Philadelphia Phillies Relievers David Herndon and Michael Stutes Reversing Roles

After a lengthy rain delay last night, the Phillies called upon relief pitcher David Herndon to help out.  In this game against the D-Backs, Herndon pitched three scoreless innings, allowing only one hit. In the fifth inning, he struck out the side.

This sort of solid performance is becoming a regular occurrence for Herndon.  Still, Herndon has not earned much favor in the eyes of the fans, despite his effort.

In his last 22 games going back to May, Herndon is pitching at a 2.00 ERA.  He figured out why he was having issues in April and made the adjustment.  But Herndon has been given a lot of grief from the fans this year after he got off to a rocky start. 

Herndon has really improved his game.  Michael Stutes, on the other hand, is watching the scales slowly tip downward and out of his favor.

Stutes seems to get all the praise because he got off to a very good start, unlike Herndon.  Plus, it does not hurt that he is adorable, right ladies?  So Stutes has gotten a pass in situations that Herndon has not.

Last night, Stutes was visibly upset after allowing a home run in the eighth inning to the first batter.  Charlie Manuel was seen in the dugout consoling Stutes, patting him on the back as he held his head in his hands in defeat.

Why is Stutes so upset after a solo homer?  Because he too recognizes that things are beginning to go downhill for him.  In his last 12 games, Stutes is pitching at an ERA of 5.17.  His ERA has risen every month since ending May with a 2.38 ERA.  His total ERA is now up to 3.40.

Stutes, like a lot of rookies in the same position, is starting to struggle.  It could be a combination of many factors—like a lack of experience, teams knowing better what to expect from him and being slightly overworked.  Stutes has pitched a lot and, especially for a rookie, this can take its toll.

Hopefully for Stutes, he can make an adjustment and work his way back like Herndon has done.  But in the meantime, he may spend a lot of time being frustrated until he figures it out.

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MLB Free Agency: Why the Philadelphia Phillies Will Have a Big Offseason

The Philadelphia Phillies had a big offseason, signing Cliff Lee, which has helped them capture the best record in the MLB, and they are poised to have another big offseason.

The Phillies have relied upon big acquisitions to fuel their success over the past five seasons, and the 2011-12 offseason should provide them with at least one more big name.

These are the reasons why the Phillies could have a big offseason.

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Philadelphia Phillies Send Arizona Diamondbacks Back To Earth

Tuesday night, the Arizona Diamondbacks were on top of the baseball world.

They had overcome a late lead against the best team in baseball in the Phillies and against the best pitcher in baseball, Roy Halladay. As expected, the loss caused a firestorm of attention across Philadelphia. How could a team like the Diamondbacks defeat our ace in such an impressive fashion? Was it Charlie Manuel’s fault? Should we be worried about an NLDS matchup against them now? These questions and questions like these, were raised, analyzed and re-analyzed endlessly after the game.

A few days after the loss, and the Diamondbacks have been hit by a strong dose of reality. It’s now blatantly obvious that they are still a ways off from competing with Philadelphia, a potential first round competitor.

After the first ninth inning blown lead of his Phillies career, Halladay handed the ball in Game 2 to Cliff Lee, who was able to defeat Arizona with a dominant pitching performance and an offensive outbreak that included nine runs. In the rubber-game, the Phillies won on timely hitting and yet another stellar showing from what has quickly become one of the best bullpens in the game.

The turnaround is a telling story of the very nature of this team. If they fail in one area, they come back and beat you in another. It’s a balance that teams strive to achieve, but rarely ever do.

Maybe Halladay was not himself on Tuesday. Maybe Manuel should have pulled him before he blew the game. Maybe it was Manuel’s fault.

But it was, in the end, just one loss. A small blip in an otherwise smooth path to greater triumphs and achievements.

At this point the Phillies should not be afraid of any team. Not the Giants, not the Braves and most certainly not the Diamondbacks.

