Tag Archive: charlie manuel

Are They Who We Thought They Were?

June 5, 2013 Randy Neil

Fresh off the longest win-streak of the 2013 season, the Philadelphia Phillies are back at .500 (30-30) which leaves a very important question to be asked: Who are these guys?

I don’t know. Charlie Manuel doesn’t know. Ruben Amaro Jr. definitely doesn’t know. In the not so distant future, the front office of this ball club is going to have to make a definite move that shapes the remainder of the season.

Certainly, Domonic Brown is having the best season of his career. Leading the national league in home runs, being named the NL Player of the Month, and earning the NL Player of the Week award back-to-back are all incredibly positive feats that can offer hope for this ball club.

Roy Halladay gave more hopeful news in his press conference this week, alluding to the fact that he will return this season and his surgery went successfully as expected. Doc even noted that his range of motion, even a mere week after the surgery, is better than it has been in years. All signs point to him returning to the lineup this summer, possibly healthier than he’s ever been in a Phillies uniform.

Howard, Utley, and Ruiz were all playing at the start of this season, but have had their own obstacles to overcome. Howard has been consistent, but below average, in his offensive output and would even tell you himself that he’s not living up to his potential. Utley and Ruiz have both been riddled with injuries that leave question marks around their contributions come “make-a-run” time, if that ever happens.

Which leads to the less-desired question that the Phillies front-office will have to answer: Is it time to abandon ship?

Up until 4 days ago, the Phillies looked all but doomed. Michael and Delmon Young have just not lived up to the expectations we had going into this season. Michael Young is second in the league for GIDP and boasts a meager 10 RBIs. Their defense has definitely been the major reason for their playing time.

No one expected Cole Hamel’s record to be 2-9 at this point, but our offense (and his pitching in some cases) has been less than consistent. Cliff Lee trade rumors have been coming out of the wood-works. Lee, when questioned on whether he thinks he will get traded or not, even admitted that he thought it was likely. He certainly stands as the most valuable commodity the organization has, and if they decide to pump the brakes for this season, consider him gone.

That’s what it really all boils down to for this club. The consistency just simply hasn’t been there. Winning spurts like the one we are currently in (knocks on wood) are few and far between. The losses have been just too discouraging at times. The next month is going to be pivotal. The hump of .500 has finally been conquered, but all too often do I hear the phrase “gain some momentum” being used without any follow through.

I’ve seen stranger things happen… but just don’t get your hopes too high Phillies fans.

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We’ve Got the Coolest Fantasy (and Weddings) Around

September 6, 2011 Randy Neil

First, I gotta talk about this guy. Way to be, fellah. If you didn’t see it, my man in the Phillies jersey over here decided to lean over the railing to catch what was going to be Hunter Pence’s double. Marlin’s outfielder Bryan Petersen complained that it interfered with his catch (which it did) and the umpires got together to review the play.

All the while, our friend in the stands sits on his cell phone, radiating with glee because of the amazing event that just happened to him! He couldn’t have had a bigger smile. Does he not remember Steve Bartman?

Then, umpire and former frog Joe West comes out from the dugout, points at Hunter Pence, gives him the boot, points at Ryan Howard, and puts him back at first. According to the rulebook, if at any point an ump feels a fan interfered with the ball, it is then ruled dead and the batter is automatically out.

Baseball, unlike football, may be the only sport that has video review and still manages to create controversy. You’re supposed to review the video IF and ONLY IF you think it was a home run. Apparently, you can’t review fan interference if the umps originally determined the ball to be a double. Charlie Manuel got ejected for arguing this.

OH MY CONTROVERSY ABOUND!! Of course, the Phillies lost this game, which was fitting. Arguing about whether reviewing the ball was correct or not seems meaningless to me. That’s like a defense attorney getting evidence thrown out in court because their defendant murdered the victim with a rent-a-car instead of his own car. If it happened, it happened. Get it right.

And nameless fan…. you got it wrong.

