Philadelphia Phillies: Who’s the Real Ace in the Phillies Staff?

With the lackluster offensive performance out of the Phillies’ bats this season, fans are starting to question where is the strength in this World Series-hopeful team.

With RBI machine Ryan Howard out for what seems like a significant time, and an unknown return time for Chase Utley, Philadelphia needs to look toward the team’s pitchers for a boost of motivation. 

Why not the pitching staff?

They have three legitimate aces that, at any time, can perform at a championship level. They have pitched in big games but also have been extremely consistent throughout the years.

But the question is, who would you want on the mound in a must-win game?

That, ladies and gentleman, has become quite the dilemma.

It seems that Cliff “ice in his veins” Lee is not in the picture since he was placed on the disabled list. So that must make the “Doc” Halladay the favorite right?

Not just yet. Although Halladay has proven he is one of the most dominant right-hand pitchers in the league, he may not be the best starting pitcher on the Phils pitching staff.

Let me introduce the big, bad, Joe Blanton.  

Blanton threw his first shutout victory in five years. That’s right, five years. Think about what you were doing five years ago. Well the big guy is back, and has shown signs of life.

Joe Blanton is the guy for the Phillies. I hope everyone understands that this is going to be an “out of the ordinary” year for the Phillies.

Do not give up on the City of Brotherly Love just yet. Joe Blanton is the 2012 savior, and everyone will grow to love him

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Philedelphia Phillies: What Each Player Must Do to Help Continue Winning Ways

The Philadelphia Phillies are not a team built to play .500 baseball.

Yet that’s exactly what they’ve done through the first month of the season. Sure, they have their excuses. Any team would struggle with the meat of its order shelved on the disabled list. But the Phillies have never been a team to make excuses.

For every All-Star player on the disabled list, the Phillies have an adequate replacement in some way shape or form. You can’t replace those guys, but you can certainly hold down the fort until they return, and that’s what the Phillies are beginning to do.

Ryan Howard and Chase Utley are on the disabled list? Ty Wigginton and Laynce Nix have played well at first base. Freddy Galvis has lived up to every bit of his reputation as a sensational defender. Cliff Lee is on the disabled list? Kyle Kendrick has experience in the starting rotation.

The fact of the matter is that although this team can make excuses, they won’t. They know that they shouldn’t be playing .500 baseball.

Here’s what they need to do to win ball games from here on out.

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Philadelphia Phillies: 2012 MLB All-Star Game Chances for Each Phillie

The Phillies have star power. Whether they are in first place or last, the names in that lineup are recognizable throughout the baseball world.

While some (most) of the 11 former All-Stars boasted by the club are on the downward slopes of their respective careers, being voted to the All-Star Game is often as much about popularity as it is about performance.

Of the 34 players on the National League roster, though, only the eight starting position players are voted by the fans. The next 16, including five starting pitchers, three relievers and eight backup position players, are voted in by their peers.

The roster is then filled out by the manager—who this season will be none other than Tony La Russa—leaving one spot open for the final fan vote.

While the Phillies haven’t been as dominating as fans would’ve hoped or expected before the season began, they have still had some standout performers who will undoubtedly garner consideration for inclusion in the Midsummer Classic. 

Albeit with a good amount of baseball between now and then, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think the Phillies can match last year’s total of five All Stars, despite the sluggish start.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Multiple Concerns with Roy Halladay

There was a lot of talk during spring training about Roy Halladay‘s velocity being down.  That was quickly forgotten when Halladay won his first three starts, compiling an ERA of 1.17 while allowing just three earned runs in 23 innings.

Since then, the Phillies have lost three straight Halladay starts.  How rare is that? It never happened in 2011. As a matter of fact, the Phillies didn’t even lose their third Halladay start until the 54-game mark last season and didn’t lose their fourth until the 95th game.

The last time the Phillies lost three consecutive Halladay starts was 2010 when they lost 2-0 to Florida, 8-3 to the Yankees and 4-1 to Minnesota.  Those were in games numbered 58, 62 and 67. After their first three wins with Halladay this season, the Phillies were an amazing 49-19 (.721) with him on the mound. 

So are there valid reasons to be concerned about Halladay?

Well, first off, Halladay left the Phillies after the game Wednesday night to attend to a personal matter.  While that wouldn’t indicate anything is wrong with him physically, something mentally could be affecting his performance.

Halladay has always been known as a cerebral pitcher who prepares meticulously for every start. Personal issues could be affecting that preparation.

On the physical side, Halladay’s velocity is down. He typically would hit 93-94 mph in 2010 and 2011,  and he’s just not getting there this season.  Over his last three starts, Halladay is 0-2 with a 6.05 ERA. 