Arizona is, undeniably, a good up-and-coming team with a bright future ahead of them. Manager Kirk Gibson has led his team to an incredible worst-to-first season, in which they continue to stave off the defending champion San Francisco Giants. They are good enough to beat anybody in the league, including Halladay and the Phillies.

However, they still remain in a different class of “good.” In fact, it’s an extremely different class of “good.” They simply do not have the players, abilities or experience to make a deep run during the postseason. Not this year, anyway. 

Of course, any team can lose in a short five game series in the playoffs. But the Phillies shouldn’t. They couldn’t. And if they are able to successfully recover from a surprising moment of failure, as they did in this series, they won’t.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Ranking the Craziest Brawls in Team History

The Phillies and Giants recent bench-clearing brawl which started when Shane Victorino was hit by a Ramon Ramirez fastball and ended with Victorino’s 3-game suspension (now under appeal), got me thinking.

There’s nothing quite like a brawl in baseball. Both benches empty. Pitchers and coaches come running in from the bullpen and a mob forms in the center of the field. There is a lot of pushing and shoving but usually not much damage is done. After 10 minutes or so the mob is broken up by coaches and umpires, order is restored and the action continues.

 

But every once in a while there is a brawl for the ages. Some are bench clearing all-hands-on-deck slug fests, some start as one-on-one wrestling matches. In the case of the Phillies one is even thought to have changed the course of a World Series. There is a memorable brawl that even involves their mascot!

So put up your dukes and get out your ice packs as we count down the five craziest brawls in Phillies history.

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Philadelphia Phillies Trade News: Prospects the Phils Will Regret Trading Away

GM Ruben Amaro has built what is arguably the best Philadelphia Phillies roster in the entire 127 year history of the franchise. The team’s nucleus of Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels and Ryan Madson (to name a few) were developed through the team’s minor-league system.

Those core group of players combined with one of the best ballparks in MLB, enabled this franchise the financial flexibility to go out and acquire top-flight free agents like Cliff Lee and trade for Roy Oswalt, Hunter Pence and Cliff Lee again.

The Phillies have the best starting rotation in baseball and now what could be a very potent lineup with the arrival of Pence. Building this team has cost the Phillies their fair share of minor league talent.

Here are the prospects the Phillies will regret trading away.

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MLB Playoffs: Tale of the Tape Between Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies

The 2011 MLB Playoffs are inching closer and closer, and that age-old question is beginning to rear its head again: “Which two teams have the best chance to make it to the World Series?”

At this point in the season, the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies are looking like the two most complete teams heading into the postseason and both heavy favorites to make it to the Fall Classic.

Let’s take a look at how these two high profiled ball clubs match up against one another. 

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2011 MLB Cy Young Award: Ranking the Top 5 Candidates in Each League

The big storyline heading into the season was how Philadelphia’s four aces would do over the course of the season. While Roy Oswalt has been hampered by injury, the trio of Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Roy Halladay have dominated. Where will they land on the NL side?

Overall, the American League has had more depth from an aces perspective. Cutting the junior circuit’s list down to five aces was a bit more difficult than the senior circuit’s.

You’ll notice that I included some honorable mentions. They aren’t necessarily my 6-10 rankings as much as I wanted to show some unheralded starters some love.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Decision to Leave Roy Halladay in Game Vintage Manuel

The Phillies needed two outs. Six pitches. More whiffs at the ball than cracks. More leather than grass.

And there Roy Halladay stood, the expressionless express to a win.

That’s who the fans saw. Who Charlie Manuel saw.

Or what came into focus behind his blurred lens.

Turns out, Halladay (15-5, 2.62 ERA) had no business in the game: He entered that frame with six ninth innings under his belt, one for each of his previous complete games. At the time—when Manuel could’ve consulted stat geeks—Halladay had a 7.94 ERA with a .444 opponent batting average.

