To keep with the recent theme of having non-Phillies related, CAPS-locked words with an exclamation point as the title of my post, I'm posting about the reason I can't really post anything (it makes sense, trust me. Trust me).
We've been without power in our place for over 75 hours now, so I have been unable to watch the Phillies or even really check on how they are doing. Right now, I'm using the internet while staying with friends of my sister and brother-in-law for the night. I don't feel like I'm in the proper state of mind to be posting about a Phillies team I basically haven't seen since Wednesday.
Happiness is at a premium with no power, but a friend and I hit up Day's (a bar down here) to catch some of the Phils on ESPN. For some reason, they were showing the Giants-Jets preseason game on 4 of the 5 TVs with the volume on for that, but we endured long enough to see Shane Victorino hit a 2-run home run and put a smile back on my face.
So you can rest easy knowing that I haven't given up on the blog after doing so well the rest of the year. And you can rest easy knowing that I'm not really resting so easy, but instead I'm sleeping on air mattresses in other peoples' houses and apartments. Now I know why they started farming in Mesopotamia. This moving around malarkey is annoying as crap.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
HURRICANE!
First of all, I guess I should apologize for moving to Virginia. Since my arrival in this state, we've been experiencing all kinds of natural disasters. Clearly VA was not ready for all that is Cam.
With Hurricane Irene making her appearance all along the East Coast this weekend, we may see some serious schedule changes for the upcoming Phillies-Marlins series. The game match ups, as of now, are as follows:
Tonight: Clay Hensley (1-5, 5.47 ERA) vs. Roy Oswalt (6-7, 3.51 ERA)
Tomorrow afternoon: Anibal Sanchez (7-6, 4.01 ERA) vs. Roy Halladay (15-5, 2.56 ERA)
A normal weekend schedule usually consists of a Friday night game, a Saturday night game, and a Sunday afternoon game. As you can see, we've moved Saturday night to Saturday afternoon as well as completely eliminated Sunday at this point (moved to September 15). The schedule has already been affected quite a bit, and more changes may follow. Because of this, rather than doing a preview, I am simply going to recap this series on Sunday (assuming I have electricity).
So until then, all I can say is, as the Chinese restaurant singers from A Christmas Story would say if they formed an 80's cover band, "Come On, Irene."
(and, with that joke, I am now one small step closer to completely becoming my father)
With Hurricane Irene making her appearance all along the East Coast this weekend, we may see some serious schedule changes for the upcoming Phillies-Marlins series. The game match ups, as of now, are as follows:
Tonight: Clay Hensley (1-5, 5.47 ERA) vs. Roy Oswalt (6-7, 3.51 ERA)
Tomorrow afternoon: Anibal Sanchez (7-6, 4.01 ERA) vs. Roy Halladay (15-5, 2.56 ERA)
A normal weekend schedule usually consists of a Friday night game, a Saturday night game, and a Sunday afternoon game. As you can see, we've moved Saturday night to Saturday afternoon as well as completely eliminated Sunday at this point (moved to September 15). The schedule has already been affected quite a bit, and more changes may follow. Because of this, rather than doing a preview, I am simply going to recap this series on Sunday (assuming I have electricity).
So until then, all I can say is, as the Chinese restaurant singers from A Christmas Story would say if they formed an 80's cover band, "Come On, Irene."
(and, with that joke, I am now one small step closer to completely becoming my father)
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Mets Preview: Home Run Special
One of the most exciting occurrences in baseball has to be the home run. According to USA Today, hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. Just hitting a baseball in general, not hitting a home run. So, if hitting a ball is that difficult, imagine how much more difficult it is to hit the thing 400 feet.
Throughout the "Steroids Era," home runs were a dime a dozen and became way too common. We're now back at a point where they have some novelty to them again, especially for the Phillies. We're no longer a team that relies purely on offense; in fact, we have built our season almost completely on the success of our starting pitchers.
Commentators love to talk about hitters' vs. pitchers' parks nowadays, and no series brings that more to light than one between the Mets and Phillies. For any ball hit deep in either park, we get to hear about where that would land in the opposing team's home field. A ball to the warning track in Citi Field? "That's probably 9 rows deep in a home game for the Phillies" A ball in first row at Citizen's Bank Park? "That's a routine fly ball if we're in New York right now." As annoying as Christopher Wheeler is about this, it's hard to ignore when you hear it so much.
The Mets, though, feel like a team that we should be hitting home runs against, no matter where we are. I imagine this started back with Pat Burrell crushing balls out of Shea Stadium seemingly any time we played there. Something must have caught on, though, because Burrell is not the only Philly (past or present) with a lot of success against the Mets (42 home runs-most against any team).
Jimmy Rollins has 23 of his 168 homers against the Mets, 3 more than he has against anyone else.
Of Shane Victorino's 75 career home runs, 10 are against the Mets, the only team he has double digits against.
Chase Utley has hit 26 of his 186 career home runs against the Metropolitans, more than any other team.
Ryan Howard has 31 home runs against them. Although this isn't the most he has against anyone, it's a pretty nice number considering he's done it in 104 starts against them (that would translate to 48 in a full season).
So, if you're like me, you've come to expect a home run or two every time we play against the Mets. With every player's home run comes something totally different, though. For some, the swing is a thing of beauty. Some of them seemingly hit home runs by accident. Some are ecstatic that they just hit one out, while for others it almost appears boring to them. After doing my best to check out videos of some Phillies home run swings (damn you, MLB, and your copyright laws), here's what you can look for if any of our players hit home runs in this upcoming series:
Jimmy Rollins
J-Roll usually knows when he hits a homer, and it seems like he kind of extends his swing behind his back more than he usually would. There's also something that just feels sharp about his swing. When he hits a home run, you kind of feel like he was trying to do that and that only. You gotta love seeing that in the first at bat of the game (although, the first pitch isn't always preferred).
Shane Victorino
Shane always seems so excited to hit a home run that he is halfway down the first base line by the time he finished his swing. He has a knack for hitting important ones, so that makes sense.
Chase Utley
Utley's may be the coolest of anyone's in my opinion because he doesn't even decide to finish his swing. He somehow keeps his hands within about 3 inches of his body throughout the whole swing and sends a ball to any part of the field with a short, compact, unbelievably powerful swing.
Ryan Howard
Ryan Howard can also hit the ball in any direction, and the direction he stares off in is the only thing that really changes from home run swing to home run swing. As he hits the ball, he completely turns his body by simply pivoting on both feet at the same time and then watching his masterpiece sail into the upper deck.
Hunter Pence
Hunter Pence puts every ounce of energy into every swing he takes (see: "I don't [hit bloop singles]. I melt faces"). His home run swing just looks like he sort of knows where the ball is going to be, then he just completely lets loose as different parts of his body flail in opposite directions. Meanwhile, the ball lands 10 rows deep and Pence and the Phillies trot into October.
Raul Ibanez
Suckhole's swing is similar to Pence's, except his always seems like a total accident. While Pence is downright giddy about hitting a home run, Ibanez seemingly needs to regroup after hitting the ball, put hit helmet back on, then start running frantically before realizing he hit the ball far enough that he doesn't really have to run. And with every Raoops home run that is hit, the Phillies organization takes a step back. John Mayberry!! Domonic Brown!!
Placido Polanco
There seems to be nothing all that special about a Polanco home run swing other than the fact that Placido Polanco is hitting a home run. Usually, he will hit a line drive to the opposite field for a single. If he pulls the ball and gets any type of air under it, it seems like it could be a home run.
John Mayberry
Mayberry's home runs look more like line drives than anyone else's. They don't seem to get as high off the ground as a Ryan Howard home run, they just get the crap out of the ballpark. It's pure, Ibanez-replacing poetry.
Carlos Ruiz
I actually feel less athletic after watching Chooch smash a ball over the outfield wall. His short, stocky build seems to kind of lift up with his swing, revealing just how short and stocky that build really is. He runs the bases and I wonder if he actually plays Harry in the Home Alone movies (of which there are only 2. Don't get me started).
Wilson Valdez
TBD
Cliff Lee
It's like Gummy Bears shoot off of his bat, creating a beautifully rare double-rainbow in the ball's trajectory. It tastes like bacon and smells like new tennis balls. The feeling of Christmas morning sweeps through the ballpark, and Phillies players giggle like 4-year-old girls as Lee rounds the bases and intoxicatingly upbeat music plays in everyone's hearts.
While hopefully we get to see all of these in the next 3 days, that's highly unlikely. As a nod to our players' home run swings, though, I am going to predict who hits home runs in this series more so than anything else.
Game 1: Dillon Gee (11-4, 3.92 ERA) vs. Cliff Lee (13-7, 2.82 ERA)
Gee's experience against the Phillies this season includes relieving Mike Pelfrey and actually pitching worse than him, quite the feat considering how much we kill Mike Pelfrey. Surprisingly, though, only 3 of the players on our current roster have hits against Gee in their careers. He has been pretty good for the Mets this year, although he's just 1-1 with a 5.40 ERA in August. Compare that to Cliff Lee's 3-0 record and 0.75 ERA in August, and we seem to have a mismatch here. Lee's only start against the Mets this season gave him a no decision despite pitching 7 innings of 1-run ball. I expect him to get the win he deserved last time in this game.
Prediction: Phillies 6 Mets 0
Keep an eye out for: Howard and Utley going deep in this one. Howard is 2 for 4 with 2 home runs against Gee. Utley hasn't homered off of him, but he is one of those 3 Phillies with a hit.
Game 2: Jon Niese (11-10, 4.05 ERA) vs. Vance Worley (8-1, 2.76 ERA)
It seems like every time we play the Mets we have to face this Niese majoker. He seems to have gotten better with each of his 4 starts against us, giving up less runs or lasting longer in each subsequent game. Does that mean he's figuring us out, or have we just been given enough opportunities to fully figure him out? Worley is 2-1 against the Mets, dominating them in his first and last start against them but not looking so hot in that one in the middle. There are plenty of guys that Worley needs to be wary of, but Josh Thole is actually the most worrisome. He's 2 for 5 with a double and 3 RBI against Worley, plus he's hitting .353 in August.
Prediction: Phillies 4 Mets 2
Keep an eye out for: Mayberry getting the start against the lefty and hitting a home run. Also, let's give Valdez his first homer of the year as he probably fills in for Rollins, who has a strained groin and is probably headed to the DL. He's 6 for 17 against Niese with 2 doubles, so this seems like the guy he could get it off of.
Game 3: Mike Pelfrey (6-10, 4.61 ERA) vs. Kyle Kendrick (7-5, 3.24 ERA)
If there's one opposing pitcher I love to see that we're facing, it just may be Mike Pelfrey. Not only does it mean we get to play the loser Mets, but it also means we're playing against a guy who has pitched just 19 innings in 4 starts against us this season and put up a 7.58 ERA. Kendrick pitched extremely well in his one start against the Mets, going 7 and giving up just 1 run on 6 hits. He's another guy that has to look out for Thole, though, as he is a .385 hitter against him. Reyes also is a .385 hitter against Kendrick with a 1.179 OPS. The reason I'm not that worried about that, though, is that he's a loser. (Also, he's on the DL. Total loser)
Prediction: Phillies 9 Mets 5
Keep an eye out for: Shane, Chase, and Ryan all hitting homers. Combined, they have a .328 average, .994 OPS, 8 home runs, and 21 RBI against Pelfrey. Hopefully they all get those homers out of the way in the first, or else I doubt he'll be in the game long enough to give them all a shot...amIright?!
Throughout the "Steroids Era," home runs were a dime a dozen and became way too common. We're now back at a point where they have some novelty to them again, especially for the Phillies. We're no longer a team that relies purely on offense; in fact, we have built our season almost completely on the success of our starting pitchers.
Commentators love to talk about hitters' vs. pitchers' parks nowadays, and no series brings that more to light than one between the Mets and Phillies. For any ball hit deep in either park, we get to hear about where that would land in the opposing team's home field. A ball to the warning track in Citi Field? "That's probably 9 rows deep in a home game for the Phillies" A ball in first row at Citizen's Bank Park? "That's a routine fly ball if we're in New York right now." As annoying as Christopher Wheeler is about this, it's hard to ignore when you hear it so much.