In Wednesday night’s game, after being given a generous six-run lead, Halladay started pounding the strike zone. But the Braves were able to bleed a few hits together.  Then Halladay hung a fat cutter in the middle of the plate and Phillies’ killer Brian McCann destroyed it.

Halladay not being able to make it through the sixth inning depleted the bullpen and forced Michael Schwimer and Brian Sanches to pitch in unfamiliar roles.

In summary, yes, the Phillies and their fans do need to be concerned about Halladay.  His mental makeup and physical tools both appear to be trending downward. Ruben Amaro’s master plan of winning another championship based on pitching might be blowing up right in front of his eyes.

Cliff Lee is already on the shelf.  Wouldn’t it be something if when Ryan Howard and Chase Utley finally get healthy, two of the three stud pitchers the Phillies trot out there are unable to perform.

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John Mayberry vs. Juan Pierre: Why Big John Must Start for the Phillies

Many people, including myself, looked at John Mayberry Jr this year and saw Jayson Werth circa 2008: the right side of a platoon that would play so well Charlie Manuel would have no choice but to play him every day.

Needless to say, that hasn’t happened—yet. So far this season, he’s hit .226 with no homers and only two RBI. Accompanying those numbers are a whopping 18 strikeouts in 53 at-bats.

On the other hand, his main competition for the starting left field job, Juan Pierre, is hitting .313 with four RBI. Ty Wigginton’s sterling early-season form has also meant fewer starts for Mayberry at first base than originally thought.

As Ryan Howard’s comeback tour finally starts swinging into gear, Mayberry’s best place for playing time will undoubtedly be left. However, manager Charlie Manuel has fallen in love with Pierre and is denying Mayberry the playing time he desperately needs to round into form.

Don’t let the numbers fool you. The Phillies are better served with Mayberry getting the lion’s share of playing time in left. Here are some good reasons why.

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Roy Halladay’s Nightmare at Turner Field: What’s Up Doc?

As if the Philadelphia Phillies don’t have enough issues, now their ace, Roy Halladay, is starting to show signs of actually being mortal like the rest of us.

Halladay, whose 3-2 start to 2012 has seen more walks and fewer Ks than usual, got touched for 12 hits and eight earned runs in less than six innings at Turner Field on Wednesday evening.

Doc had been staked to a 6-0 lead by the Phils, but a disastrous six-hit bottom of the fifth undid that lead, capped by a grand slam from Brian McCann. To be sure, the other Braves hits were all singles, including an infield chopper, but Halladay’s location seemed lacking.

Halladay, perspiring profusely in the 80-degree evening temperatures, returned to the mound in the bottom of the sixth, only to surrender three more hits, including a two-run single by Jason Heyward.

Luckily for Halladay, he escaped an L, as the Phils rallied to retake the lead (only to lose 15-13 in 11 innings). 

Halladay’s Atlanta outing could be an aberration, or something more ominous. Everyone took notice when, late last month, he walked three straight (Padres) batters for the first time in his career.

So, just what is going on here? Is he nursing an undisclosed injury? Is he losing a bit of velocity as he approaches his 35th birthday this month? A loss of even two to three mph off the fastball can be quite enticing to the professional hitters in the MLB.

Or, are his past few starts just an uncharacteristic blip in what will turn out to be another dominating season by one of the best pitchers MLB has seen in the past decade?

His next start will be at home against the Mets next week.

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Charlie Manuel’s 10 Worst Managing Decisions of the Season

Charlie Manuel is a guy that players love to play for. He has a good feel for the pulse of his locker room, and that was on full display when he led the 2008 Phillies to a World Series title.

Not all of Manuel’s in-game decisions, though, deserve the same level of praise as the rapport he has managed to develop with his players.

Charlie makes more than his fair share of questionable pinch-hitting substitutions, pitching changes and lineup choices. Here are his 10 worst decisions of the season so far.

*Special shoutout to the blog Charlie’s Manuel, which evaluates Charlie’s decisions each game and was very helpful in my research for this article.

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25 Bold May Predictions for the Philadelphia Phillies

The month of April has not been kind to the Philadelphia Phillies.

It’s been a container for the club’s first month with a losing record since what feels like the year the Liberty Bell cracked.

As rough as it has been for the Phillies, it wasn’t an entirely unexpected outcome. The meat of their order, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, are dealing with serious injuries. Cliff Lee has missed time with an oblique strain. Even Michael Martinez’s broken foot managed to throw a wrench into their plans.

With all of that being said, this is a club ready to put the month of April behind them and focus on the road that lies ahead. Looking at the bigger picture, the month of May could be favorable to the Phillies if the pieces fall into place.

