylvania’s known for having old coaches and managers.“

When Manuel made that statement he was referencing Joe Paterno of the Penn State Nittany Lions, but, what came to my mind was the oldest MLB manager to ever manage baseball, Connie Mack, who managed the Philadelphia Athletics until he was 87.

Manuel admits that his whole life is baseball. He tells Deitch:

“I don’t go nowhere…I go home and go to the ballpark. I go from the ballpark to the airplane and to a hotel…That’s all I do. I might walk downtown before I go to the ballpark, but I don’t go to bars. If I were younger, I’d go to bars. But that’s all I do. That’s all I want to see.”

So in light of all the manager retirement news, Manuel is here to stay…as long as it’s his choice.

For more writing from Vincent Heck visit www.vincentheckwriting.com

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Philadelphia Phillies Should Shelf Jimmy Rollins Until the Playoffs

At this point, Jimmy Rollins has missed eight straight games after tweaking his hamstring about a week and a half ago. Overall, Rollins has only played in 82 games this season, is on injury number four, and is only hitting .245.

All of that, combined with the way Shane Victorino has responded as the lead-off hitter and the way Wilson Valdez has been playing the field, makes me think the Phils should just sit Rollins down until the playoffs.

That allows them to keep the lineup the way it is so they don’t risk messing up the rhythm these guys have established, and it helps Rollins get ready for when the team will really need him.

As of now, they’re doing just fine holding off the Braves and have themselves in position to win the NL East.

With the expanded roster, they can probably even afford to sit him down without having to put him on the DL, making him available to pinch-hit or pinch-run if he’s truly needed.

There’s always the risk he could re-tweak his hammy doing that, but the option is available to the team should they feel obligated to use it.

But even that might not be necessary with Ross Gload, Ben Francisco, Brian Schneider, and (soon) Dominic Brown available to hit off the bench.

So put Rollins on the bench and let him get to 100 percent. He hasn’t been great during the regular season, but as we’ve seen over the past couple of seasons there might not be a more clutch guy in the postseason than Rollins.

And if the Phils are able to head into the second season with him at full strength and a guy like Wilson Valdez in the dugout just in case, Charlie Manuel’s team could be the deepest and most talented squad in the tournament regardless of league.

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Hey, Philadelphia, This Sunday, Choose The Phillies, Not the Eagles!

This Sunday afternoon, the Phillies and the Eagles are both playing at about the same time (Eagles at 1pm and Phillies at 1:35pm). So if you have to choose one game to watch, which team would you watch?

I think it should be the Phillies. I am hoping this weekend the city of Philadelphia finally makes the right choice. We should be a baseball town, not a football town. We want to paint the town red, not green.

Why should you watch the Phillies rather than the Eagles?

The Phillies are simply a better team. They won two World Series or two more than the Eagles won Super Bowls. The last time the Eagles won a championship was 1960, before I was even born. Back then, they won the NFL Championship. The NFL was just 13 teams or less than the size of the current NFC. Winning the NFL back in 1960 would be like winning the NFC today. They had to win one playoff game to win the title. These days, you have to win 2-3 to win the conference and 3-4 to win the Super Bowl.

In addition to winning the World Series in 2008, they made the World Series last year and won the division three years in a row (and are currently leading the NL East as we speak). The Eagles made the playoffs the last two years but if they were happy with that they wouldn’t have shipped the star QB out of town (to a division rival, no less).

Which brings us to another reason to choose the Phillies over the Eagles. The Phillies care about winning. The Eagles don’t. Donovan McNabb is just the latest of casualties of players the Eagles got rid of before the end of their careers. How about Brian Dawkins? Brian Westbrook?

 

 

 

Don’t think that trading Donovan McNabb was a spur of the moment thing. They drafted Kevin Kolb in 2007, two seasons removed from a Super Bowl appearance. You don’t think they were planning to replace McNabb?

And don’t forget the whole TO mess. TO wanted to renegotiate his contract after a superb season which led to a Super Bowl appearance. The Eagles refused. Did TO handle it correctly? Of course not. Attacking your QB is like biting the hand that feeds you and I’m sure he enjoyed playing last year in Buffalo with Trent Edwards.

The bottom line is the Eagles care more about making money than winning. If they can find someone who can do your job cheaper, they don’t care if the guy is not as good. Does it matter who your favorite Eagle is? In 3-5 years, they will be playing for another team.