The Mets, though, feel like a team that we should be hitting home runs against, no matter where we are. I imagine this started back with Pat Burrell crushing balls out of Shea Stadium seemingly any time we played there. Something must have caught on, though, because Burrell is not the only Philly (past or present) with a lot of success against the Mets (42 home runs-most against any team).
Jimmy Rollins has 23 of his 168 homers against the Mets, 3 more than he has against anyone else.
Of Shane Victorino's 75 career home runs, 10 are against the Mets, the only team he has double digits against.
Chase Utley has hit 26 of his 186 career home runs against the Metropolitans, more than any other team.
Ryan Howard has 31 home runs against them. Although this isn't the most he has against anyone, it's a pretty nice number considering he's done it in 104 starts against them (that would translate to 48 in a full season).
So, if you're like me, you've come to expect a home run or two every time we play against the Mets. With every player's home run comes something totally different, though. For some, the swing is a thing of beauty. Some of them seemingly hit home runs by accident. Some are ecstatic that they just hit one out, while for others it almost appears boring to them. After doing my best to check out videos of some Phillies home run swings (damn you, MLB, and your copyright laws), here's what you can look for if any of our players hit home runs in this upcoming series:
Jimmy Rollins
J-Roll usually knows when he hits a homer, and it seems like he kind of extends his swing behind his back more than he usually would. There's also something that just feels sharp about his swing. When he hits a home run, you kind of feel like he was trying to do that and that only. You gotta love seeing that in the first at bat of the game (although, the first pitch isn't always preferred).
Shane Victorino
Shane always seems so excited to hit a home run that he is halfway down the first base line by the time he finished his swing. He has a knack for hitting important ones, so that makes sense.
Chase Utley
Utley's may be the coolest of anyone's in my opinion because he doesn't even decide to finish his swing. He somehow keeps his hands within about 3 inches of his body throughout the whole swing and sends a ball to any part of the field with a short, compact, unbelievably powerful swing.
Ryan Howard
Ryan Howard can also hit the ball in any direction, and the direction he stares off in is the only thing that really changes from home run swing to home run swing. As he hits the ball, he completely turns his body by simply pivoting on both feet at the same time and then watching his masterpiece sail into the upper deck.
Hunter Pence
Hunter Pence puts every ounce of energy into every swing he takes (see: "I don't [hit bloop singles]. I melt faces"). His home run swing just looks like he sort of knows where the ball is going to be, then he just completely lets loose as different parts of his body flail in opposite directions. Meanwhile, the ball lands 10 rows deep and Pence and the Phillies trot into October.
Raul Ibanez
Suckhole's swing is similar to Pence's, except his always seems like a total accident. While Pence is downright giddy about hitting a home run, Ibanez seemingly needs to regroup after hitting the ball, put hit helmet back on, then start running frantically before realizing he hit the ball far enough that he doesn't really have to run. And with every Raoops home run that is hit, the Phillies organization takes a step back. John Mayberry!! Domonic Brown!!
Placido Polanco
There seems to be nothing all that special about a Polanco home run swing other than the fact that Placido Polanco is hitting a home run. Usually, he will hit a line drive to the opposite field for a single. If he pulls the ball and gets any type of air under it, it seems like it could be a home run.
John Mayberry
Mayberry's home runs look more like line drives than anyone else's. They don't seem to get as high off the ground as a Ryan Howard home run, they just get the crap out of the ballpark. It's pure, Ibanez-replacing poetry.
Carlos Ruiz
I actually feel less athletic after watching Chooch smash a ball over the outfield wall. His short, stocky build seems to kind of lift up with his swing, revealing just how short and stocky that build really is. He runs the bases and I wonder if he actually plays Harry in the Home Alone movies (of which there are only 2. Don't get me started).
Wilson Valdez
TBD
Cliff Lee
It's like Gummy Bears shoot off of his bat, creating a beautifully rare double-rainbow in the ball's trajectory. It tastes like bacon and smells like new tennis balls. The feeling of Christmas morning sweeps through the ballpark, and Phillies players giggle like 4-year-old girls as Lee rounds the bases and intoxicatingly upbeat music plays in everyone's hearts.
While hopefully we get to see all of these in the next 3 days, that's highly unlikely. As a nod to our players' home run swings, though, I am going to predict who hits home runs in this series more so than anything else.
Game 1: Dillon Gee (11-4, 3.92 ERA) vs. Cliff Lee (13-7, 2.82 ERA)
Gee's experience against the Phillies this season includes relieving Mike Pelfrey and actually pitching worse than him, quite the feat considering how much we kill Mike Pelfrey. Surprisingly, though, only 3 of the players on our current roster have hits against Gee in their careers. He has been pretty good for the Mets this year, although he's just 1-1 with a 5.40 ERA in August. Compare that to Cliff Lee's 3-0 record and 0.75 ERA in August, and we seem to have a mismatch here. Lee's only start against the Mets this season gave him a no decision despite pitching 7 innings of 1-run ball. I expect him to get the win he deserved last time in this game.
Prediction: Phillies 6 Mets 0
Keep an eye out for: Howard and Utley going deep in this one. Howard is 2 for 4 with 2 home runs against Gee. Utley hasn't homered off of him, but he is one of those 3 Phillies with a hit.
Game 2: Jon Niese (11-10, 4.05 ERA) vs. Vance Worley (8-1, 2.76 ERA)
It seems like every time we play the Mets we have to face this Niese majoker. He seems to have gotten better with each of his 4 starts against us, giving up less runs or lasting longer in each subsequent game. Does that mean he's figuring us out, or have we just been given enough opportunities to fully figure him out? Worley is 2-1 against the Mets, dominating them in his first and last start against them but not looking so hot in that one in the middle. There are plenty of guys that Worley needs to be wary of, but Josh Thole is actually the most worrisome. He's 2 for 5 with a double and 3 RBI against Worley, plus he's hitting .353 in August.
Prediction: Phillies 4 Mets 2
Keep an eye out for: Mayberry getting the start against the lefty and hitting a home run. Also, let's give Valdez his first homer of the year as he probably fills in for Rollins, who has a strained groin and is probably headed to the DL. He's 6 for 17 against Niese with 2 doubles, so this seems like the guy he could get it off of.
Game 3: Mike Pelfrey (6-10, 4.61 ERA) vs. Kyle Kendrick (7-5, 3.24 ERA)
If there's one opposing pitcher I love to see that we're facing, it just may be Mike Pelfrey. Not only does it mean we get to play the loser Mets, but it also means we're playing against a guy who has pitched just 19 innings in 4 starts against us this season and put up a 7.58 ERA. Kendrick pitched extremely well in his one start against the Mets, going 7 and giving up just 1 run on 6 hits. He's another guy that has to look out for Thole, though, as he is a .385 hitter against him. Reyes also is a .385 hitter against Kendrick with a 1.179 OPS. The reason I'm not that worried about that, though, is that he's a loser. (Also, he's on the DL. Total loser)
Prediction: Phillies 9 Mets 5
Keep an eye out for: Shane, Chase, and Ryan all hitting homers. Combined, they have a .328 average, .994 OPS, 8 home runs, and 21 RBI against Pelfrey. Hopefully they all get those homers out of the way in the first, or else I doubt he'll be in the game long enough to give them all a shot...amIright?!
Friday, August 19, 2011
Nationals Preview
Male Bag: Volume V is just below this post. Enjoy!
Game 1: Roy Oswalt (5-7, 3.84 ERA) vs. Livan Hernandez (7-11, 4.21 ERA)
My brother-in-law Jeremiah was just saying how annoying of a pitcher Livan Hernandez is. It's pretty true. Every time we play against him, I have no idea what to expect really. By the numbers, we should kill him; however, somehow it seems like he always pitches well against us. Oswalt does not have great numbers against the Nationals, specifically Laynce Nix. Perhaps because he's so confused over the spelling of this guy's first name, Oswalt has allowed Nix to go 11 for 23 against him with 3 home runs. He, Michael Morse, and Ryan Zimmerman are all dangerous to Oswalt, so this game is not exactly in the bag. Roy is 1-1 against the Nats this year with a 3.75 ERA. Hernandez is 1-1 against the Phils with a 3.12 ERA. I don't expect either pitcher to dominate, but I don't expect them to get hit around too much either.
Prediction: Phillies 5 Nationals 3
Keep an eye out for: Chase Utley. You know who's never hit a home run off of Hernandez? Chase Utley. You know when that should change? Tonight.
Game 2: Kyle Kendrick (7-5, 3.25 ERA) vs. John Lannan (8-8, 3.55 ERA)
Lannan, who has always struggled against the Phillies, continued that last weekend by giving up 7 runs in just 3 innings. Utley is a .400 career hitter against him but has struggled mightily against the Nats this season (.158 average, no extra-base hits). Kendrick will have to fight through more of my tough love for this game, because I don't want to jinx him and say that he'll do really well in this game. He has been all we could ask for and more as a 5th starter and spot-starter this season, but I still can't say that I trust him to pitch really well in this game. Ryan Zimmerman is 9 for 19 in his career against Kendrick with 6 doubles and a home run.
Prediction: Phillies 9 Nationals 6
Keep an eye out for: Wheeler and McCarthy drooling over Ibanez's numbers at Nationals Park. Then, Suckhole will go 0-for-4
Game 3: Roy Halladay (15-5, 2.53 ERA) vs. Chien-Ming Wang (2-2, 4.22 ERA)
I previewed this game last weekend only for it to not happen, so I don't have much new to say. Halladay, though, is 3-0 against the Nationals this season in 3 starts, and 11-1 in his career against them. It's hard to envision them getting to him, and, even if they can, a bad start for Halladay consists of 3 or 4 runs, and we can definitely score that many against Wang. Oh, by the way, their pitcher's last name is Wang.
Prediction: Phillies 5 Nationals 1
Keep an eye out for: back-to-back Howard and Pence home runs along with double-digit strikeouts from Halladay.
Game 1: Roy Oswalt (5-7, 3.84 ERA) vs. Livan Hernandez (7-11, 4.21 ERA)
My brother-in-law Jeremiah was just saying how annoying of a pitcher Livan Hernandez is. It's pretty true. Every time we play against him, I have no idea what to expect really. By the numbers, we should kill him; however, somehow it seems like he always pitches well against us. Oswalt does not have great numbers against the Nationals, specifically Laynce Nix. Perhaps because he's so confused over the spelling of this guy's first name, Oswalt has allowed Nix to go 11 for 23 against him with 3 home runs. He, Michael Morse, and Ryan Zimmerman are all dangerous to Oswalt, so this game is not exactly in the bag. Roy is 1-1 against the Nats this year with a 3.75 ERA. Hernandez is 1-1 against the Phils with a 3.12 ERA. I don't expect either pitcher to dominate, but I don't expect them to get hit around too much either.
Prediction: Phillies 5 Nationals 3
Keep an eye out for: Chase Utley. You know who's never hit a home run off of Hernandez? Chase Utley. You know when that should change? Tonight.
Game 2: Kyle Kendrick (7-5, 3.25 ERA) vs. John Lannan (8-8, 3.55 ERA)
Lannan, who has always struggled against the Phillies, continued that last weekend by giving up 7 runs in just 3 innings. Utley is a .400 career hitter against him but has struggled mightily against the Nats this season (.158 average, no extra-base hits). Kendrick will have to fight through more of my tough love for this game, because I don't want to jinx him and say that he'll do really well in this game. He has been all we could ask for and more as a 5th starter and spot-starter this season, but I still can't say that I trust him to pitch really well in this game. Ryan Zimmerman is 9 for 19 in his career against Kendrick with 6 doubles and a home run.
Prediction: Phillies 9 Nationals 6
Keep an eye out for: Wheeler and McCarthy drooling over Ibanez's numbers at Nationals Park. Then, Suckhole will go 0-for-4
Game 3: Roy Halladay (15-5, 2.53 ERA) vs. Chien-Ming Wang (2-2, 4.22 ERA)
I previewed this game last weekend only for it to not happen, so I don't have much new to say. Halladay, though, is 3-0 against the Nationals this season in 3 starts, and 11-1 in his career against them. It's hard to envision them getting to him, and, even if they can, a bad start for Halladay consists of 3 or 4 runs, and we can definitely score that many against Wang. Oh, by the way, their pitcher's last name is Wang.