But will they?

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Can Cliff Lee’s Body Hold Up for His Entire Deal with Philadelphia Phillies?

Two offseasons ago, the Philadelphia Phillies shocked the baseball world when they signed Cliff Lee to a five-year, $120 million contract. While Lee has since lived up to his billing on the mound, the question does linger about whether he’ll be worth his contract in the long run—only this time, I’m not talking monetarily.

Throughout his career, Lee has dealt with many injuries, primarily in his abdominal region. In fact, each of the last three times Lee has been placed on the DL in his career prior to his current stint, it has been for an injury pertaining to his abdominals.

So when the Phillies announced that Lee was back on the DL again after his stellar 10-inning, no-runs-allowed loss against the San Francisco Giants, it was bad news for the team. It was especially bad since Lee, who’s always had abdominal injuries on the right side of his body, tweaked his left oblique.

Per the Delaware County Daily Times, Lee stated, “I’ve had ab strains, but nothing like this.” Talk about discouraging.

As a starting pitcher, Lee has produced on the mound and has lived up to the value of his contract for the Phillies thus far. But with a lengthy injury history that seems to have another issue piled upon it each year, will Lee reach the point where he’ll sustain an injury so great that it could affect his pitching for the rest of his career?

Fortunately, Lee has only had one arm injury in the past, and that was just fatigue during spring training in 2006. But with Lee turning 34 this coming August, his body could break down as the years go by.

Will Lee be able to maintain his health for the life of his deal, or will he break down immensely year by year until he becomes a shadow of his former self? We’ll examine all avenues of Lee’s career that could affect his health in the future and give a “diagnosis” as to whether Lee will hold up for the next four or five years.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Jim Thome’s Return Doing More Harm Than Good

The Jim Thome experiment isn’t going the way the Phillies had hoped.

In a perfect world, a 41-year-old designated hitter, who played first base once upon a time, could field his old position one or twice a week.  In between, he could pinch hit in big spots, and mash right handers like big Matt Stairs used to do.

Then again, in a perfect world, Ryan Howard’s Achilles tendon would be intact, and power from the left side would be far less pressing an issue in the early part of the season.

But baseball is a world of imperfections.  And as Howard begins his rehab assignment in Single-A Clearwater, the Phillies have a difficult choice to make with the man he replaced way back in 2005.

Thome left Saturday’s game with tightness in his lower back — an injury about which there is no update as of this writing.  It was the fourth game he had started at first base this season, and while his ability on defense may have been a welcome surprise thus far, the durability questions cannot come as a shock.

After all, it’s the end of April, and Thome has already played more games at first than he had in any season since he left the Phils for the American League six years ago. 

From this point forward, it would be optimistic to think the five-time All-Star could play in the field at all, and Philadelphia fans may be content if he can fill the “bat off the bench” role as well as Stairs did in his days in red.

Pinch hitting, though, isn’t a flip of a switch.  You have to have the ability to come in cold, take a few practice swings, and be immediately mentally prepared to hit.  It’s a skill that some have, and others don’t.  Ross Gload had it, as did Stairs.  Thome, as great as he has been for 21-plus seasons, just isn’t a pinch hitter.

In his career as a starter, Thome has hit .278, slugged .558, and homered about once every 13 at-bats.

As a pinch hitter, he has hit .219, slugged .383, and hit a home run every 42 at-bats, or exactly as frequently as Julio Lugo homered in 2000.  That doesn’t sound like the slugger off the bench we are looking for.

(In case you’re curious, Stairs hit .355, slugged .581, and homered every 15.5 at-bats as a sub in 2008.) 

So this begs the question — If he can’t start at first, and he isn’t a good pinch hitter, what in the world do you do with him? 

Well, in the short term, it has to be considered that the Phillies play nine straight games in American League parks in the middle of June.  Even if The Big Piece is back and slugging by that time, there is no reason to believe Thome couldn’t DH those games with Howard playing first.

Between now and then, sending the owner of 604 career homers to the disabled list makes sense, or even to Lehigh Valley to work on coming off the bench to hit. It is not as if the team would suffer without the fan favorite, or his .111 batting average through 21 plate appearances.

After that, the issue becomes more interesting.  Would they release him?  It bears considering — he is occupying a valuable roster spot that could be claimed by any number of more capable contributors, especially Howard or Chase Utley when they return. 

One thing is for sure — it isn’t 2005 anymore, and as much as well all loved the big guy, he isn’t the player he used to be.  Sentimentalism cannot get in the way of winning baseball games.  I know that, you know that, Charlie Manuel knows that, and Thome knows that.

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