How cheap are the Eagles? If the Eagles had their way, you wouldn’t even have been allowed to bring food into the stadium. Don’t forget that they fired an employee for criticizing letting Dawkins go (I’m sure glad I don’t work for the Eagles).

Meanwhile, the Phillies take care of their players. Look at the contract Ryan Howard got. And they make trades like the ones for Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt. I don’t see the Eagles making those moves (then again the way the Eagles treat players most free agents have no interest in playing for Philadelphia anyway).

The Phillies care about you and their players. The Eagles don’t. And if the Eagles continue to sell out games and dominate the local market, why should they change? If the Phillies played like the Eagles, Citizens Bank Park would be half full. Or if they traded Howard and Utley away, same. Is anyone left from the Super Bowl Eagles team? Look at the 76ers. They made the playoffs and their attendance was still awful. Why should the Eagles get a free pass for being 8-8 or 7-9 or for trading away all their good players?

 

 

 

So that’s where you come in Philadelphia. Why should we accept Kevin Kolb as our starting QB? Why should we accept management that cares more about profits than wins?

So, make a statement. Don’t go to their games. Don’t watch their games on TV. Don’t buy their jerseys (of course if you bought a Kevin Kolb jersey I’m worried about you). And support the team in Philadelphia that cares about you, the fans. Hurt the Eagles the only way they’ll listen.

And this is where this Sunday comes in. The Phillies and Eagles are both playing Sunday afternoon, both on over the air TV. Instead of watching the Eagles game (who cares, they are playing Detroit), watch the Phillies game. The Phillies only have two weeks left before the end of the season. They are in a playoff race. You can watch the Eagles lose all through November and December.

Sure, the US is a football country and of course the NFL is the most popular league in America. But it isn’t unprecedented to see a baseball game outdraw a football game in a local market. Last year, New York of all places overwhelmingly chose the Yankees over the Giants head to head during the playoffs.

Let’s make it happen here in Philadelphia. I want to see this week that more Philadelphians watch the Phillies game than the Eagles game. Let’s see how Joe Banner and company feel about that.

And if a Phillies playoff game is on at the same time as an Eagles game, watch the Phillies. The team that cares about winning. The team that cares about its players. The team that cares about its fans. And by the way, the BETTER team. The team that actually has a ring.

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Philadelphia Phillies vs. History: What the Past Says About the 2010 Phillies

As the saying goes, “There’s nothing new under the sun.”

Not to say this absolutely, but it’s true. History can tell us a lot about what we are likely to see.

Then again, if history was always right, life would be quite boring. So, every now-and-again, life decides to switch things up.

What we like to do as a human race is become intrigued with what will happen, even attempting to predict the outcome, and we’re usually left in marvel when history takes a new path.

Sports events are our recreational exploration of these natural human tendencies.

This year, the Philadelphia Phillies are on pace to be the ninth team to make it to the championship series after two consecutive, previous appearances since it was instituted in 1969.

They’ve fought off the critics. They’ve fought through injuries.

Now they’re poised to take on history.

If you look at the raw numbers of the past, they reveal some interesting statistics that could possibly explain the reality of the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies.

Only eight times, since the League Championship Series was introduced, has a team made an LCS appearance after two previous appearances. Only twice was it a National League team.

 

Never has a National League team won three League Championship Series in a row.

The reason I don’t simply say ‘three times in a row’, is because I’m counting years such as the New York Yankees‘ appearances in ’98, ’99, ’00, and  ’99, ’00, and ’01 as separate times — because it’s just about teams who appeared in the previous two League Championship Series. 

With that being said, the Oakland Athletics did it in 1974 and 1990, the Atlanta Braves did it in 1993 and 1997, and the New York Yankees did it in 1978, 2000, and 2001.

I included the Toronto Blue Jays, who had a chance to do it in 1994. Of course, we’ll never know what could have happened due to the lockout that year.

But because they did make two consecutive LCS appearances, they have to be included.

I’ve sorted all the results into statistics. I found that, of the eight previous times a team has made two previous LCS appearances, five of the teams went on to win a third pennant the next year: the Athletics twice, and the Yankees three times.

If you’re completely depending on history to give you the possibility that the Phillies would pull this off, that’d leave you with a 63 percent chance that the Phils would win another pennant this year.