The boring, long, dull task of managing fantasy baseball is almost over. Theheadrush’s league was a great success this year. Adam and I are both in the playoffs (no surprise there.) In a last minute effort to scrape by with a win, I’ve dipped into the free agency pool. My team has been pretty solid all year (Konerko, Cano, Granderson, Ortiz, Francoeur) but I decided to grab a few “wildcards” to put me over the top.

The hardest stat to conquer in fantasy baseball may very well be the “Save” category. Who gets more than 2 saves a week, honestly?? Well, from August 24th-Sept 4th, my man Bobby Parnell from the Mets got 6. Nevermind that I’m risking a whole point on a guy who just got called up from the minors to perform on a dismal team with no future. I saw the numbers, I picked him up.

Then, I look through some of the hitters to see James Loney is available?? Check-mate. Loney has been a meager hitter to have all year, but in the past 14 days, .365 average, 12 runs, 12 RBIs, 3 homers. That’s all I care about. Who’s hot right now? Who can I add to my consistent line-up to give me that extra something?

You can see how well that works out for me here. It’s Tuesday, and I’m losing 2-5. Loney makes his start tonight.

Enough about baseball, though. She’s had her fill. Football is less than a week away!! That’s great and all, but really what we are saying is : FANTASY FOOTBALL IS LESS THAN A WEEK AWAY!!

We just finished the draft and I have to admit my team is utterly stacked. Bad news is, so is everyone else. We narrowed it down to an 8-man league, mostly because very few people wanted to play for money. The Lincoln Logs and Tonka trucks are down the hall, fellas. This here for the big boys.

I had the honor of first pick. Michael Vick? Yes, please. Our league sits apart from others in that it has 2 quarterbacks, so a QB was a no-brainer. Even with more traditional scoring leagues, I’m not opposed to a QB first pick. He’s going to be your bread and butter. Ain’t nobody winning a Superbowl with Rex Grossman… just saying.

The other downside to an 8-man league is I don’t know who to drop!! Just to list some of the people I drafted : Roddy White, Jeremy Maclin, Darren McFadden, Peyton Hillis, LeGarrette Blount, Darren Sproles, Tim Hightower, Mario Manningham…. I still don’t have a Defense or Kicker, lol.

Two things I will note: 1) Tim Hightower is going to have an incredible fantasy year. I’m calling it right now. Great pre-season, new team, new offense, sole responsibility. No more Arizona front-line setting him up. 2) LeGarrette Blount is on Yahoo!’s Do Not Cut list? I can’t drop Blount? How did this guy get in the ranks of Peyton Manning and Calvin Johnson after one year?

Check out the draft results and league here. I’ll have the banner and football predicts coming later this week. Get ready.

 

My man Adam is getting married this week. Congratulations, brother. We’re going to party it up this week to what may be the most awesome-sauced 80’s throwback event of all time.

If there’s one thing I can do, it’s the electric slide. Ladies gon’ feel me.

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Where Are The Bats??

May 18, 2011 Randy Neil

I know, I know. Stop hitting the panic button. It’s mid-May and the Phillies’ offensive slump has hit. We all knew it was coming since Spring Training. The entire off-season people were concerned with Jayson Werth’s absence hurting the line up and now they have fuel for the fire.

Last night might have been the most frustrating. After a dismal 8 innings of poor offensive production, the Phils got a break when defensive replacement Tyler Greene dropped a routine pop-fly allowing a runner on base.

Naturally, when an error occurs in baseball, it often spells doom. Martinez gets a single to drive Rollins over to 3rd, and Polanco drives deep to bring in the run. It worked out, and got us back in the game.

Then, Danny Baez gives up 3 straight singles in the 9th to load up the bases with no outs. He gets into an epic pitch battle with Matt Holiday and induces a ground ball allowing a force-out at home. 1 out, bases still loaded. Then Charlie Manuel calls in J.C. Romero to go lefty v. lefty against Lance Berkman, and if you sneezed you would have missed the walk-off single, because it happened on the first pitch. Game over. Frowny face.

