At This Rate

It's time for one of my favorite posts of the season! We are now about 1/5 of the way through 2011's regular season, and we can take a look into the future...assuming the rest of the season plays out exactly as the first 33 games have. So here's what to expect:

-The Phillies will finish with an incredible 110 wins, winning the NL East by 10 games over the Marlins and sharing the best record in baseball with...the Cleveland Indians? Weird

-Only 4 players in history have had a quadruple-20 season (20 doubles, triples, home runs, and stolen bases). They are: Frank Schulte (1911), Willie Mays (1957), Jimmy Rollins (2007), and Curtis Granderson (2007). Shane Victorino will add his name to that list with 29 doubles, 20 triples, 25 home runs, and 34 stolen bases. (Fun fact: This post is copied and pasted from last year's entry with a slight change in the numbers)

-Placido Polanco will bat an incredible .366 on the season. And finish fourth for the batting title

-Ryan Howard will finish with 147 RBI, his highest total since 149 in his 58-home run MVP season. Except he will do it by hitting 23 less home runs.

-5 of the FBI's top 10 Most Wanted will be dead by October, with Phillies fans helping to share the news on ESPN all 5 times

-Phillies pitchers will have 45 saves, but no one player will have more than 25, including 0 by Brad Lidge

-Both Cole Hamels and Roy Halladay will have 20-win seasons. Cole with 20 and Roy with 25. Halladay will more than likely win the Cy Young with a 25-5 record and a 2.19 ERA

-Cliff Lee will fall just 5 strikeouts shy of 300 while having a losing record

-Christopher Wheeler will attempt to answer all 150+ Dodge Stump the Fans Trivia Questions and get about half of them right

-Thomas McCarthy will giggle at him while he attempts to answer every game

-Fans will give a crap about 0 of these occurrences

-Chase Utley will play in 0 games, but news of him running will be presented to us as if it's the cure for cancer approximately 2,550 times this season

-Vance Worley will finish 10-0 with a 0.75 ERA

-Raul Ibanez will hit just .212 this season

-John Mayberry will hit .364 as a pinch-hitter, but will start only 35 games this season while Ibanez gets over 550 at-bats

-Jayson Werth will hit .227 and finish with 43 RBI. Or about $250,000 per RBI. Well done, Nationals. Well done.

Now, in terms of my predictions at the beginning of the season:

-Joe Blanton will get 15 wins this season. No, no he won't. He'll be 0-5

-Roy Oswalt will have the lowest ERA on the team. Nope. Halladay and Hamels will have lower ones of our regular 5 starters. 2.19 for Halladay, 2.83 for Hamels, 3.33 for Oswalt

-Michael Martinez will become our everyday 2nd baseman. Actually, he'll get less than 100 at-bats and hit .158. Yikes. Wilson Valdez is the obvious choice, and Pete Orr is the cooler choice

-Rollins will hit .300. He's at .285, meaning he's on pace for .285. But .300 is still realistic

-John Mayberry will hit 15 home runs. Or 5. Yeah, 5 works.

-Ryan Howard will win a Gold Glove. Errorless in 33 games. Boom baby.

-The Phillies will beat the White Sox in a 7-game World Series. We'll win. But the White Sox have the worst record in baseball. Oh well...guess I missed on that one. But who would've predicted the Indians? Not you, so shut up.

If all of these predictions and paces mean anything, it's that we should be most worried about our next opponent, the 2nd-place Marlins. Without further ado, your Marlins preview:

Game 1: Joe Blanton (0-1, 5.92 ERA) vs. Javier Vazquez (2-2, 6.39 ERA)
I would say that we can expect the most runs out of this game if nothing else. That may seem very obvious, and that's because it is. Phillies hitters absolutely dominate Vazquez. Take a look at these batting averages against him from the last 5years:
Ben Francisco .308
Ross Gload .469
Ryan Howard .333
Raul Ibanez .320
Placido Polanco .370
These numbers are with a minimum of 13 at-bats against him. Rollins has just a .200 average and Victorino .267, but, other than that, we can expect to get some hits tonight. Joe Blanton, on the other hand, has had a good amount of success against the Marlins.
Prediction: Phillies 8 Marlins 4
Keep an eye out for: Ryan Howard re-taking the Major League lead in RBI

Game 2: Roy Halladay (5-1, 2.19 ERA) vs. Josh Johnson (3-1, 1.68 ERA)
If you can only watch one game in the series, make it this one. These two faced each other twice last year in the span of 2 weeks. One was on May 29. If that date means nothing to you, it was Roy Halladay's perfect game. What you may NOT remember about that game, though, is that Josh Johnson pitched 7 innings and gave up 1 unearned run, allowing the Phillies to win 1-0. The second matchup between them was a 2-0 win for the Marlins with Johnson pitching 8 innings of 3-hit shutout ball. Josh Johnson is probably your current NL Cy Young favorite, and Halladay is not far behind. My X-factor: Roy Halladay is 18-1 with a 1.56 ERA against the NL East since joining the Phillies. Expect greatness
Prediction: Phillies 1 Marlins 0
Keep an eye out for: Neither team getting a hit until the 5th inning.

Game 3: Cliff Lee (2-3, 3.69 ERA) vs. Ricky Nolasco (3-0, 3.23 ERA)
This game is a real toss-up to me. I have no idea what Cliff Lee will do or what our hitters will do against him. And Nolasco is having a good year and has always 0had some decent success against the Phils (6-3, 3.78 ERA). I can't see us sweeping this series, and I don't want to pick us to lose the Halladay-Johnson showdown. That combined with our success against Vazquez leaves this game as the one to lose. Sorry, Cliff. Maybe we'll score runs for you someday.
Prediction: Marlins 4 Phillies 0
Keep an eye out for: Cliff striking out double-digits again

I would be comfortable from a predictions standpoint picking either team to win all 3 of these games. It is a scary series, and one that we definitely want to win to stay in first and keep the pressure on everyone else. The coming month is not in any way an easy one for the Phils. Staying in first until Chase comes back would be a great great thing for us.