Of those five teams, three went on to win the World Series, which puts the Phillies’ chances at 38 percent that they’ll win it all again like they did in 2008.

The most surprising statistic, however, is this next one.

Of the eight teams who made the LCS after two previous appearances, four finished the subsequent season with the best record in their respective league. The Braves did it twice in ’93 and ’97, the 1978 Yankees did it, and the 1990 Oakland A’s did it as well.

Of that group, only the ’78 Yankees and ’90 A’s advanced to the World Series. Of those two, only the ’78 Yankees went on to win the World Series.

To follow with the same theme, that would mean, if the Philadelphia Phillies finished this season with the best record in the NL, they’d have a 50 percent shot at advancing to the World Series, but only a 25 percent shot of winning the World series.

Fortunately, we have the saying, “History in the making.”

This is why it’s likely that the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies are likely to raise that 50 percent to 60 percent, that 25 percent to 40 percent and all those other numbers up as well.

 

Keeping on the theme of the past, did anyone think that in 2008, a playoff where the National League favorites where the mighty Chicago Cubs with a season record of 97-64, would be dismantled by the swagger-filled Los Angeles Dodgers?

Who would have thought that the Philadelphia Phillies would come out of the NL that year?

Furthermore, who would have thought they would defeat a young team in the World Series in the Tampa Bay Rays, who handily dominated the AL East. A division which previously was under the monopoly of the Yankees and Red Sox?

Those scenarios, at the time, seemed unlikely.

This year, there are new unlikely scenarios to conquer.

But why should we fans believe that our team can do it again? I’ll give you five reasons.

 

The Batting

The Phillies are eight-deep in their lineup. From the catalyst J-Roll leading off, to Carlos “Chooch” Ruiz, who is having a very solid season, batting .300 on the year, with a .401 on-base percentage.

 

Ask any pitcher in the league about the journey from Rollins, to Polanco, to Utley, to Howard, to Werth, to Ibanez, and they’ll tell you it’s no relaxing day by anyone’s standards.

The bottom of the lineup finishes with Victorino and Ruiz, who will absolutely hurt any pitcher, on any given pitch.

 

The depth of the team, though, isn’t enough to base a whole argument on. Every contender, to some degree, has depth. This brings me to the next reason.

 

The Pitching

Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels can be, and have been, No. 1 options by themselves. Here they are, on top of tremendous offensive potential, pitching solid games, holding teams to an average of under three runs a game.

The bullpen isn’t great—but not bad either. With Halladay’s work ethic and being able to go to at least the seventh or eighth inning every game, the bullpen should be able to hold it down like they have in the past seasons.

Chad Durbin, J.C. Romero, Jose Contreras, Ryan Madsen, and Brad Lidge should be, even with all of their occasional difficulties, enough to support the All-Star starting lineup.

 

 

The Leadership

There is something about when Rollins, Utley, and Howard are in the lineup that gives this team an extra zing.

They seem to feed off of the ultra confidence of Rollins, the silent consistency of Utley, and the powerful, dangerous, intimidation of Ryan Howard.

 

Now, as the postseason approaches, the whole team is healthy again, and they are looking to wreak havoc in September and October.

 

Teamwork

Despite injuries to Rollins, Polanco, Utley, Howard, Ibanez, and Victorino, the Phightins have still pulled themselves into playoff contention.

This is because of one thing: a common goal.

 

This team has a common goal; a common purpose. Which means, even if another, less talented player comes in to fill a void, the system will stay on task.

I know what you’re saying right now—most teams try to develop this.

But the key word is, “Try.”

 

The Phillies have found a particular common viewpoint to administer to their on-the-field play, which works with a number of roster combinations.

 

Not to say that you can throw a group of anybodies together and be World Series Champs. The key is, they can patch the hole like duct tape holds the trunk of your car closed.

It won’t look pretty, and it won’t last long, but it’s doing its temporary job.

Of course, you might say, “Well, what other successful team doesn’t have those things? That seems general.”

You might feel obliged to compare the resiliency of the Atlanta Braves. Or the strong pitching of the San Francisco Giants, etc., and you may be right.

But, what separates the Philadelphia Phillies from the others is…

 

Experience

The Phillies have seen the hard times.

They’ve met the challenges. They’ve been the underdogs.

They’ve heard why they won’t make it, who they won’t beat, who has better pitching.