Prediction: Phillies 5 Nationals 1
Keep an eye out for: back-to-back Howard and Pence home runs along with double-digit strikeouts from Halladay.
Male Bag: Volume V
Email me your questions or comments at PhilsHighHopes@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @PhilsHighHopes so you can end up in the next edition of the Male Bag! Also, give some ideas for how to celebrate 5,000 page views. We're over 4,000, and I have basically no clue at this point how to revel in this accomplishment together.
We've now managed to get up to the 5th edition of the Male Bag, which is pretty unbelievable to me. Not only unbelievable that we've made it this far in the season, but also unbelievable that I am getting enough questions and comments to put together a Male Bag. It was just a few months ago that I had to make up half the questions for the Male Bag. Now, we're almost at the point where I can include peoples' names with the questions or comments because they are coming from so many different readers. But let's not get too hasty, there will still end up being something like 6 things from one person in this Male Bag probably. I'm also at a point where I'm actually leaving out comments that I once planned on including! But that's mostly because people (*ahem*) are complaining that my posts are too long. With that said, let's get started with a little Hunter Pence talk
Congrats on Pence and your World Series win
It's like we got him for a sixpence.
Is the Pence deal gonna be worth it?
Rather than separate these 3 comments/questions, I'll just address them all at once. First of all, we should absolutely win the World Series with Hunter Pence. It creates much more of a "complete team" that every city wants right now. We are 14-3 since his arrival, and we're 13-1 when he gets a hit. He's batting .328 with a .400 on base percentage. Ryan Howard has benefited, and our pitchers have benefited because they don't need to throw a shutout every game. The "sixpence" comment came from Cheese, and it was the best comment I got from anyone. For the impact he has had, it feels like we've given up nothing at all. And as for whether or not it will be worth it? Well, our record speaks for itself. But speaking of speaking, Hunter Pence is hilarious. It's worth it just for a quote like "Good game, let's go eat." As if that weren't enough, though, Jayson Stark recently wrote a little about how the Phillies coaches are reacting to him. Charlie Manuel apparently hesitates to give him a high-five. "Stick out your arm, and he might break it." And Pete Mackanin, our bench coach, jokingly suggested that he start getting some bloop singles. Pence's reply: "Pete, I don't do that. I melt faces." Yes. The deal is worth it.
How can we win the World Series with one ace, a 47-year-old, a wife beater, and a fat farmer but not with 3 aces?
The short answer is: we can't. We absolutely should win the World Series this year, and we are currently the favorites with 8/5 odds to win it (luckily I made my bet when we were 5/2. Not that I gamble). It is crazy to think about the starters we had in '08 as compared to our current rotation. The big difference is how sure we were of the 8th and 9th inning back then. In '08, if we could get through 7 innings, we'd win. Now, we can definitely get through 7 innings, and then we should win. Although that's a very slight difference, it's actually a very huge difference. And speaking of...
Any chance '08 Lidge is coming
I would say there's no way. There's just a different feeling when he comes to the mound. In 2008, I could go to sleep knowing we won. Except I watched because it was awesome. Now, I don't want to watch because I'm uncomfortable, but I need to see what happens because it could truly be anything. He might strike out the side on some of those famous disappearing sliders, or he might walk 2 guys, hit someone, and give up a grand slam. In '08, he barely even let people on base. Now, any base runner is almost guaranteed to be on 2nd because he is so incredibly predictable and slow to the plate. While I forgive him for '09, it's impossible to forget '09 and get this painful feeling out of my head as he comes out of the bullpen.
Will one of the Phillies probably win the Cy Young?
I would hope so. Even if one pitcher is better than Halladay, Hamels, and Lee, you kind of have to feel like one of them gets it anyway just to be fair to the organization. I don't see it being too much of an issue, though. Halladay leads the NL with 15 wins. Lee and Hamels are tied for 4th with 13. Lee is second in strikeouts, Halladay 4th, and Hamels 6th. Halladay has the 4th-lowest ERA, Hamels the 6th, and Lee the 7th. Hamels has the lowest WHIP, Halladay 4th, Lee 5th. The quality start percentages are 80% for Hamels and Halladay and 72% for Lee. Strikeout-to-walk ratio? Halladay first, Lee second, Hamels third. Halladay, Hamels, and Lee are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for average game score as well. They're all in the top 12 for strikeouts per nine innings. They are also all in the top 5 in opponents' on base percentage. Cliff Lee, the least likely of the 3 to win the Cy Young in my opinion, has 5 shutouts this season. With Hamels missing a start and his immediate future kind of unsure, I would say that Halladay has the best shot of winning it again this season. He'll have 20+ wins and somewhere around a 2.50 ERA. Lee is trying to put together a June-like August, but those are really his only great months. This is pretty crazy: Without June and August, he's 5-7 with a 4.22 ERA. In June and August, though, he's 8-0 with a 0.41 ERA. While I think it's Halladay's award to lose with Hamels a close second, Lee can steal it by keeping up this August and putting together a respectable September.
I'm going to the Phillies game today and, of course, Kendrick is pitching. I feel guilty because I'm more excited to see Tim Lincecum and Brian Wilson than I am to see our own pitchers. Is that bad?
This question obviously came from a few weeks ago when the Giants were in town. This question, though, can still apply to games that remain in our schedule. There are times when you will see a matchup like this one, and it is very clear who the more exciting starting pitcher is. I don't think it's something you have to feel bad about. You go in thinking that the Phils are going to lose, and there's nothing wrong with that because it's baseball. Teams lose all the time. But, on the other hand, it's baseball, and teams lose all the time. So while on paper this game is easy to pick, sometimes Kyle Kendrick can surprise people and sometimes Tim Lincecum can struggle or Brian Wilson can blow a save. If you go in expecting greatness from the other side, you are either excited to see that greatness, or pleasantly surprised that the Phillies beat them. That's as close to a win-win as it gets.
Where did the phrase "Texas Leaguer" come from?
If you were unaware, a "Texas Leaguer" is a bloop single basically. According to some sweet glossary of baseball that Wikipedia has, the term Texas Leaguer comes from a guy named Ollie Pickering, who was a popular player in the Texas League (one of the minor leagues). When he made his major league debut, he had 7 straight bloop singles, and one of the announcers said, "Well, there goes Pickering with another one of those 'Texas Leaguers.'"
Just saw Charlie Manuel's win-loss record on TV. Does a manager still get the decision if ejected?
This was a tough one to find a straight answer for, so I am kind of making an assumption here. That assumption is based on baseball-reference.com, though, so it's gotta be right. Charlie Manuel has been ejected more than 30 times since taking over as Phillies manager. If you look at his managerial record on baseball-reference, though, it shows him coaching 162 games each season and giving him a win or a loss for each one of those. Even games where he's gotten ejected in the 2nd inning. So, yes, a manager does still get the decision if ejected.
Pat the Bat
This comment was via Twitter in response to us totally sucking at getting a hit prior to obtaining Hunter Pence. It would be sweet to get Burrell back for a nice little playoff run. I'm not suggesting he would actually play, but he would be a nice guy to have on a roster come World Series DH time. At this point, we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves, but, at the same time, we should be prepared for needing a DH in an AL ballpark. If Ben Francisco steps into the batter's box in the World Series, I fear we've already lost. Right now, Ibanez (ugh) makes the most sense as a DH, since we clearly have some weird obsession with having him in the lineup even though he can't play defense to save his life. Mayberry would also be a good choice, especially since he's been pretty good as a pinch hitter this season, but he should really be playing outfield instead of Ibanez. It would also be cool if we could pick up Jim Thome to be our DH. He's one of Philadelphia's all-time favorites, and it would be nice to get him a World Series ring to go along with the 600th career home run he recently hit.
I hate mosquitoes. Do they serve any purpose aside from making people mad? Seriously, I want to know.
This is another question that came from Twitter, and I'll admit that it wasn't actually directed at me. It was, however, posted by the Iron Pigs' Justin De Fratus, a 23-year-old relief pitcher. I responded to this question with the following:
@JustinDeFratus mosquitoes store dino DNA so John Hammond can someday create Jurassic Park #alltimebackfires
De Fratus hit me back with a "hahaha great answer." Am I including this question, answer, and response to prove to you guys that I'm funny? Not at all, you already know that. I'm just including it to show you that I'm now basically a huge deal throughout the Phillies farm system (I don't think it's too much to take that away from this exchange)
Ummm didn't you sorta kinda most definitely do the same thing Rich Rodriguez did with your taking of your talents down to no beach (get it, Virginia, no beach, LeBron, ay oh) and leaving your national regional freshman league champion contending team, at the school you went to?
If you can decipher what this says, I think it's supposed to be a shot at me, and I think it's from my former sociology student/assistant coach. Let me first say, I don't regret giving you a 2 out of 55 on that paper. Let me next say, no. This is not the same thing. Rich Rodriguez was only at West Virginia to coach football. He wasn't a professor there as well. And he moved solely to coach football still. I moved from being a teacher/basketball coach to a place where I would only be teaching (at least at the time of accepting the job. That could change). Also, I may or may not have gotten treated like garbage teaching at my alma mater. While Rich Rod and I were both worshiped by the public, I think he also got respect from his bosses. Not saying I didn't, but maybe I didn't. And, even though I did create a complete powerhouse freshman team from a bunch of majokes who couldn't figure out how to run "Special" (one of the easiest plays in history) or box somebody out, freshman basketball doesn't actually compete for any type of title. They just compete for spots on varsity next year. (Good luck guys! I don't really think you're complete majokes. And you can totally run Special. At least some of you)
Some other differences between RichRod and me: he never came up with an awesome play called "Ronaldinho," I doubt he ever yelled at his team on the bus about being racist (it's West Virginia, come on), he never rejected the crap out of Shane Mac in the first practice of the season, and he never gave the varsity team that had never won anything before the proper attitude to propel them into the district playoffs. I guess he couldn't have really done that last one in his position, but the point is I'm better than him. (Added bonus: he didn't just have a painful video chat with 3 of his former players debating why Raul Ibanez is the worst player on the Phillies. More on that later)
Do you still have to put up with Thomas and Christopher when you watch the Phils down there?
Here in Virginia, I have the luxury, through MLB.TV, of getting to choose to listen to either broadcast. Like some kind of masochist, though, I opt for the Phillies trainwreck of a broadcast team every game. Why would I do this? I complain about them so much! Surely I'm crazy! Well, yes, that's true. I do it because of how much I hate them and, if you know me, how much I love complaining. Until things get better and I can actually enjoy listening to the Phillies broadcast team (#FranzkeLA2012), I love getting more and more things to complain about. It's fun to hate them. Don't get me wrong, it will be much more fun to love people who are good, but, for now, it's hilarious and sickly enjoyable to hate everything about Thomas and Christopher.
Do we really need a Southwest Scouting Report on our own pitchers like we don't know them?
Such a good question. Honestly, aren't they going to show the same thing every game? Thirty-five times a year I get to hear Thomas McCarthy read every word of the same graphic about Roy Halladay? Here's your scouting report: He's the best. Now there's no real reason to give us that for every start for 6 months. I can't say it's necessarily a "bad" thing, but it's another thing to complain about with those guys. The main thing that's annoying about it is just that they need to talk about it every game as if this is news. "Hey guys! Cole Hamels has a great change-up! Still!" At least, though, it's not as bad as the stupid "Keys to the Game" that Christopher Wheeler comes up with. "Win the series" is not a "key" to any game. That's just what you want to do. "Hot day" is not a key to the game. Yes, it will affect the game, but how? The key on a hot day might be "Work the count, get starting pitcher tired." Just telling me a weather forecast is something I could do by sticking my head out the window. "Playoff atmosphere." Just shut up Christopher Wheeler. Get a job.
What commentary did Thomas do before Harry died?