There’s not much you can do there. You’d like to think that we shouldn’t have been in such a vulnerable position if we scored more runs. Danny Baez was flirting with fire in the 9th, and he now has a disgusting E.R.A. for the year. He’s allowed 6 runs in his last 4 innings pitched. Yuck.

Speaking of bad pitching… Cliff Lee’s numbers aren’t looking so hot either. No one is pressing the panic button for him because we all know he’s a stud that will figure it out, but he’s got a 4.38 ERA his last 2 starts and also gave up more walks than he ever has in his career. He’s winless in his last 6 starts. Just saying.

Oswalt looked good coming off of his DL placement, which is incredibly beneficial for my fantasy team. It was an encouraging sign that things will return to normal with him and I will reign supreme in fantasy. One inning more and I would have gotten a quality start out of him. Manuel needs to be aware of these things….

But that bats man!! We need some more bats!! Chooch is going through a 1-32 slump right now, which is horrid because we need his defense when Manuel opts to place Sardinha in and errors occur. I don’t know what it is, I just don’t like Sardinha.

So this could be one of two things. Either we’re in a panic for no reason and this 4 game losing streak is a minor stint, OR we finally are starting to see the signs of a diminished offensive lineup. I’m gonna go with minor losing stint. We were the last team in the MLB to lose 3 games in a row this year. Even the “best team in baseball” Cleveland Indians couldn’t say that.

Tonight we start a 3 game home-stand against the Colorado Rockies and this guy, Troy Tulowitzki. The king of the mullets.

Hate to say it, but I think Hamels is going to have some trouble tonight. Cole going against a young, swing-first, line-up never fairs well. Hopefully the Phillies talk some shit on Tulo’s hair and it gets him all worked up and in a mess.

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The Defense Is Killing Me Inside

May 11, 2011 Randy Neil

So the huge pitchers duel from Josh Johnson and Roy Halladay lived up the hype last night (sarcasm.) Yeah, they pitched great, but the Phillies lost, so it’s still a let-down in my eyes. Having Josh Johnson in a fantasy league didn’t help either. You want him to do great, but so great that he still loses. I’m like Tupac with all my inner conflict.

How many innings does Roy Halladay plan on pitching this year?? Seriously. I get that he is a work-horse, the man wants to pitch all the time, but he’s pitched for 61.1 innings so far this year, which leads the league. The next highest is Jered Weaver at 57.7, who is about 5 years younger. It’s awesome that Halladay has the stuff to go 9 innings every start, but it doesn’t mean he should. Not in mid-May.

Charlie needs to start digging into the bullpen and take the reigns a little. Halladay’s emotions were clearly running a little wild when Polanco was too slow throwing out Ramirez in the 8th. Roy looked like he wanted to smash his face in. Just pitch 7-8 innings and save that arm for the fall.

I watched the Grizzlies/OKC game from about 5 minutes of the 4th quarter to the end of the 2nd OT. Yes. That’s right. I stopped watching. Overtime after overtime, it was just getting a little out of control. The identity crisis that Oklahoma City is having right now makes me wonder if they are going to make it past the Mavs IF they make it past the Grizzlies.

Westbrook is taking a lot of heat for not dishing the ball to Durant in this series. They have a lot of weird defensive match-ups with the Grizzlies and it’s hurting the OKC’s offensive scheme, and even causing some drama in the locker room. Westbrook can basically drive at any point he chooses, so I don’t mind that he’s being a little more aggressive. He just needs to understand that the last shot of every quarter shouldn’t be him, and that it shouldn’t be Durant with 2 seconds left with a defender all over him because Westbrook gave a poor pass. It’s a learning experience.