They’ve heard how long-ball teams can’t win, they’ve heard how small their ball park is, and they’ve been through the disappointments and have tasted success.

There is no better teacher than experience.

No better solution than patience. No better cure to anxiety than poise.

They’ve worked and fought to put themselves in the position they are in now. And you better believe this team isn’t just going down like some fluke team that caught the current and rode a success wave.

It’s a very different success to fight against the current.

 

Visit www.vincentheckwriting.com for more of Vincent’s work.

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Raul Ibanez Quietly Giving Philadelphia Phillies a Good Season

APPRECIATING RAUL

Raul Javier Ibanez won’t draw any NL MVP votes this year, and he may not even be in the top five of the Phillies’ team MVP vote, but the Phils’ left fielder should be commended for his 2010 season.

His numbers, at first glance, are not extraordinary. In fact, they’re rather pedestrian. Okay, bad idea…on to the next story.

But wait—there’s more.

It’s easy to look up stat lines these days, and here are the numbers for Raul: .266 BA, 14 homers, 72 RBI, and 66 runs scored. With 15 games left to play, Ibanez will end up somewhere in the neighborhood of .270, 16 HR, 80 RBI, and 75 runs scored. These are numbers that you can more than live with for your No. 6 hitter. More on that later.

Doesn’t it seem like Ibanez has been here much longer than (almost) two years? In this brief amount of time, most Phillies fans have probably gone through an evolution of thought similar to this.

 

1. QUESTIONING RAUL

When Pat Gillick acquired Ibanez from Seattle, many wondered why we were parting ways with Pat Burrell, who became (somewhat inexplicably to me) a great hero in this town.

 

Baseball fans (perhaps even bigger MLB fans than this columnist) knew that Ibanez was a late bloomer who did not get a chance to be an everyday player till he hit age 30 and the Royals made him a regular. It paid off for them: In each of his two seasons in KC, he hit a solid .294. In 2002, he smashed 24 homers and knocked in 93; the following year, his power numbers dropped a little, but he scored 95 runs.

Seattle reclaimed him in 2004, and he gave them five very solid seasons. Although he toiled in a pitcher’s park, Ibanez averaged .293 with 23 HR, 98 RBI, and 86 runs.

On the other hand, late bloomer or not, he was about to turn 37, and could he keep it going for all three years on his contract? And what about that right-handed bat (and his bulldog) we let leave for Tampa?

 

2. LOVING RAUL

Think back to the start, even the first half, of the 2009 season. It didn’t hurt that Ibanez was arguably the Phillies’ best player—this on a team with perennial All-Stars Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins and an emerging star in Jayson Werth. He was that good, and a season approaching .320/40/120 did not look out of reach.

It did not hurt that Ibanez had that great first name, and it soon became commonplace to see Phillies fans wearing No. 29s, along with all of the 6s, 26s, and 11s (and for a brief moment later in that season, some 34s.)

 

That great Ra-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuul chant soon filled the air at Citizens Bank Park.

It also did not hurt that Ibanez was/is the ultimate good guy, a consummate professional, and he fit right in with his defending world champion teammates. Oh yeah, and Cholly could leave him in left field in late innings and not have to fluster himself with those pesky double switches.

 

3. CHEATING RAUL?

An unfortunate byproduct of this PED era of baseball (not completely over) is that players face allegations when they: a) overperform (for their age), b) underperform, or c) start to suffer through injuries. All three of those red flags attached themselves to Ibanez’ numbers.

Raul could not keep up that amazing pace after the 2009 All-Star break, and there were whispers involving the “S” word.  There were sloppy reports and a lot of innuendo, and some Phils fans couldn’t deal with the uncertainty.

I don’t care to dignify those rumors, but it had some effect on how Ibanez—still new to Philly baseball—was perceived by many. Despite a second-half drop-off, Ibanez finished 2009 at .272/34/93, with 93 runs scored in only 134 games. His .899 OPS was a career high, and he had a good postseason with two homers and 13 ribbies in 15 games.

 

 

4. EATING RAUL (or his contract, anyway)

The start of this season saw Raul mired in that slump, and by the end of June (almost halfway through the campaign), Raul was hitting a low .220 with an anemic six homers and 36 RBI.

The numbers most discussed were his age (he turned 38 on June 2) and his contract (he is making over $12 million this year and is due $11.5 mil in 2011).

