Long Overdue

I don't think I can provide a good enough excuse as to why it has taken me nearly a month for a real update. But it's ok now because here it is. And with so much to talk about! So get ready, this could be a long one.

First of all, our race with the Braves. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? In some way, this has been a really good thing over the past nearly 2 weeks because we essentially haven't lost any ground. In another way, the past 2 weeks have been extremely frustrating because we haven't taken advantage of any opportunities to gain ground. And the opportunities we've been given have not been all that difficult to take advantage of. As the Braves were getting swept in 3 games by the Rockies, the Phils thought it'd be a good idea to get swept in 4 games by the Astros, one of the bottom 5 teams in the NL. We were even curteous enough to go into 16 innings Tuesday night in order to wait and see how the Braves would do out in Colorado before we decided whether we wanted to win or lose. I would find it extremely hilarious and awesome if we were to stay exactly where we are for the remainder of the season only to sweep the Braves in Atlanta in the last 3 games of the season and then win a playoff with them. But I really don't want to bank on that. And I REALLY don't want to bank on the wild card spot. Wild card might make more sense for us in terms of matchups (Padres in the first round instead of Reds), but I'd rather deal with the NL East race that I feel we have more control of (6 games left against the Braves).

Now on to this series against the Astros. It would've been bad to split this series. And if you would've listed our starting pitching performances without me knowing the results, I would've guessed a minimum of 3 wins, probably a sweep. By us, not them. Which has been all too common with the Phils this season. But I'll talk about that later. The main game I want to talk about is the 16-inning game from Tuesday night. It's the only game of the 4 that I actually got to watch the entire thing.
The first thing I want to address is Uncle Chuck's move to start the bottom of the 7th inning. I'll set the scene:
Hamels has just finished the 7th inning of a gem of a start and is leading off the bottom of the inning in a game we are losing 2-1. The 1 run we scored came in the last inning as we finally started putting the bat on the ball somewhat against Astros' starter Bud Norris. Werth singled, Ibanez doubled, Victorino got an infield hit. Norris was over 100 pitches and would be either coming out soon or giving up more hits. We need to pinch hit for Hamels.
So what does Charlie do? He puts in the left-handed Domonic Brown to bat against righty Bud Norris. He does this, however, most likely knowing full well that this will bring on a pitching change for the Astros. They bring in a lefty, and, rather than sucking it up and letting Brown hit, he brings in Ben Francisco to pinch hit now for Brown before Domonic can even step into the box. So we've completely wasted one of our players late in a close game. Obviously no one can predict a game will go 16 innings or that we'll run out of players, but it's still a very stupid move. Why not simply put Francisco in in the first place? Personally, I would rather keep Norris in there when he's visibly wearing down. Too much is made of these righty-righty matchups in my opinion. If we put Francisco in, they try to keep Norris in through Rollins and Polanco to wait and change to a lefty for Utley and Howard. That gives us 3 more than capable hitters batting against a tired starting pitcher in a 1-run game. Sign me up.
But instead, we lose Domonic Brown, they bring in their lefty. It ends up not being so bad anyway as he walks Rollins and Polanco, but then the next stupid thing happens. With Chase Utley up to bat, runners on 1st and 2nd and 1 out in a 1-run game, the Phillies think its a good idea to double steal. Rollins is thrown out, there are 2 outs now and Utley flies out to end the inning. I don't think the risk is worth the reward in this situation. Having runners on 2nd and 3rd would be great with 1 out, yes. If Utley gets a base hit, we go up in that situation. And yes he could ground out or fly out deep to score a run as well. But if we don't do that double steal, a base hit ties the game at worst and has Howard up to bat. Or, if Utley gets out, we still have 1st and 2nd with Howard up to bat where they're forced to throw him good pitches. He was awful Tuesday night, so it's hard to really tell what would've or could've happened and all of this second-guessing is easy to do after the fact, but I disagreed with what was happening as it was happening and it may or may not have lost this game for us.