It’s funny how relaxed a lot of these veterans are in the NBA playoffs… as they are losing. Kobe Bryant was ‘convinced’ he could still win the series after being down 3-0 to the Mavericks. And then he lost. The big 3 from Boston are trying to keep the same casual, care-free confidence as they travel to Miami to play the Heat tonight. I wonder what’s going to happen to them…

Once the Conference Finals are set up, I’m sure that we’ll probably have a revamp of our play-off picks. I know I need to. I still think the OKC have a pretty good chance of winning the whole she-bang, but with Miami playing at the level they are, I don’t know who’s gonna stop them. The Bulls and Hawks are taxing themselves in their series, so I pretty much have the Heat winning the East. This sucks of course, because the Miami Heat are everything wrong with the NBA, and they have (in my eyes) the easiest schedule and best chance to win the NBA Finals now.

Step 1 : Abandon teams, assemble new team of stars .
Step 2 : Play entire season casually, as to not strain yourself, draw media attention.
Step 3 : Win NBA Championship.

Perhaps I’m only bringing this up to double-jinx myself on my OKC pick. I mean, to be fair, I haven’t definitively changed my pick yet. There has been no official announcement of my new selection. So… in efforts to be respectable… my pick for the NBA Champion this year is…

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Domonic Brown, Doc Halladay, and Roy Oswalt walk into a bar…

July 29, 2010 Randy Neil

alt

A few weeks ago, the Phillies seemed hopeless.  The team has lost 11 of 18 since July 1st.  They dropped 7 games back in the division, and their offensive rank in the NL had dropped from 2nd to 12th. 

Although the Phillies line-up was often reduced due to injuries, on July 22nd, Charlie Manuel said goodbye to hitting coach Milt Thompson in an attempt to shake up the ball club.  Greg Gross, the former hitting coach, replaced him, and it was met with immediate success.

In fact, as of now, success is a poor word.  It’s been perfection.  The Phillies have gone 7-0 since the replacement, and have had 4 games with 6 runs or more. 

Last night was one of those games, and I managed to make it down to Citizens Bank Park to catch what is now once again a beautiful team to watch.  

Due to Shane Victorino’s abdominal strain (on a routine pop up mind you,) the highly anticipated Domonic Brown was called up from Triple-A to make his debut for the Phillies last night, starting in right field.  Werth was moved to center, and they both batted in the 5th and 6th positions in the line-up.  

Before Brown’s named was even announced for the at-bat, the 45,000+ in attendance were standing in ovation for the debut.  There was a feeling in the air something special was happening and I was glad to witness from 20 rows back behind home plate. 

The prospect flourished in the minor leagues, and all the hype building up to last night made what happened even more special.  Domonic went 2-3, scoring an RBI double in his first at bat.  Overall, he had 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a sacrifice fly for the night.  Not too bad for your first game in the major leagues.  

It was also nice to see Roy Halladay finally pitch, and he was outstanding.  6 hits, 9 strike-outs, 1 earned run.  Doctor’s doing some surgery.

The Phillies finally have momentum carrying into the stretch, and with news of Roy Oswalt coming to town, things should only get better from here on out.

altEarlier this morning, news was released that the Astros and Phillies have come to an agreement for Roy Oswalt to come to Philadelphia.  The sad news is most likely J.A. Happ is going to Houston.  I’m not a big fan of this, but something of this magnitude was going to require a little sacrifice.  Another prospect being speculated in the trade is Triple-A 1st basemen Jonathan Singleton.  We’re pretty OK on the first basemen front, so I think I’ll be able to sleep at night.

None of the official names or figures are being released, and there are still possibilities of Joe Blanton being the pitcher to go (hopefully,) but according to the Phillies official website, a deal is “in-place” and it’s awaiting Oswalt’s OK.  This is going to happen, and it will probably happen by the end of the day.

The Phillies are getting back to their form, and a Halladay-Oswalt-Hamels starting rotation sounds pretty damn good to me.  The Phillies projected starting line-up has only been on the field 8 times this year.  With that number set to increase in the upcoming weeks, and a stronger starting pitching rotation, I’d expect to see the Braves’ 3.5 game lead in the division diminish.  

Do work, fellas.

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