To say Raul has not had an easy 2010 is an understatement, and with a most promising corner outfielder named Domonic Brown tearing it up in the minors, the Ra-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuls were being replaced with Boooooooooooos, and Phils fans were wondering:

“What can Brown do for us?”

 

6. APPRECIATING RAUL—once again

Domonic Brown has all the makings of a five-tool player and may become our Jason Heyward (or maybe our left-handed Jayson Werth.) One has to love his promise.

But right now, how many Phils fans want to yank Ibanez from the lineup?

 

In 56 games since the All-Star break, he has raised his batting average from a paltry to .246 to a respectable .266. He has hit seven homers and driven in 33 in that same span to get his numbers somewhat in range with his career averages.

More importantly, in a season where we have struggled to keep our mega-stars (Howard, Utley, and especially Rollins) on the field, and where the injury bug has also hit Placido Polanco, Shane Victorino, and Carlos Ruiz, Ibanez has played in 141 of our 147 games, second to Werth on the team.

Most importantly, he guts it out through injuries and is solid fundamentally. He continues to be the ultimate good guy, a consummate professional, and still (at age 38) a hitter that can occasionally ride one out of the park and drive in some key runs.

So let’s hear it one more time for Mr. Ibanez:

RA-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuullllllllll.

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Top 10 Three-Man Rotations in Philadelphia Phillies History

C’mon Philadelphia, please put down the Michael Vick Kool-Aid…just for a second. We’re talkin’ baseball right now.

For years, the Phillies have relied heavily on their “Big Three” to win games; the “Big Three,” of course, being the trio of homegrown studs (Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard) the Phillies have featured in their daily lineup for the past several years .

Sure, that “Big Three” is still pretty good. But over the final two months of the 2010 campaign, the Phillies have made it to the brink of the postseason on the strength of a different kind of big three: the kind of big three that occupies their starting rotation.

Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt.  Game-set-match.

That three-man rotation is pretty good. But is it the greatest 1-2-3 rotation punch in Phillies history? Let’s count down and find out.

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2010 Philadelphia Phillies and the 10 Greatest Philly Teams of All Time

It has been a long and winding season for the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies, but with two weeks to go they find themselves up three games on the Atlanta Braves in the NL East division with the best record in the National League and facing a favorable schedule down the stretch.

With the lineup almost completely healthy for the seemingly the first time all season and with the best trio of pitchers that any living Philadelphian can ever recall, things are looking pretty good for the 2010 squad.

Whether they win their fourth straight NL East divisional title or not, and whether they go to their third straight World Series or not, the current squad of Phillies must, by now, be considered to be one of the two greatest teams the Phillies have ever produced.

Where do they rank amongst the top ten Philadelphia teams of all time? Let’s have a look.

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Would Instant Replay Ruin Baseball? Derek Jeter Knows It Would, Do You?

It makes me chuckle.  Really, it does.  I sit back and listen to people, both fans and broadcasters whine and moan about instant replay in baseball. 

They point fingers at Derek Jeter’s infamous home run in 1996 against the Baltimore Orioles.  They cast aspersions at Jim Joyce for blowing the call that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game.  Then there was the uproar about the ball hit by Gaby Sanchez of the Marlins in the ninth inning of a game against the Phillies that was called foul, but was apparently fair. 

Proponents of instant replay in baseball would tell you that these wrongs—and apparently up to 40 percent of other bad calls by umpires would be righted by instant replay.  That the world would somehow be a better place, there would be peace in the Middle East plus we would get the added bonus or cats and dogs playing nicely together. 

All if only Bud Selig and the rest of the staunch traditionalist baseball executives would let go of their ties to over a hundred years of “we do it this way and that’s it” thinking.

I’m going to say it here and now for everyone to read: instant replay in baseball would ruin the game.  Period. 

And I’m going to give you some really good reasons why.  Not all of this is concrete and logical but take it from me, someone who has played at the professional level and been in championship games—instant replay has no place on the field of play. 

Furthermore, I question its use in the NFL.  Anyone watching the Bears versus Lions game last week will tell you that the pass to Calvin Johnson was caught and touchdown.  Well, everyone except Bears fans—of course.  But instant replay took it away.  The human being on the field made the gut call, the correct call.  But the letter of the law took it away. 

It’s a bad rule and the NFL needs to rethink that rule.  But I digress…

The Umpires

Everyone is so upset at the umpires this season.  I listen to broadcasters complain how bad the umpires are—and maybe they are. 