Thomas McCarthy was the play-by-play announcer for the Trenton Thunder for 6 seasons before joining the Phillies in 2001 to do radio play-by-play. He then left in 2005 to join the Mets broadcast team. Then he came back after the 2007 season (can you say "bandwagon?") and was the play-by-play guy for a few innings while Harry was on the radio until Harry passed. And he's been horrible the entire time. He also does St Joe's basketball games. He's done other stuff, too, I just don't care enough about him to mention it.
Why is it called "barbecue sauce?"
Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, obviously it's because you put it on stuff that you barbecue, but what does that word even mean? I don't know. Can we consult someone else on these types of questions?
Who grounded into more double plays - Valdez or Pedro Feliz?
Valdez has now played a key role for the Phillies in each of his 2 seasons here. Replacing Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley in 2 consecutive years is not exactly an enviable task. While Wilson Valdez has done a great job of that, not to mention his stellar pitching, it's also painful how often he grounds into double plays. Last year, he grounded into 20 of them, and he has 7 this season. As a Philly, he has grounded into a double play about once every 20 at bats. Pedro Feliz, who drove in the winning run of the 2008 World Series (sometimes we forget that), also became a bit notorious for this; however, he grounded into just 26 in 2 seasons with the Phillies. And he was essentially an everyday player. That comes out to about one every 38 at bats or so. Because you're wondering, the record for GIDP in a season is 36, set by Jim Rice in 1984. In 657 at bats that season, he grounded into a double play about once every 18 at bats. Valdez was actually worse than that last season, grounding into a double play once every 16.65 at bats. To Feliz's credit, though, he did ground into 1 double play every 15 at bats in the 2009 playoffs. And was just generally awful at the plate.
I just fired up my grill...time to retire the Ibanez jersey.
It's almost like Ibanez is trying to make me like him this game. Funny how it's not working.
Wow. He is the definition of suck.
A lot of you guys agree with me on the way I feel about Raul Ibanez, and I love that. It's nice to have people to share that hatred with. He's awful, and generally him doing something good is a step back in the long run of the Phillies organization. Not everyone agrees with me, though, and it may actually be more fun to respond to the people sending me hate mail out there because I get to make them look even dumber by proving them wrong in the public forum known as this blog.
Raul is not as bad as you think.
Still booing Raul you poopface?
He's clutch, almost as clutch as Mayberry.
And, my personal favorite:
I'm tired of you trashing Ibanez. I'm fed up with it. I have seen what you have said, and you are so wrong. He is the 2nd best player on the Phillies, and today he had 2 home runs and a double to win the game. So there you go. Ibanez is amazing. (for reading purposes, the previous statement was heavily edited for grammar)
So I realize that some people out there are still holding on to the unbelievable first half of 2009 that Raul Ibanez had. And why not? He was amazing. In April and May, Raul hit .332 with 17 home runs and 46 RBI along with a 1.078 OPS. He began struggling the first half of June, then missed about 3 or 4 weeks with an injury. He was selected for the All-Star Game and was overall a great replacement for Pat Burrell. After his return from that injury, though, here is what he did for the rest of that season: .232 average, 12 home runs, 33 RBI, .772 OPS. That's a very significant drop-off. And those post-injury numbers account for exactly half of his 500 at bats that season. If you throw out those first 250 at bats and peoples' memories of them, Ibanez has been our everyday leftfielder, and has batted .253 with a .758 OPS. I wouldn't even refer to that as "good." It's certainly not "2nd best player on the Phillies." And using his numbers over 2+ years is doing you a favor. Let's look at how "2nd best" he is this season. He has the 10th best batting average of anyone who has played 50 games for us this season, just nudging out Ross Gload (by a couple ten-thousandths of a point), Ben Francisco (whose existence we all but ignore now), and Michael Martinez (who got a lot better once he started playing). He is 2nd on the team in home runs and RBI, but who else would be? In the 5th spot in the order, you should be 2nd in those things. We didn't have a consistent 3rd hitter until June basically, and we didn't get a real 5th batter until the end of July. Pence has 73 RBI this season, and most of those were with the God-awful Astros who can barely win a game and don't have a single other player in their lineup that anyone's ever heard of other than 51-year-old Carlos Lee. One of the stats that is becoming more telling of how good someone is at hitting is OPS. Ibanez ranks 8th on the Phillies of people who have played 50 or more games. And he's behind Mayberry and Brown, his two should-be replacements. Mayberry is actually 3rd in OPS behind just Victorino and Howard. So if you're suggesting that Ibanez is the 2nd best left fielder on the Phillies, I could see that argument. Except not even really that. Because he's statistically the worst fielder in the National League. Not left fielder. Not outfielder. Fielder. And 2nd worst in all of baseball behind 3rd baseman Mark Reynolds of the Orioles. Don't believe me? Check out this website, and sort by either UZR or UZR/150. Both will tell you the same thing: Ibanez is a majoke of an outfielder. What is UZR exactly? It's pretty complicated, but it basically tells you how many plays a fielder will make compared to how many a competent fielder would make. A good UZR is a positive number, meaning you're above average. Polanco has a 9.6, Victorino has a 6.5. Raoops has a -18.8. The next-worst Philly? Notoriously bad first baseman Ryan Howard, with a -4.6. The next-worst NL player is a -13.5. That's a huge gap. And this is for ANY FIELDER. The next-worst outfielder is -10.7. It's unbelievable! He's remarkably bad. Like, really really bad. You think I complain to much? I think everyone complains too little. And he's also dead last in the NL (2nd to last in baseball to Adam Dunn) in WAR - wins above replacement. His WAR is -1.4. My understanding of that is, if we replaced Suckhole with an average left fielder, we'd have won 1.4 more games by now. It seems insignificant, but it's not. There are only 11 players in all of baseball with a negative WAR. I can't stress this enough: RAUL IBANEZ IS TERRIBLE.
And saying that he's clutch? Puh! First of all, I'm not sure that clutch even exists, but that's an argument for another time. According to baseball-reference.com, clutch can be a few things. With 2 outs, runners in scoring position, he bats .242. In "Late & Close" situations (7th inning or later, batting team is tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least one deck), he bats .173. In a tie game, he has a .191 batting average. Within 1 run: .221; within 2 runs: .221; within 3 runs: .216; within 4 runs: .226. Only when the game has a margin of more than 4 runs does Raul do anything good (a .321 average). When we're ahead, he is batting .269. When we're behind? Just .230. He's atrocious as it is with a .238 average, but, give him a big spot, and he's even worse! Clutch? Get a job.
Please, please, PLEASE argue with me more about Ibanez's value to this team. You can tell me absolutely nothing that will convince me he's better than Mayberry, Brown, or Richie Ashburn's corpse at this point. I charge the Philly fans to come up with a new form of booing, so we can drown out the morons who are yelling Rauuuul trying to encourage that waste of money to remain on the field. If there were a speck of hair on his body, I'd set him on fire. Aaaannnd there it is. I've officially gone too far.
What the crap is "The Chase" for the NASCAR Spring Cup or whatever?
Confession time: This is my own question. And it is one question in my life that I do NOT want the answer to. I get so tired of hearing about this "chase" they speak of, but boy could I not care less to find out what it is.
Are the Phillies going to lose today?
No.
We've now managed to get up to the 5th edition of the Male Bag, which is pretty unbelievable to me. Not only unbelievable that we've made it this far in the season, but also unbelievable that I am getting enough questions and comments to put together a Male Bag. It was just a few months ago that I had to make up half the questions for the Male Bag. Now, we're almost at the point where I can include peoples' names with the questions or comments because they are coming from so many different readers. But let's not get too hasty, there will still end up being something like 6 things from one person in this Male Bag probably. I'm also at a point where I'm actually leaving out comments that I once planned on including! But that's mostly because people (*ahem*) are complaining that my posts are too long. With that said, let's get started with a little Hunter Pence talk
Congrats on Pence and your World Series win
It's like we got him for a sixpence.
Is the Pence deal gonna be worth it?
Rather than separate these 3 comments/questions, I'll just address them all at once. First of all, we should absolutely win the World Series with Hunter Pence. It creates much more of a "complete team" that every city wants right now. We are 14-3 since his arrival, and we're 13-1 when he gets a hit. He's batting .328 with a .400 on base percentage. Ryan Howard has benefited, and our pitchers have benefited because they don't need to throw a shutout every game. The "sixpence" comment came from Cheese, and it was the best comment I got from anyone. For the impact he has had, it feels like we've given up nothing at all. And as for whether or not it will be worth it? Well, our record speaks for itself. But speaking of speaking, Hunter Pence is hilarious. It's worth it just for a quote like "Good game, let's go eat." As if that weren't enough, though, Jayson Stark recently wrote a little about how the Phillies coaches are reacting to him. Charlie Manuel apparently hesitates to give him a high-five. "Stick out your arm, and he might break it." And Pete Mackanin, our bench coach, jokingly suggested that he start getting some bloop singles. Pence's reply: "Pete, I don't do that. I melt faces." Yes. The deal is worth it.
How can we win the World Series with one ace, a 47-year-old, a wife beater, and a fat farmer but not with 3 aces?
The short answer is: we can't. We absolutely should win the World Series this year, and we are currently the favorites with 8/5 odds to win it (luckily I made my bet when we were 5/2. Not that I gamble). It is crazy to think about the starters we had in '08 as compared to our current rotation. The big difference is how sure we were of the 8th and 9th inning back then. In '08, if we could get through 7 innings, we'd win. Now, we can definitely get through 7 innings, and then we should win. Although that's a very slight difference, it's actually a very huge difference. And speaking of...
Any chance '08 Lidge is coming
I would say there's no way. There's just a different feeling when he comes to the mound. In 2008, I could go to sleep knowing we won. Except I watched because it was awesome. Now, I don't want to watch because I'm uncomfortable, but I need to see what happens because it could truly be anything. He might strike out the side on some of those famous disappearing sliders, or he might walk 2 guys, hit someone, and give up a grand slam. In '08, he barely even let people on base. Now, any base runner is almost guaranteed to be on 2nd because he is so incredibly predictable and slow to the plate. While I forgive him for '09, it's impossible to forget '09 and get this painful feeling out of my head as he comes out of the bullpen.
Will one of the Phillies probably win the Cy Young?
I would hope so. Even if one pitcher is better than Halladay, Hamels, and Lee, you kind of have to feel like one of them gets it anyway just to be fair to the organization. I don't see it being too much of an issue, though. Halladay leads the NL with 15 wins. Lee and Hamels are tied for 4th with 13. Lee is second in strikeouts, Halladay 4th, and Hamels 6th. Halladay has the 4th-lowest ERA, Hamels the 6th, and Lee the 7th. Hamels has the lowest WHIP, Halladay 4th, Lee 5th. The quality start percentages are 80% for Hamels and Halladay and 72% for Lee. Strikeout-to-walk ratio? Halladay first, Lee second, Hamels third. Halladay, Hamels, and Lee are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for average game score as well. They're all in the top 12 for strikeouts per nine innings. They are also all in the top 5 in opponents' on base percentage. Cliff Lee, the least likely of the 3 to win the Cy Young in my opinion, has 5 shutouts this season. With Hamels missing a start and his immediate future kind of unsure, I would say that Halladay has the best shot of winning it again this season. He'll have 20+ wins and somewhere around a 2.50 ERA. Lee is trying to put together a June-like August, but those are really his only great months. This is pretty crazy: Without June and August, he's 5-7 with a 4.22 ERA. In June and August, though, he's 8-0 with a 0.41 ERA. While I think it's Halladay's award to lose with Hamels a close second, Lee can steal it by keeping up this August and putting together a respectable September.
I'm going to the Phillies game today and, of course, Kendrick is pitching. I feel guilty because I'm more excited to see Tim Lincecum and Brian Wilson than I am to see our own pitchers. Is that bad?