With all of that being said, there is really no reason we're put in a situation like this. scoring 2 runs in 16 innings? Hamels pitched 26 1/3 straight innings without getting a single run of support. That means Hamels could've thrown almost 3 complete game shutouts in a row and ended up not getting a win in any of them. And he came pretty close with the 2 straight 1-run outings against the Mets that we lost 1-0.
I mentioned this once in last year's blog, but it's worth mentioning again. In 2008, Cole Hamels was 14-10. If he would have won every start in which he pitched 7 or more innings and gave up 2 earned runs or less (which should without a doubt be a win with this team), he would have gone 23-7. That's a gigantic difference. And I feel like that has been happening again this season. But it feels that way with every starter. Let's take a look at what some of their records are and what they could be with those criteria:
Halladay: 16-9, would be 19-7
Hamels: 7-10, would be 15-6
Blanton: 5-6, would be 7-6
Kendrick: 8-7, would be 10-7
With Kendrick and Blanton it's not a big difference at all. Two more wins is probably something that most pitchers in baseball get screwed out of by run support in that situation. And they've certainly made up for it by getting wins in crappier starts. But the difference for Hamels and Halladay is unreal. Not only would they have 11 more wins combined for their own personal enjoyment, but they would have a combined 6 less losses. That means that we have wasted 6 fantastic starts by just 2 of our pitchers. That's 6 more wins we should have without a doubt. And on top of those 6, there is one other no decision between the two of them that we lost when they pitched 7+ giving up 2 or less. So that's 7 total wins we have squandered just between Hamels and Halladay. And I'm sure that in some form or fashion this evens out to a certain extent. There was a game where Halladay pitched 7 and gave up 5 and still got a win. So I'm not saying this only works one way. But the good starts we've messed up far outweigh the bad starts we've saved. Especially considering our lineup should be scoring 6 runs a game.

Go back in time to before the season starts. Imagine someone tells you that on August 27, all of the following will be true:
-Halladay will have a 2.22 ERA
-Hamels will have a 3.47 ERA as a number 3 starter behind Halladay and Oswalt
-Kyle Kendrick will have a winning record
-Brad Lidge will have only 4 blown saves
-Polanco will be in the race for the batting title
-Werth will be batting .300 and leading the league in doubles
-Shane Victorino will have 15 home runs
-Ryan Howard will be batting .283
-Chooch will be batting .291
-I actually like Jimmy Rollins

How would that make you feel? How would only hearing half of those things make you feel? For me, I would predict 125-130 wins for us. (In case you didn't know, all of that stuff is true)

(On the flip side of that, if I told you that Utley would miss 2 months and in that time Howard and Victorino would be on the DL as well, you'd probably freak out and say we'd be in last place. But that's not the point!)

I keep thinking that at some point things are going to start looking up in Philadelphia. But if you look at individuals, things are looking up! We just can't do anything in a timely fashion. We have 4 regulars batting over .280, yet none of them seem to be able to get those hits when someone is on base. Everyone is setting the table but nobody wants to eat. (Did I just make that up? Is that the corniest thing I've ever said? I'd argue yes on both counts)

So we have a series coming up with the Padres. They have the best record in the NL. I said to Jeremiah last night that I think we are the same team as the Padres with the only difference being that our players have names. Off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you 2 regular position players for the Padres, nor could I list 2 of their starting pitchers. Adrian Gonzalez and Mat Latos are about as far as my Padres knowledge goes. And who has actually heard of Mat Latos? And who spells Matt with one T? Unbelievable.
But anyway, I say that we're the same because it's all pitching with little offense. The difference is, we have potential to score runs. They don't. We finally have our whole lineup healthy, and somehow we've managed to stay close enough to make a move in the last month. So let's just do it. But we need to start scoring some runs. I'm looking forward to another parade down Broad Street.

The difference being this one will be for the next time we score 3 runs in a game.