If they are that bad, the answer here is not instant replay, it is fire the umpires and get better ones.  Stop second-guessing and taking the authority away from the people who are paid to be the authority figures on the field. 

The main side effect of continuing this course of action will be to make players and coaches mouthier towards the umpires, which will result in what we are seeing over the past two months of the season. 

Phillies fans love to point fingers and say that Ryan Howard should never have been tossed from the game for looking crossly at Scott Barry then tossing his helmet and bat.  But doesn’t the baseball fan base see that the umpires feel threatened and are acting-out, not unlike a four year-old who has been scolded for bad behavior. 

They are retaliating against the players because everyone is telling them how bad they are at their jobs.  Again, if the umpires are that bad, then fire them and replace them.  But I offer this up to you: they aren’t that bad.  We simply have the technology to remove the human element from the game. 

I have been hosed on a number of calls during high-pressure, game-changing situations through the years in high school, college, and semi-pro ball.  I’ve had strikes called balls, and even had a perfect game turned into a no-hitter because of a bad call at first base. 

That would be enough to make you angrier than a hornet’s nest. 

But when you step back and look at these things a little more objectively you see that more often than not, bad calls go both ways.  A good umpire will make mistakes but he will do it for everyone, not just the Yankees or the Phillies. 

aseball is a game of humanity; it is a game of getting screwed and having the bad call to go your way.  Take that away and it is a totally different game, one I certainly don’t know if I’d be interested in.

The Rhythm

Like it or not, baseball has a rhythm to it.  Watch a batter when he approached the plate. Most professional hitters have a routine; they approach the plate and each at bat identically.  When that sequence of actions gets interrupted the best in the game will step out.  You will see them put that hand up and leave the batters box.  Then you can see them repeat the process of getting into their individual groove. 

Pitchers are very similar. 

Some pitchers start their process hours before the game, some do it when they step foot on the field and some only do it pitch-to-pitch.  Heck, I remember an interview with Dave Righetti (if you kids don’t know who he is, go Google one of the premier relievers of the 80’s now—ok, you back yet?) who threw a no-hitter for the Yankees on July 4^th, 1983. 

He began his career as a decent starter and when asked what his routine was on gameday, he said his routine started the night before with a bowl of spaghetti and bed by eight. 

Ever notice how often batters step out of the box when a pitcher is throwing a great game?  They try to interrupt the pitcher’s rhythm.  What is the point of my rambling about player routines? 

Has anyone watched what happens to a football game when someone “goes to the replay”?  It stops, sometimes for up to 15 minutes.  Have you ever noticed that any time a rain delay goes on for more than 15 or 20 minutes that whomever was pitching often does not come back out? 

The reasons for this are many, but the most compelling are that their rhythm has been interrupted more than usual and their muscles tighten up.  This is a dangerous and game-changing issue for the pitcher and the team.  Any time you stop a baseball game for any length of time and then expect the athletes to just jump back into the fray you risk serious injury.

Not a compelling enough argument?  OK, let’s take the Gallaraga game for example. 

Take a minute and get inside Armando’s head before the blown call.  He knows he is throwing a perfect game, he knows he is close and he also knows that all he has to do is relax and let it come to him.  Galarraga just needs to keep doing what he’s been doing for the previous eight innings and he knows that. 

He’s got his mindset and his rhythm on the mound.  The ground ball was hit, the bad call gets made and Jim Leyland storms out of the dugout demanding instant replay.  The umpires acquiesce and go to the video tape (extra points if anyone can tell me who that is a shout out to!).  Television goes to commercial.  Galarraga stands chatting with Miguel Cabrera kvetching about the call. 

Ten minutes goes by and Gallaraga is ramped up expecting the call to go against him, maybe soft tossing with Cabrera to try and stay loose. Fifteen minutes later the umpires come back, reverse the call, and Comerica Park erupts in joyous celebration that the perfect game remains intact! 

Now, all Gallaraga has to do is get back on the mound and finish it out.  Wow, did I just make getting back into the mindset of a pitcher in the ninth inning throwing a perfect game sound easy?  It’s not.  The odds of throwing a perfect game are minute at best.  The odds of finishing out that perfect game after that call are next to zero. 