In comparison, Halladay has a 1.63 ERA with a .131 opponent BA in 2011 eighth innings.

But Manuel played this one by his script, letting Halladay finish what he started, elbow his way out of his own hole—Justin Upton and Miguel Montero singles put runners on first and second. The call was vintage Manuel.

And you figured Lyle Overbay was all-but-over easy. Done like breakfast-for-dinner. You found assurance in Halladay’s confidence: He seemed fine. (After July 18, we know what it looks like when he’s not.) and Manuel didn’t blink.

Sometimes that works—it let slumping Raul Ibanez and Jimmy Rollins turn it around. Sometimes it burns—can you say “Ross Gload in NLCS Game 6”? Last night proved one of the latter. Overbay drove in the two go-ahead runs in an eventual 3-2 loss—only 1-of-48, but one that didn’t need to be.

I know: Second-guessing Manuel rings of Monday morning quarterbacking. But it’s a fair question.

Did Charlie’s trust betray him? Halladay? The Phillies?

Us?

Granted, the numbers push back too: That hitters go only .155 with two outs and runners in scoring position doesn’t technically apply, but speaks to Halladay’s presumed handle. If that’s not enough, his 52-0 record with leads going into ninth innings should be.

When the moment beams, Halladay buckles down.

But that’s assuming Manuel saw those pages. Stats like those probably go as unappreciated in Philly as Ryan Howard elsewhere. In all likelihood, the decision was premeditated, circumstances and consequences be damned.

“That’s my ace,” Manuel said of Halladay. “That’s kind of the way I looked at it. If I was going to make a change, how come I didn’t make one at the start of the inning?”

The question now is whether he should’ve.

Listen: I defer to World Series rings (Manuel won his in 2008), and despise when skippers over-manage.

But if Manuel’s approach is so laissez-faire you wonder if he has hands to keep off, you wonder whether a little intervention could help.

Whether Manuel should rely only on intuition.

Whether he should lean on innovation.

Maybe not. Maybe pushing the world of advanced sabermetrics would overwhelm him. Confuse him. Precipitate more bad decisions than they prevented.

Sure, he could outsource that analysis. Bring in a bespectacled assistant. Sensible as it sounds—at least have the advice; whether or not you take it—that doesn’t seem likely. (Or at all like Manuel.) But we can dream.

More likely is more of the same. Call it stubbornness or closed-mindedness, or genius, but Manuel’s not changing—that shifts responsibility to his players.

The Phillies have to adapt to Manuel.

Halladay should recognize when he’s vulnerable, throw up his hand, pull himself out. That goes for everyone: For Cole Hamels, whose arm died before he could wave himself off.

No one’s asking him to them the books on it. But Halladay needs to acknowledge his 24-out shelf life, the rest of them their deficiencies. They know it. They feel it—same as Brett Favre used to.

On Halladay: Whether he ignored it like Favre, muscling through and pulling his teams down, we’ll never know. And whether we can blast Doc Halladay like Mr. Hattiesburg is a separate conversation.

But he’s got to understand: these calls, on this team, aren’t the manager’s.

They’re theirs.

This isn’t double jeopardy. We’re past Halladay’s lashing.

But what if Manuel, Halladay or both cost the Phillies in the postseason? What if a decisive October game boils down to a predestined move?

What then?

You wonder whether there is a right move. Whether the end washed any preceding means.

You wonder whether it was Halladay. Talk about a highbrow. A near-perfect tandem of 31-for-33 saves or not, does that pass the “say it out loud” test? How do you swap a multiple Cy Young winner and perfect gamer for Ryan Madson or Antonio Bastardo?

The answer is simple: You deal. Live with it. With Manuel, and his flaws. Like sitcom humor from How I Met Your Mother. Accept Manuel, like you do Andy Reid and his game (mis)managing and Sunday (mis)adjustments.

But just how judgment knells for Reid, it has to with Manuel. Both bought mulligans with long-lived success, so long as the wins pile higher.