This question obviously came from a few weeks ago when the Giants were in town. This question, though, can still apply to games that remain in our schedule. There are times when you will see a matchup like this one, and it is very clear who the more exciting starting pitcher is. I don't think it's something you have to feel bad about. You go in thinking that the Phils are going to lose, and there's nothing wrong with that because it's baseball. Teams lose all the time. But, on the other hand, it's baseball, and teams lose all the time. So while on paper this game is easy to pick, sometimes Kyle Kendrick can surprise people and sometimes Tim Lincecum can struggle or Brian Wilson can blow a save. If you go in expecting greatness from the other side, you are either excited to see that greatness, or pleasantly surprised that the Phillies beat them. That's as close to a win-win as it gets.
Where did the phrase "Texas Leaguer" come from?
If you were unaware, a "Texas Leaguer" is a bloop single basically. According to some sweet glossary of baseball that Wikipedia has, the term Texas Leaguer comes from a guy named Ollie Pickering, who was a popular player in the Texas League (one of the minor leagues). When he made his major league debut, he had 7 straight bloop singles, and one of the announcers said, "Well, there goes Pickering with another one of those 'Texas Leaguers.'"
Just saw Charlie Manuel's win-loss record on TV. Does a manager still get the decision if ejected?
This was a tough one to find a straight answer for, so I am kind of making an assumption here. That assumption is based on baseball-reference.com, though, so it's gotta be right. Charlie Manuel has been ejected more than 30 times since taking over as Phillies manager. If you look at his managerial record on baseball-reference, though, it shows him coaching 162 games each season and giving him a win or a loss for each one of those. Even games where he's gotten ejected in the 2nd inning. So, yes, a manager does still get the decision if ejected.
Pat the Bat
This comment was via Twitter in response to us totally sucking at getting a hit prior to obtaining Hunter Pence. It would be sweet to get Burrell back for a nice little playoff run. I'm not suggesting he would actually play, but he would be a nice guy to have on a roster come World Series DH time. At this point, we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves, but, at the same time, we should be prepared for needing a DH in an AL ballpark. If Ben Francisco steps into the batter's box in the World Series, I fear we've already lost. Right now, Ibanez (ugh) makes the most sense as a DH, since we clearly have some weird obsession with having him in the lineup even though he can't play defense to save his life. Mayberry would also be a good choice, especially since he's been pretty good as a pinch hitter this season, but he should really be playing outfield instead of Ibanez. It would also be cool if we could pick up Jim Thome to be our DH. He's one of Philadelphia's all-time favorites, and it would be nice to get him a World Series ring to go along with the 600th career home run he recently hit.
I hate mosquitoes. Do they serve any purpose aside from making people mad? Seriously, I want to know.
This is another question that came from Twitter, and I'll admit that it wasn't actually directed at me. It was, however, posted by the Iron Pigs' Justin De Fratus, a 23-year-old relief pitcher. I responded to this question with the following:
@JustinDeFratus mosquitoes store dino DNA so John Hammond can someday create Jurassic Park #alltimebackfires
De Fratus hit me back with a "hahaha great answer." Am I including this question, answer, and response to prove to you guys that I'm funny? Not at all, you already know that. I'm just including it to show you that I'm now basically a huge deal throughout the Phillies farm system (I don't think it's too much to take that away from this exchange)
Ummm didn't you sorta kinda most definitely do the same thing Rich Rodriguez did with your taking of your talents down to no beach (get it, Virginia, no beach, LeBron, ay oh) and leaving your national regional freshman league champion contending team, at the school you went to?
If you can decipher what this says, I think it's supposed to be a shot at me, and I think it's from my former sociology student/assistant coach. Let me first say, I don't regret giving you a 2 out of 55 on that paper. Let me next say, no. This is not the same thing. Rich Rodriguez was only at West Virginia to coach football. He wasn't a professor there as well. And he moved solely to coach football still. I moved from being a teacher/basketball coach to a place where I would only be teaching (at least at the time of accepting the job. That could change). Also, I may or may not have gotten treated like garbage teaching at my alma mater. While Rich Rod and I were both worshiped by the public, I think he also got respect from his bosses. Not saying I didn't, but maybe I didn't. And, even though I did create a complete powerhouse freshman team from a bunch of majokes who couldn't figure out how to run "Special" (one of the easiest plays in history) or box somebody out, freshman basketball doesn't actually compete for any type of title. They just compete for spots on varsity next year. (Good luck guys! I don't really think you're complete majokes. And you can totally run Special. At least some of you)
Some other differences between RichRod and me: he never came up with an awesome play called "Ronaldinho," I doubt he ever yelled at his team on the bus about being racist (it's West Virginia, come on), he never rejected the crap out of Shane Mac in the first practice of the season, and he never gave the varsity team that had never won anything before the proper attitude to propel them into the district playoffs. I guess he couldn't have really done that last one in his position, but the point is I'm better than him. (Added bonus: he didn't just have a painful video chat with 3 of his former players debating why Raul Ibanez is the worst player on the Phillies. More on that later)
Do you still have to put up with Thomas and Christopher when you watch the Phils down there?
Here in Virginia, I have the luxury, through MLB.TV, of getting to choose to listen to either broadcast. Like some kind of masochist, though, I opt for the Phillies trainwreck of a broadcast team every game. Why would I do this? I complain about them so much! Surely I'm crazy! Well, yes, that's true. I do it because of how much I hate them and, if you know me, how much I love complaining. Until things get better and I can actually enjoy listening to the Phillies broadcast team (#FranzkeLA2012), I love getting more and more things to complain about. It's fun to hate them. Don't get me wrong, it will be much more fun to love people who are good, but, for now, it's hilarious and sickly enjoyable to hate everything about Thomas and Christopher.
Do we really need a Southwest Scouting Report on our own pitchers like we don't know them?
Such a good question. Honestly, aren't they going to show the same thing every game? Thirty-five times a year I get to hear Thomas McCarthy read every word of the same graphic about Roy Halladay? Here's your scouting report: He's the best. Now there's no real reason to give us that for every start for 6 months. I can't say it's necessarily a "bad" thing, but it's another thing to complain about with those guys. The main thing that's annoying about it is just that they need to talk about it every game as if this is news. "Hey guys! Cole Hamels has a great change-up! Still!" At least, though, it's not as bad as the stupid "Keys to the Game" that Christopher Wheeler comes up with. "Win the series" is not a "key" to any game. That's just what you want to do. "Hot day" is not a key to the game. Yes, it will affect the game, but how? The key on a hot day might be "Work the count, get starting pitcher tired." Just telling me a weather forecast is something I could do by sticking my head out the window. "Playoff atmosphere." Just shut up Christopher Wheeler. Get a job.
What commentary did Thomas do before Harry died?
Thomas McCarthy was the play-by-play announcer for the Trenton Thunder for 6 seasons before joining the Phillies in 2001 to do radio play-by-play. He then left in 2005 to join the Mets broadcast team. Then he came back after the 2007 season (can you say "bandwagon?") and was the play-by-play guy for a few innings while Harry was on the radio until Harry passed. And he's been horrible the entire time. He also does St Joe's basketball games. He's done other stuff, too, I just don't care enough about him to mention it.
Why is it called "barbecue sauce?"
Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, obviously it's because you put it on stuff that you barbecue, but what does that word even mean? I don't know. Can we consult someone else on these types of questions?
Who grounded into more double plays - Valdez or Pedro Feliz?
Valdez has now played a key role for the Phillies in each of his 2 seasons here. Replacing Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley in 2 consecutive years is not exactly an enviable task. While Wilson Valdez has done a great job of that, not to mention his stellar pitching, it's also painful how often he grounds into double plays. Last year, he grounded into 20 of them, and he has 7 this season. As a Philly, he has grounded into a double play about once every 20 at bats. Pedro Feliz, who drove in the winning run of the 2008 World Series (sometimes we forget that), also became a bit notorious for this; however, he grounded into just 26 in 2 seasons with the Phillies. And he was essentially an everyday player. That comes out to about one every 38 at bats or so. Because you're wondering, the record for GIDP in a season is 36, set by Jim Rice in 1984. In 657 at bats that season, he grounded into a double play about once every 18 at bats. Valdez was actually worse than that last season, grounding into a double play once every 16.65 at bats. To Feliz's credit, though, he did ground into 1 double play every 15 at bats in the 2009 playoffs. And was just generally awful at the plate.
I just fired up my grill...time to retire the Ibanez jersey.
It's almost like Ibanez is trying to make me like him this game. Funny how it's not working.
Wow. He is the definition of suck.
A lot of you guys agree with me on the way I feel about Raul Ibanez, and I love that. It's nice to have people to share that hatred with. He's awful, and generally him doing something good is a step back in the long run of the Phillies organization. Not everyone agrees with me, though, and it may actually be more fun to respond to the people sending me hate mail out there because I get to make them look even dumber by proving them wrong in the public forum known as this blog.
Raul is not as bad as you think.
Still booing Raul you poopface?
He's clutch, almost as clutch as Mayberry.
And, my personal favorite:
I'm tired of you trashing Ibanez. I'm fed up with it. I have seen what you have said, and you are so wrong. He is the 2nd best player on the Phillies, and today he had 2 home runs and a double to win the game. So there you go. Ibanez is amazing. (for reading purposes, the previous statement was heavily edited for grammar)
So I realize that some people out there are still holding on to the unbelievable first half of 2009 that Raul Ibanez had. And why not? He was amazing. In April and May, Raul hit .332 with 17 home runs and 46 RBI along with a 1.078 OPS. He began struggling the first half of June, then missed about 3 or 4 weeks with an injury. He was selected for the All-Star Game and was overall a great replacement for Pat Burrell. After his return from that injury, though, here is what he did for the rest of that season: .232 average, 12 home runs, 33 RBI, .772 OPS. That's a very significant drop-off. And those post-injury numbers account for exactly half of his 500 at bats that season. If you throw out those first 250 at bats and peoples' memories of them, Ibanez has been our everyday leftfielder, and has batted .253 with a .758 OPS. I wouldn't even refer to that as "good." It's certainly not "2nd best player on the Phillies." And using his numbers over 2+ years is doing you a favor. Let's look at how "2nd best" he is this season. He has the 10th best batting average of anyone who has played 50 games for us this season, just nudging out Ross Gload (by a couple ten-thousandths of a point), Ben Francisco (whose existence we all but ignore now), and Michael Martinez (who got a lot better once he started playing). He is 2nd on the team in home runs and RBI, but who else would be? In the 5th spot in the order, you should be 2nd in those things. We didn't have a consistent 3rd hitter until June basically, and we didn't get a real 5th batter until the end of July. Pence has 73 RBI this season, and most of those were with the God-awful Astros who can barely win a game and don't have a single other player in their lineup that anyone's ever heard of other than 51-year-old Carlos Lee. One of the stats that is becoming more telling of how good someone is at hitting is OPS. Ibanez ranks 8th on the Phillies of people who have played 50 or more games. And he's behind Mayberry and Brown, his two should-be replacements. Mayberry is actually 3rd in OPS behind just Victorino and Howard. So if you're suggesting that Ibanez is the 2nd best left fielder on the Phillies, I could see that argument. Except not even really that. Because he's statistically the worst fielder in the National League. Not left fielder. Not outfielder. Fielder. And 2nd worst in all of baseball behind 3rd baseman Mark Reynolds of the Orioles. Don't believe me? Check out this website, and sort by either UZR or UZR/150. Both will tell you the same thing: Ibanez is a majoke of an outfielder. What is UZR exactly? It's pretty complicated, but it basically tells you how many plays a fielder will make compared to how many a competent fielder would make. A good UZR is a positive number, meaning you're above average. Polanco has a 9.6, Victorino has a 6.5. Raoops has a -18.8. The next-worst Philly? Notoriously bad first baseman Ryan Howard, with a -4.6. The next-worst NL player is a -13.5. That's a huge gap. And this is for ANY FIELDER. The next-worst outfielder is -10.7. It's unbelievable! He's remarkably bad. Like, really really bad. You think I complain to much? I think everyone complains too little. And he's also dead last in the NL (2nd to last in baseball to Adam Dunn) in WAR - wins above replacement. His WAR is -1.4. My understanding of that is, if we replaced Suckhole with an average left fielder, we'd have won 1.4 more games by now. It seems insignificant, but it's not. There are only 11 players in all of baseball with a negative WAR. I can't stress this enough: RAUL IBANEZ IS TERRIBLE.