A pitcher’s ability to come down off that emotional rollercoaster, and continue at the same level he was just on with the flip of a switch is impossible.  The best might be able to do it in a pitch or two—but all it takes is one mistake to end that perfect game, as we all know. 

So all you peeved Tiger’s fans, the lesson here is you can’t get it back.  The odds are that instant replay would not have made a difference, the ump blew the call—it happens.

You Can’t Get It Back

That leads me to my last point —some plays cannot be gotten back! 

Unlike football where it’s 15 seconds of action for every 10 minutes of nothing, you can’t get most baseball plays back.  Yes, home runs can be fixed but almost everything else in baseball is not fixable. 

You can’t instant replay balls and strikes, it’s just not possible.  You can fix a percentage of plays at bases—safe and out calls, but as I demonstrated in the Galarraga example, it simply is not worth it.  The odds are that the stoppage of play will do more harm to the game then the bad call. 

The media was all over the umps at that Phillies versus Marlins game, saying instant replay would have corrected the call—how?  The umpire called it foul.  You can’t change the call and give him a base hit, it is just not possible. 

Your best-case scenario is to do the play over again, which takes a strike away but again ask yourself is it worth the 10- to 15-minute stoppage of play or would that change the face of the game too much?

Realistically?

While I am a solid opponent of instant replay in sports, I will concede that it can help umpires out in certain situations.  It can correct home run calls, and that is something MLB has been using since August of 2008.  I stand by my opinion that beyond that it would ruin the game for real fans.  Games move slow enough as it is, is it really worth extending games by another 30 to 45 minutes?  Keep the humanity in baseball!

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Phillies 2010 Pennant Race: Handwriting on the Wall?

Much can be said about a team that makes things happen amidst a pennant race, and a lot can be said about those who don’t. What can we say about the difference between the Philadelphia Phillies and their competition? Well, there are still 15 games left to be played out.

The Phils, nonetheless, look just the way they are supposed to: defeating a pesky team, in the Florida Marlins for the second night in a row. Meanwhile, 650 miles down I-95 the Atlanta Braves, who have been hanging on to the hopes of grabbing first place to gain the home field advantage in the postseason, lost 6-0 to the MLB‘s version of the Detroit Lions in the heat of a pennant race—at home.

While these games can certainly be negated in the head-to-head matchup, this past Tuesday night could prove to be the turning point in how this race plays out.

The Phillies have now, with this win over the Florida Marlins in Miami, taken a two game lead in the National League East and appear poised to pull away with an old-fashioned pennant race-like victory.

Tuesday night’s victory wasn’t just a victory, it came with very positive signs for Philadelphia including:

• Thirteen of the 22 outs Cole Hamels recorded were strikeouts, the most any Phillies pitcher has had in 2010.
• Brad Lidge saved the one-run victory with a 16-pitch, 1-2-3 ninth inning.
• Hamels’ 1.79 ERA in 12 starts is tops in the league.

And to cap it off, Hamels and Roy Halladay are tied for second in the NL for strikeouts this season.

It’s all setting up to meet the inevitable conclusion, a third straight NL pennant flag hanging up at the bank in 2011.

This would be the first time the Phillies have ended the regular season with the leading record in the NL since 1977, when they lost in the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers, three games to one.

The Phillies are demonstrating, without Jimmy Rollins, that their biggest attribute isn’t within the roster. It isn’t within the big numbers either, nor is it within the accolades that accompany those things. Rather, it’s the huge muscle that resides underneath their rib cage.

Definitely something that the Braves possess also, but in the heat of a pennant race, you almost always have to stick with the group who have been through the fire and know how to get there.

It’s the same difference as, if you needed to get to Anchorage, Alaska would you trust a young, talented, geography teacher or a geography teacher who has been there twice in the last two summers?

While, you may trust both, to a degree, you almost always have to take the experience.

The Braves are only a game up on the San Francisco Giants and are better suited, at this point, holding off the Giants until they get the opportunity to go head-to-head against the two-time National League champion, Philadelphia Phillies.

The Phillies move on to play the Washington Nationals in a weekend series at home, while the fading Atlanta Braves head to New York to take on the New York Mets before the two square off in the first of two series that have major playoff implications.

More coverage is to follow tomorrow. We’ll put a finger on the pulse of both teams.

The Braves have a lot of work to do.  My guess is, they better find a defibrillator quick, because losing to the Nats twice, in a situation such as this, is close to flat lining.

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