Where Are The Bats??
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.