And saying that he's clutch? Puh! First of all, I'm not sure that clutch even exists, but that's an argument for another time. According to baseball-reference.com, clutch can be a few things. With 2 outs, runners in scoring position, he bats .242. In "Late & Close" situations (7th inning or later, batting team is tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least one deck), he bats .173. In a tie game, he has a .191 batting average. Within 1 run: .221; within 2 runs: .221; within 3 runs: .216; within 4 runs: .226. Only when the game has a margin of more than 4 runs does Raul do anything good (a .321 average). When we're ahead, he is batting .269. When we're behind? Just .230. He's atrocious as it is with a .238 average, but, give him a big spot, and he's even worse! Clutch? Get a job.
Please, please, PLEASE argue with me more about Ibanez's value to this team. You can tell me absolutely nothing that will convince me he's better than Mayberry, Brown, or Richie Ashburn's corpse at this point. I charge the Philly fans to come up with a new form of booing, so we can drown out the morons who are yelling Rauuuul trying to encourage that waste of money to remain on the field. If there were a speck of hair on his body, I'd set him on fire. Aaaannnd there it is. I've officially gone too far.
What the crap is "The Chase" for the NASCAR Spring Cup or whatever?
Confession time: This is my own question. And it is one question in my life that I do NOT want the answer to. I get so tired of hearing about this "chase" they speak of, but boy could I not care less to find out what it is.
Are the Phillies going to lose today?
No.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Diamondbags Preview: Mad Libs
Note: This preview has not been edited at all. I just typed it and posted it. Sorry
As I said in my Nationals preview, I am in California right now, making it difficult for me to provide a proper update to the blog. Little known fact: It takes me a good two hours to post something on here, and it usually involves having about 10 different tabs and multiple windows open on my Google Chrome. Due to the fact that I am on vacation, I'm not going to spend 2 hours ignoring my old roommates and updating this by looking at old box scores, linking to different websites, and analyzing pitching matchups and things like that. Instead, I'm going to let you do most of the work by doing this preview in Mad Lib form. If you don't know what Mad Libs are, your childhood was very sad. I am going to provide you with a list of "categories" I guess you could say, and then you just fill in with a word that fits in said category (usually a part of speech). You do that without looking at the actual story, and then read it for the first time filling in your own words. So, here's my short and sweet Mad Lib Diamondbags preview. (If you forget why I call them the Diamondbags, it's because you can abbreviate that to D'Bags, which is hilarious. It's all in the preview of our first series with them)
___1___: adjective
___2___: adjective
___3___: verb
___4___: verb
___5___: adjective
___6___: Phillies player
___7___: Phillies player
___8___: Phillies pitcher
___9___: adjective
___10___: adjective
___11___: verb ending in -ing
___12___: Phillies pitcher
___13___: Diamondbags pitcher
___14___: exclamation
___15___: adjective
___16___: adverb
___17___: verb
___18___: verb
___19___: Diamondbags player
___20___: adjective
___21___: number
___22___: number
___23___: body part
___24___: noun
___25___: Phillies pitcher
___26___: Diamondbags pitcher
___27___: adjective
___28___: Phillies player
___29___: number
___30___: number
___31___: verb
___32___: adjective
___33___: adjective
___34___: number
___35___: number
___36___: body part
___37___: Phillies pitcher
___38___: Diamondbags pitcher
___39___: adjective
___40___: plural noun
___41___: Phillies player
___42___: Phillies pitcher
___43___: verb ending in -ing
___44___: verb
___45___: number
___46___: number
___47___: body part
___48___: way to get on base
___49___: Phillies player
___50___: verb
After a ___1___ series with the Nationals, we are ready to host the Diamondbags. They have been playing very ___2___ recently, but I would expect us to ___3____ and ___4___ much better than them, seeing as how we are so much more ___5___ than them.
In our last series, we saw great play from ___6___ and ___7___, and hopefully that can continue. The pitching of ___8___ continued to ___9___, so one might think that that could really affect the way things turn out in this series as well.
Because of how obviously ___10___ this series will be, I want to jump right into ___11___ each game.
Game 1: ___12___ vs. ___13___
___14___! What a matchup! These two pitchers could not be more ___15___. ___16___ for the Phillies, we have always ___17___ very well against this pitcher. If you look at his last few, it's easy to see that the Phillies should ___18___ this game. Nothing will come easy in this series, especially with us having to face ___19___ at the plate. He has been ___20___ lately, so that's something to look out for.
Prediction: Phillies ___21___ Diamondbags ___22___
Keep an ___23___ out for: Charlie Manuel throwing a ___24___ at the umpire. Things could get pretty crazy in a matchup like this!
Game 2: ___25___ vs. ___26___
This should be another ___27___ game. ___28___ comes in swinging a hot bat, and he has ___29___ career at bats against this pitcher with ___30___ home runs. Will he ___31___ another in this game? I guess only time will tell. Our pitcher should be very ___32___ coming into this game because he has a ___33___ record against the Diamondbags in his career.
Prediciton: Phillies ___34___ Diamondbags ___35___
Keep an ___36___ out for:
Game 3: ___37___ vs. ___38___
This game will probably decide who wins the series since we had such ___39___ matchups in the first two ___40___. Hopefully ___41___ can get his act together and get a few hits. ___42___ has been ___43___ a lot of batters lately, so that is definitely something to look out for. If he is in control, though, the Phillies will definitely ___44___.
Prediction: Phillies ___45___ Diamondbags ___46___
Keep an ___47___ out for: a walk-off ___48___ by ___49___!
Although this post was crazy and uninformative, I'm glad you still ___50___ my blog as much as you do.
As I said in my Nationals preview, I am in California right now, making it difficult for me to provide a proper update to the blog. Little known fact: It takes me a good two hours to post something on here, and it usually involves having about 10 different tabs and multiple windows open on my Google Chrome. Due to the fact that I am on vacation, I'm not going to spend 2 hours ignoring my old roommates and updating this by looking at old box scores, linking to different websites, and analyzing pitching matchups and things like that. Instead, I'm going to let you do most of the work by doing this preview in Mad Lib form. If you don't know what Mad Libs are, your childhood was very sad. I am going to provide you with a list of "categories" I guess you could say, and then you just fill in with a word that fits in said category (usually a part of speech). You do that without looking at the actual story, and then read it for the first time filling in your own words. So, here's my short and sweet Mad Lib Diamondbags preview. (If you forget why I call them the Diamondbags, it's because you can abbreviate that to D'Bags, which is hilarious. It's all in the preview of our first series with them)
___1___: adjective
___2___: adjective
___3___: verb
___4___: verb
___5___: adjective
___6___: Phillies player
___7___: Phillies player
___8___: Phillies pitcher
___9___: adjective
___10___: adjective
___11___: verb ending in -ing
___12___: Phillies pitcher
___13___: Diamondbags pitcher
___14___: exclamation
___15___: adjective
___16___: adverb
___17___: verb
___18___: verb
___19___: Diamondbags player
___20___: adjective
___21___: number
___22___: number
___23___: body part
___24___: noun
___25___: Phillies pitcher
___26___: Diamondbags pitcher
___27___: adjective
___28___: Phillies player
___29___: number
___30___: number
___31___: verb
___32___: adjective
___33___: adjective
___34___: number
___35___: number
___36___: body part
___37___: Phillies pitcher
___38___: Diamondbags pitcher
___39___: adjective
___40___: plural noun
___41___: Phillies player
___42___: Phillies pitcher
___43___: verb ending in -ing
___44___: verb
___45___: number
___46___: number
___47___: body part
___48___: way to get on base
___49___: Phillies player
___50___: verb
After a ___1___ series with the Nationals, we are ready to host the Diamondbags. They have been playing very ___2___ recently, but I would expect us to ___3____ and ___4___ much better than them, seeing as how we are so much more ___5___ than them.
In our last series, we saw great play from ___6___ and ___7___, and hopefully that can continue. The pitching of ___8___ continued to ___9___, so one might think that that could really affect the way things turn out in this series as well.
Because of how obviously ___10___ this series will be, I want to jump right into ___11___ each game.
Game 1: ___12___ vs. ___13___
___14___! What a matchup! These two pitchers could not be more ___15___. ___16___ for the Phillies, we have always ___17___ very well against this pitcher. If you look at his last few, it's easy to see that the Phillies should ___18___ this game. Nothing will come easy in this series, especially with us having to face ___19___ at the plate. He has been ___20___ lately, so that's something to look out for.
Prediction: Phillies ___21___ Diamondbags ___22___
Keep an ___23___ out for: Charlie Manuel throwing a ___24___ at the umpire. Things could get pretty crazy in a matchup like this!
Game 2: ___25___ vs. ___26___
This should be another ___27___ game. ___28___ comes in swinging a hot bat, and he has ___29___ career at bats against this pitcher with ___30___ home runs. Will he ___31___ another in this game? I guess only time will tell. Our pitcher should be very ___32___ coming into this game because he has a ___33___ record against the Diamondbags in his career.
Prediciton: Phillies ___34___ Diamondbags ___35___
Keep an ___36___ out for:
Game 3: ___37___ vs. ___38___
This game will probably decide who wins the series since we had such ___39___ matchups in the first two ___40___. Hopefully ___41___ can get his act together and get a few hits. ___42___ has been ___43___ a lot of batters lately, so that is definitely something to look out for. If he is in control, though, the Phillies will definitely ___44___.
Prediction: Phillies ___45___ Diamondbags ___46___
Keep an ___47___ out for: a walk-off ___48___ by ___49___!
Although this post was crazy and uninformative, I'm glad you still ___50___ my blog as much as you do.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Nationals Preview: Walk-Up Songs
Reminder: follow me on Twitter @PhilsHighHopes. Email me: philshighhopes@gmail.com
Almost three quarters of the season is over with, and it seems like we almost have our complete team. With the most glaring exception of Placido Polanco, we have now gotten people back from injuries (Lidge, Oswalt), let go of people that sucked (Romero, Baez), and traded for people who are freakin' sweet (Pence).
To me, one of the most exciting parts of going to a Phillies home game is listening to the music that plays as each player comes up to bat. For the most part, this is something that is supposed to pump the person up or get them motivated in some way as they walk to the plate. While that is generally the intended purpose, different players could have different reasons for picking their walk-up song.
Now that we mostly have a lineup that we feel like we will see the rest of the season, I am going to provide each of those players with their own walk-up song for this series, our first full home series since the trade deadline. I hope it will become clear throughout this list that these are not serious suggestions for their songs; but rather, these are just songs that I have chosen that in some way symbolize each player. I don't actually think that Chase Utley should switch to a Hall & Oates song as he prepares to rip a double down the line. Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" has worked all too well for him for way too long.
Let's start with what our lineup looks like for tonight:
Jimmy Rollins - Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones
To me, this song is great at symbolizing what Jimmy does for our team. Once you start up Jimmy, we'll never stop. We are 42-11 when he scores a run this season. If you take that winning percentage and play an entire season with J-Roll scoring in every game, we would go 128-34. That's pretty good
Shane Victorino - Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler
Although Shane's pretty much always used a Bob Marley selection for his walk-up song, I think this song fits him a little better. It basically talks about someone getting a bunch of credit when it can just as easily be given to another person. If you look at these first 4 batters in our lineup, everyone has heard tons about Jimmy, Chase, and Ryan over the past few years since we started really winning. Victorino, though, has quietly been our most consistent player. He has gotten double-digit doubles, triples, home runs, and steals each of the past 3 seasons now. In 2008 and '09, our World Series years, he led the team in batting average both years. He is one of the better center fielders in baseball, receiving a Gold Glove in '08, '09, and 2010. Although he rarely gets the "sunlight on his face," he is absolutely a huge part of the success we've had.