Should the headaches pound harder, though, if the Phillies prove an early out in October, wasting one year of a four-pane window of winning, you have to wonder:

Is Charlie being Charlie enough?

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2011 Philadelphia Phillies: We Seriously Can’t Do Better Than Michael Martinez?

Just as a bit of a forewarning, this article will not be long, and it will not be remotely nice.

The Phillies have, without question, a bloated pimple of a utility player that, thank goodness, normally sits on the bench. 

However, with the injury to Placido Polanco in recent weeks, that pimple has come to the attention of most, and now it seems to be coming to a head.

Really, now, Kenny, is it necessary to compare a human being to a zit?  I concede that this is maybe not the most gentle metaphor, but I have to do something to relieve the pain of having to watch one of baseball’s very worst players.

The Michael Martinez apologists out there will usually defend him thusly, “Well, he’s versatile.  He plays multiple positions.  Remember that four-hit game that he had?”

I do remember Martinez’s four-hit game.  I also remember that it pushed his batting average to an embarrassing .219.  So, let’s get this right.  He actually needed to get that four hit game to push above the Mendoza Line?

Michael Martinez has some speed.  However, in 65 and 151 at-bats, he has exactly three steals.  Nine total walks push his pathetic .212 batting average to a .256 OBP, and even his slugging percentage is under .300. 

Is there anyone out there that would like to bring up Martinez’s defense?  Yes, Michael Martinez can play multiple positions.  Yes, he plays both infield and outfield positions.  No, he is not anywhere near a strong fielder at any of those positions.  His fielding percentage hovers at around .950 in both the outfield and at third base.  Personally, I have seen at least three or four instances at third base in which he was “generously” scored and did not receive errors.

To boot, I’ve actually heard people in Philadelphia say how “lucky” we were to get him in the Rule 5.  How is it lucky to acquire a 28-year-old, 145-pound player who had never played a Major League baseball game prior to 2011?

Last year, Wilson Valdez was our “super sub.”  He did a better than admirable job filling in for just about everybody not named Charlie Manuel. 

All of a sudden, Polanco is injured and Valdez is still riding the bench?  It is irrefutable that Valdez is a better hitter, fielder, runner and thrower than Michael Martinez.  Is Martinez performing odd jobs around Charlie’s house? 

Can someone please help me to understand why this “player” is still on a Major League roster?  Not just any Major League roster, the one with the best record in baseball.

Position flexibility is nice, when a player is actually adept at the positions, or at least can hit.

With Valdez able to patrol second base, shortstop and third base, and Mayberry able to patrol all three outfield positions and first base, there is absolutely no need for this individual to take up space in the clubhouse, let alone the actual field.

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Roy Halladay and Each MLB Team’s Most Improbable No-Hitter Ever

Baseball is just a funny game, plain and simple. It’s the level of unpredictability that keeps us on our toes, the edges of our seat, or just flat out guessing. Of its most incredible feats, forecasting a no-hitter is certainly the most difficult.

Throughout the game’s history, we’ve seen Hall of Fame pitchers hurl their way into greatness, surprising no one and leaving us saying, “Well, it was only a matter of time.” Then again, we’ve seen journeymen, scrubs, throw nothing but zeroes up in the hit column, leaving us to wonder how they did it.

That’s why baseball is such a funny game. Elite talents have never achieved the accomplishment, and yet, guys barely making it by at the Major League level have achieved baseball immortality. Nolan Ryan had some of the nastiest “stuff” in baseball, and his no-hitters came with frequency. But who would have expected Armando Galarraga to toss a perfect game? (Which he did, by the way)

With that in mind, let’s take a look back at the most improbable no-hitter in every team’s history. Let’s take a look at the unexpected, the unlikely. Of course, those teams that have never thrown no-hitters (I’m looking at you, the New York Mets and San Diego Padres) will not be included.

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