Chase Utley - You Make My Dreams by Hall and Oates
First of all, this is an amazing song, so it fits Chase for that reason. Most of these songs, though, I have been thinking about for months now. Finding the right fit for each player is not easy to do, and Chase actually ended up being one of the toughest. I didn't want to reuse Take Me Out to the Ballgame that I used last year, despite the fact that both Chase and the song symbolize baseball. So, this song, I actually thought of about 15 minutes ago. Last night, I had an extremely vivid dream where I got to hang out with Chase Utley. His house was awesome, and I actually learned that he and I were cousins in this dream. So this song is more just a plea than anything else. Please make my dreams come true.
Ryan Howard - Protection by Massive Attack
Howard was another player that I had a tough time coming up with a song for. I feel like his season has been almost forgettable despite being among the league leaders in RBI all year. Since the arrival of Hunter Pence, though, his numbers have been much better. In the first 105 games this season, Howard was hitting .246 with 20 home runs and 78 RBI. In the 12 games since acquiring Pence, though, he is batting .304 with 5 home runs and 13 RBI. So, according to those numbers, if Pence was a Philly all year, Howard would be batting .304 with 49 home runs and 127 RBI. That's gotta be true, right? Extrapolation has never been wrong. By looking at his recent success, you can tell that Howard has definitely been embracing his new-found protection.
Hunter Pence - Pennsylvania by Dakota Jay
I can't count how many times I've seen "Pence-sylvania" puns since our trade for Hunter Pence. I think it's kind of cheesy, but it works. The song I chose here, though, is for more than just the reason of his name sounding like our state (or should I say "your state" now that I'm in VA?). The song talks about working without a break and hating your life and, therefore, wanting to come up to the great state of Pennsylvania. If that doesn't describe this season for Pence, I'm not sure what would. Another reason I chose this song is because it's by one of my best friends, country singer Dakota Jay. Check out the video, then click on this link to go buy the song on iTunes and support a great guy. Then buy some of his other songs because they're good, and I just told you to. Plus I'm going to ask him if he saw an increase in sales over the next few days, and if he doesn't, I swear I'll shut this mother down. You know we've come too far in the season for any of us to give up on this blog now. But I'll do it! Don't make me! Go! Buy the songs!
Raul Ibanez - Everything About You by Ugly Kid Joe
The chorus says "I hate everything about you." Multiple times.
Carlos Ruiz - The Sign by Ace of Base
Ok so this one is a bit of a stretch I think, but bear with me. So we have something like 12 or 13 aces in our starting rotation, and everyone knows that. But what is the one constant in that? Well, wins I guess. But other than that, it's Carlos Ruiz behind the plate. It's like he is the base of our aces. Ace of Base? Eh? Eh? Maybe? AND...get this. He calls the pitches for them. Using signs. The Sign. Yes? Now do we like this? You weren't sure at first, but now you must admit that I realllly did my homework on this one. You're welcome for that stroke of genius. Boom.
Wilson Valdez - Cast Away theme by Alan Silvestri
He looks like Wilson the Volleyball from the movie Cast Away. So this is what he gets. I could've gone with something about him pitching, but I wasn't sure how to swing that really (pun intended. Hard). Interesting fact, though: Cliff Lee has more home runs than Wilson Valdez, who has as many wins as Joe Blanton this season.
Cole Hamels - California Gurls by Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg
Hamels is freakin' obsessed with California. He's from San Diego, his nickname is Hollywood, his hair is clearly not a style developed on the East Coast, and he dominates California teams when pitching. In 5 starts against the Dodgers, Padres, and Giants this season, Hamels is 4-1 with a 0.89 ERA, and his one loss was a 2-1 game. He basically makes those players look like girls. Girls that play in California. Nice.
While that is our starting lineup for tonight, here are a few of our other bench players and they should have pumpin' from the stadium stereo as they come to the dish.
Placido Polanco - I'm In Love With A Stripper by T-Pain
This may seem inappropriate, and it pretty much is. But the reasoning behind it is much more clever than "I think Polanco goes to Delilah's a lot." Polanco has 95 hits this season, good for 5th on the team. Let's compare that to the horrible Ben Francisco, who has just 48 hits, about half of Polanco's total. The weird thing about this, though, is that Polanco has 15 extra-base hits. Francisco has 16. What can we deduce from those numbers? Polanco loooves singles.
Ben Francisco - What Have You Done For Me Lately by Janet Jackson
Speaking of Ben Francisco, why is that majoke even on our team? He was batting 7-hole-hitter-respectable .266 after the first month of the season. He had 25 hits, 4 home runs, and 18 RBI in April. Since then, he has 23 hits, 2 home runs, and 13 RBI. In 3 1/2 months. His average is down to .224. A lot of this is because he doesn't get a lot of playing time, but, seriously, why are we keeping this guy around? The best thing he did this season was get a good bounce on a would-be ground out to third base against the A's for a walk-off single.
John Mayberry - Centerfield by John Fogerty
This should come as no surprise if you've ever read this blog before, but Mayberry has been proving his worth through more than just my writing recently. He has been taking advantage of every opportunity he has, and he always seems ready to play. Today. Look at him. He can be. Centerfield.
Domonic Brown - Girlfriend by *N Sync feat. Nelly
If you listen to this song, you can kind of imagine Domonic Brown singing this to Charlie Manuel. Just replace the word "girlfriend" with "manager," and the whole time he's just totally talking about how bad Raul Ibanez sucks. You probably have to change a few more lyrics around because I don't think that Manuel's worried about his left fielder being by his side in the middle of the night, but you should be able to get the point.
Michael Martinez - Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano
You don't run into many Miguel Smiths in this world. Why, if you're from the Dominican, do you name your kid Michael instead of Miguel? Michael Martinez is a hilarious mixture of Spanish and English, much like this super annoying Christmas song.
Ross Gload - I'm a Tar Heel Born by The Marching Tar Heels
This is the fight song for the University of North Carolina, located along what is known as "Tobacco Road" in North Carolina along with a few other colleges. No, Ross Gload did not go there. But you can't tell me that this is natural. Because of this, I've given Ross the nickname "Tobacco Gload."
And, although we don't normally associate pitchers with walk-up songs, I also came up with some for our other starters.
Roy Halladay - I Can Go the Distance by Michael Bolton
At some point this season, Roy Halladay will throw a complete game shutout. He has left a few games in which he had a shutout going, but he can't seem to get through 9 innings without giving up a run. We saw it 4 times last year, so we all know that Roy can, in fact, go the distance.
Cliff Lee - Mo' Money Mo' Problems by Notorious B.I.G. feat. Puff Daddy and Ma$e
Cliff's decision to come to Philadelphia this offseason was very well-documented. People were quick to point out his willingness to take less money to come to a much sweeter team. And this year has been pretty much no problem for the Phils, specifically Lee. Five shutouts and 2 home runs? No problems here.
Roy Oswalt - Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot
Oswalt missed much of this season with back issues. That's pretty much it for that one.
Vance Worley - Surprise, Surprise by Bruce Springsteen
There hasn't been a bigger surprise this year than Worley. He saw very little action last season, and we had four aces lined up in our starting rotation as well as the usually-durable Joe Blanton. Besides that, Kyle Kendrick had real starting experience and would for sure take over if anything went awry. When two things went awry, though, Worley came in and soon became a front-runner for NL Rookie of the Year.
So if you're going to any of the games this weekend, hopefully you can expect to hear a few of those gems. And whether you're going or not, you probably want to know what to expect. So let's go
Game 1: Livan Hernandez (6-11, 4.41 ERA) vs. Cole Hamels (13-6, 2.53 ERA)
Hamels pitched against the Nats once this season, throwing a complete game. Over his career, he's seen plenty of them, going 10-3 with a 2.61 ERA. The Phils have also seen plenty of Livan Hernandez over the years, to the tune of 301 career at bats against him. Some notable numbers: Utley .353 average, Howard 4 home runs, Victorino .333 average, and Pence .400 average
Prediction: Phillies 5 Nationals 1
Keep an eye out for: Hamels doing some more campaigning for the Cy Young as he tosses another complete game against Washington.
Game 2: John Lannan (8-7, 3.56 ERA) vs. Roy Oswalt (4-7, 3.84 ERA)
John Lannan bites. This series looks like such a joke to me. Our pitchers are so good. I am still not over that. Roy Oswalt, who is the worst of them right now, gets to face John Lannan who gets hit around like a freakin' pinata (I don't know how to make that stupid thing above the "n." You know, though...a Mexican fake animal filled with candy) when he plays the Phillies. Even Raul Ibanez has a .522 career average against him. Is this a joke?
Prediction: Phillies 8 Nationals 4
Keep an eye out for: Lannan leaving in the 4th inning. He's seriously so bad. Did you read that? Raul Ibanez has good numbers against him. Raul Ibanez.
Game 3: Wang (1-2, 3.60 ERA) vs. Roy Halladay (15-4, 2.51 ERA)
I really don't want to predict a complete game shutout here because I know I'll screw it up. It really really really should happen though. I'm not predicting it, but it should definitely happen. He KILLS the Nationals (11-1, 2.21 ERA). And we should definitely win, Chien-Ming Wang totally sucks. His 3.60 ERA is a joke when it should be a majoke. He's given up 12 runs this season in 15 innings, but only 6 of them have been earned. That probably makes him really unlucky, but I'd rather interpret that as him being super lucky that those runs weren't earned. He doesn't strike many people out, and if we can put the bat on the ball, we should be able to hit him around a lot.
Prediction: Phillies 9 Nationals 1
Keep an eye out for: one majoke of a run on the last pitch of the game. The umps will call the game without there being 3 outs in the 9th because they'll be so annoyed that the Nationals decided to do something when Halladay was so close to a shutout.
For the next series: I will be in California from Saturday to Wednesday. I still hope to get a preview up while I'm there, and I should have plenty of time to write it on the plane I guess. But please don't be super disappointed if there's nothing. It is against the Diamondbags, though, and I really want to be able to talk trash on them again.
Almost three quarters of the season is over with, and it seems like we almost have our complete team. With the most glaring exception of Placido Polanco, we have now gotten people back from injuries (Lidge, Oswalt), let go of people that sucked (Romero, Baez), and traded for people who are freakin' sweet (Pence).
To me, one of the most exciting parts of going to a Phillies home game is listening to the music that plays as each player comes up to bat. For the most part, this is something that is supposed to pump the person up or get them motivated in some way as they walk to the plate. While that is generally the intended purpose, different players could have different reasons for picking their walk-up song.
Now that we mostly have a lineup that we feel like we will see the rest of the season, I am going to provide each of those players with their own walk-up song for this series, our first full home series since the trade deadline. I hope it will become clear throughout this list that these are not serious suggestions for their songs; but rather, these are just songs that I have chosen that in some way symbolize each player. I don't actually think that Chase Utley should switch to a Hall & Oates song as he prepares to rip a double down the line. Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" has worked all too well for him for way too long.
Let's start with what our lineup looks like for tonight:
Jimmy Rollins - Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones
To me, this song is great at symbolizing what Jimmy does for our team. Once you start up Jimmy, we'll never stop. We are 42-11 when he scores a run this season. If you take that winning percentage and play an entire season with J-Roll scoring in every game, we would go 128-34. That's pretty good
Shane Victorino - Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler
Although Shane's pretty much always used a Bob Marley selection for his walk-up song, I think this song fits him a little better. It basically talks about someone getting a bunch of credit when it can just as easily be given to another person. If you look at these first 4 batters in our lineup, everyone has heard tons about Jimmy, Chase, and Ryan over the past few years since we started really winning. Victorino, though, has quietly been our most consistent player. He has gotten double-digit doubles, triples, home runs, and steals each of the past 3 seasons now. In 2008 and '09, our World Series years, he led the team in batting average both years. He is one of the better center fielders in baseball, receiving a Gold Glove in '08, '09, and 2010. Although he rarely gets the "sunlight on his face," he is absolutely a huge part of the success we've had.
Chase Utley - You Make My Dreams by Hall and Oates
First of all, this is an amazing song, so it fits Chase for that reason. Most of these songs, though, I have been thinking about for months now. Finding the right fit for each player is not easy to do, and Chase actually ended up being one of the toughest. I didn't want to reuse Take Me Out to the Ballgame that I used last year, despite the fact that both Chase and the song symbolize baseball. So, this song, I actually thought of about 15 minutes ago. Last night, I had an extremely vivid dream where I got to hang out with Chase Utley. His house was awesome, and I actually learned that he and I were cousins in this dream. So this song is more just a plea than anything else. Please make my dreams come true.
Ryan Howard - Protection by Massive Attack
Howard was another player that I had a tough time coming up with a song for. I feel like his season has been almost forgettable despite being among the league leaders in RBI all year. Since the arrival of Hunter Pence, though, his numbers have been much better. In the first 105 games this season, Howard was hitting .246 with 20 home runs and 78 RBI. In the 12 games since acquiring Pence, though, he is batting .304 with 5 home runs and 13 RBI. So, according to those numbers, if Pence was a Philly all year, Howard would be batting .304 with 49 home runs and 127 RBI. That's gotta be true, right? Extrapolation has never been wrong. By looking at his recent success, you can tell that Howard has definitely been embracing his new-found protection.
Hunter Pence - Pennsylvania by Dakota Jay
I can't count how many times I've seen "Pence-sylvania" puns since our trade for Hunter Pence. I think it's kind of cheesy, but it works. The song I chose here, though, is for more than just the reason of his name sounding like our state (or should I say "your state" now that I'm in VA?). The song talks about working without a break and hating your life and, therefore, wanting to come up to the great state of Pennsylvania. If that doesn't describe this season for Pence, I'm not sure what would. Another reason I chose this song is because it's by one of my best friends, country singer Dakota Jay. Check out the video, then click on this link to go buy the song on iTunes and support a great guy. Then buy some of his other songs because they're good, and I just told you to. Plus I'm going to ask him if he saw an increase in sales over the next few days, and if he doesn't, I swear I'll shut this mother down. You know we've come too far in the season for any of us to give up on this blog now. But I'll do it! Don't make me! Go! Buy the songs!
Raul Ibanez - Everything About You by Ugly Kid Joe
The chorus says "I hate everything about you." Multiple times.
Carlos Ruiz - The Sign by Ace of Base
Ok so this one is a bit of a stretch I think, but bear with me. So we have something like 12 or 13 aces in our starting rotation, and everyone knows that. But what is the one constant in that? Well, wins I guess. But other than that, it's Carlos Ruiz behind the plate. It's like he is the base of our aces. Ace of Base? Eh? Eh? Maybe? AND...get this. He calls the pitches for them. Using signs. The Sign. Yes? Now do we like this? You weren't sure at first, but now you must admit that I realllly did my homework on this one. You're welcome for that stroke of genius. Boom.
Wilson Valdez - Cast Away theme by Alan Silvestri
He looks like Wilson the Volleyball from the movie Cast Away. So this is what he gets. I could've gone with something about him pitching, but I wasn't sure how to swing that really (pun intended. Hard). Interesting fact, though: Cliff Lee has more home runs than Wilson Valdez, who has as many wins as Joe Blanton this season.
Cole Hamels - California Gurls by Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg
Hamels is freakin' obsessed with California. He's from San Diego, his nickname is Hollywood, his hair is clearly not a style developed on the East Coast, and he dominates California teams when pitching. In 5 starts against the Dodgers, Padres, and Giants this season, Hamels is 4-1 with a 0.89 ERA, and his one loss was a 2-1 game. He basically makes those players look like girls. Girls that play in California. Nice.
While that is our starting lineup for tonight, here are a few of our other bench players and they should have pumpin' from the stadium stereo as they come to the dish.
Placido Polanco - I'm In Love With A Stripper by T-Pain
This may seem inappropriate, and it pretty much is. But the reasoning behind it is much more clever than "I think Polanco goes to Delilah's a lot." Polanco has 95 hits this season, good for 5th on the team. Let's compare that to the horrible Ben Francisco, who has just 48 hits, about half of Polanco's total. The weird thing about this, though, is that Polanco has 15 extra-base hits. Francisco has 16. What can we deduce from those numbers? Polanco loooves singles.
Ben Francisco - What Have You Done For Me Lately by Janet Jackson
Speaking of Ben Francisco, why is that majoke even on our team? He was batting 7-hole-hitter-respectable .266 after the first month of the season. He had 25 hits, 4 home runs, and 18 RBI in April. Since then, he has 23 hits, 2 home runs, and 13 RBI. In 3 1/2 months. His average is down to .224. A lot of this is because he doesn't get a lot of playing time, but, seriously, why are we keeping this guy around? The best thing he did this season was get a good bounce on a would-be ground out to third base against the A's for a walk-off single.
John Mayberry - Centerfield by John Fogerty
This should come as no surprise if you've ever read this blog before, but Mayberry has been proving his worth through more than just my writing recently. He has been taking advantage of every opportunity he has, and he always seems ready to play. Today. Look at him. He can be. Centerfield.
Domonic Brown - Girlfriend by *N Sync feat. Nelly
If you listen to this song, you can kind of imagine Domonic Brown singing this to Charlie Manuel. Just replace the word "girlfriend" with "manager," and the whole time he's just totally talking about how bad Raul Ibanez sucks. You probably have to change a few more lyrics around because I don't think that Manuel's worried about his left fielder being by his side in the middle of the night, but you should be able to get the point.
Michael Martinez - Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano
You don't run into many Miguel Smiths in this world. Why, if you're from the Dominican, do you name your kid Michael instead of Miguel? Michael Martinez is a hilarious mixture of Spanish and English, much like this super annoying Christmas song.
Ross Gload - I'm a Tar Heel Born by The Marching Tar Heels
This is the fight song for the University of North Carolina, located along what is known as "Tobacco Road" in North Carolina along with a few other colleges. No, Ross Gload did not go there. But you can't tell me that this is natural. Because of this, I've given Ross the nickname "Tobacco Gload."
And, although we don't normally associate pitchers with walk-up songs, I also came up with some for our other starters.
Roy Halladay - I Can Go the Distance by Michael Bolton
At some point this season, Roy Halladay will throw a complete game shutout. He has left a few games in which he had a shutout going, but he can't seem to get through 9 innings without giving up a run. We saw it 4 times last year, so we all know that Roy can, in fact, go the distance.
Cliff Lee - Mo' Money Mo' Problems by Notorious B.I.G. feat. Puff Daddy and Ma$e
Cliff's decision to come to Philadelphia this offseason was very well-documented. People were quick to point out his willingness to take less money to come to a much sweeter team. And this year has been pretty much no problem for the Phils, specifically Lee. Five shutouts and 2 home runs? No problems here.
Roy Oswalt - Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot
Oswalt missed much of this season with back issues. That's pretty much it for that one.
Vance Worley - Surprise, Surprise by Bruce Springsteen
There hasn't been a bigger surprise this year than Worley. He saw very little action last season, and we had four aces lined up in our starting rotation as well as the usually-durable Joe Blanton. Besides that, Kyle Kendrick had real starting experience and would for sure take over if anything went awry. When two things went awry, though, Worley came in and soon became a front-runner for NL Rookie of the Year.
So if you're going to any of the games this weekend, hopefully you can expect to hear a few of those gems. And whether you're going or not, you probably want to know what to expect. So let's go
Game 1: Livan Hernandez (6-11, 4.41 ERA) vs. Cole Hamels (13-6, 2.53 ERA)
Hamels pitched against the Nats once this season, throwing a complete game. Over his career, he's seen plenty of them, going 10-3 with a 2.61 ERA. The Phils have also seen plenty of Livan Hernandez over the years, to the tune of 301 career at bats against him. Some notable numbers: Utley .353 average, Howard 4 home runs, Victorino .333 average, and Pence .400 average
Prediction: Phillies 5 Nationals 1
Keep an eye out for: Hamels doing some more campaigning for the Cy Young as he tosses another complete game against Washington.
Game 2: John Lannan (8-7, 3.56 ERA) vs. Roy Oswalt (4-7, 3.84 ERA)
John Lannan bites. This series looks like such a joke to me. Our pitchers are so good. I am still not over that. Roy Oswalt, who is the worst of them right now, gets to face John Lannan who gets hit around like a freakin' pinata (I don't know how to make that stupid thing above the "n." You know, though...a Mexican fake animal filled with candy) when he plays the Phillies. Even Raul Ibanez has a .522 career average against him. Is this a joke?
Prediction: Phillies 8 Nationals 4
Keep an eye out for: Lannan leaving in the 4th inning. He's seriously so bad. Did you read that? Raul Ibanez has good numbers against him. Raul Ibanez.
Game 3: Wang (1-2, 3.60 ERA) vs. Roy Halladay (15-4, 2.51 ERA)
I really don't want to predict a complete game shutout here because I know I'll screw it up. It really really really should happen though. I'm not predicting it, but it should definitely happen. He KILLS the Nationals (11-1, 2.21 ERA). And we should definitely win, Chien-Ming Wang totally sucks. His 3.60 ERA is a joke when it should be a majoke. He's given up 12 runs this season in 15 innings, but only 6 of them have been earned. That probably makes him really unlucky, but I'd rather interpret that as him being super lucky that those runs weren't earned. He doesn't strike many people out, and if we can put the bat on the ball, we should be able to hit him around a lot.
Prediction: Phillies 9 Nationals 1
Keep an eye out for: one majoke of a run on the last pitch of the game. The umps will call the game without there being 3 outs in the 9th because they'll be so annoyed that the Nationals decided to do something when Halladay was so close to a shutout.
For the next series: I will be in California from Saturday to Wednesday. I still hope to get a preview up while I'm there, and I should have plenty of time to write it on the plane I guess. But please don't be super disappointed if there's nothing. It is against the Diamondbags, though, and I really want to be able to talk trash on them again.
Monday, August 8, 2011
The people have spoken!
I don't anticipate there being a big surge in "No" or "Twitter=majoke" votes in the next 7 hours or so before the poll closes, so I have decided to go ahead and make a Twitter account for the blog. You can follow it @PhilsHighHopes
If you have no idea how Twitter works, it's totally easy. So figure it out. HA! But seriously
Along with this, there is a new email address that is specifically for the blog (you know, since I get so many emails from you guys). From now on, if you want to email questions or comments, send them to philshighhopes@gmail.com. It's just like the blog URL! Unreal, right?!
Please follow on Twitter, whether you know what you're doing or not. You'll get the hang of it, and the more followers I have the more interesting and worthwhile it can be. If you actually do have questions about how the crap Twitter works, you can email that new email address.
I don't anticipate there being a big surge in "No" or "Twitter=majoke" votes in the next 7 hours or so before the poll closes, so I have decided to go ahead and make a Twitter account for the blog. You can follow it @PhilsHighHopes
If you have no idea how Twitter works, it's totally easy. So figure it out. HA! But seriously
Along with this, there is a new email address that is specifically for the blog (you know, since I get so many emails from you guys). From now on, if you want to email questions or comments, send them to philshighhopes@gmail.com. It's just like the blog URL! Unreal, right?!
Please follow on Twitter, whether you know what you're doing or not. You'll get the hang of it, and the more followers I have the more interesting and worthwhile it can be. If you actually do have questions about how the crap Twitter works, you can email that new email address.
Dodgers Preview: Living the Dream
I use the phrase "living the dream" possibly way too much. There's no denying that my life is awesome, but I can take almost any situation and interpret it as "the dream."
My goal throughout college was to get a teaching job at Pennridge right after graduation and get to coach basketball there as well. That's exactly what happened to me, so it was more than appropriate to say that I was, as a whole, "living the dream." Sometimes, though, I fear I would downplay how much my dream was being lived by saying that I was "living the dream" in much simpler situations, like ordering a Carousel Burger at The Perk. Yes, a combination of crisp bacon, bold bourbon sauce, sharp cheddar cheese and frizzled onions (formerly onion rings, a fantastic change to make it truly perfect) is absolutely delicious, but "the dream?" (For the record: Yes, that is the dream. Even more so than the Pennridge thing)
I remember when I started saying this all the time. Freshman year of college, my roommate Matt and I brought a 2nd TV to our dorm room after being there a few months. We could then both play separate video games at the same time. Or, one could play video games and a show, movie, or sporting event could be on the other TV. Or, we could watch two sporting events at once. For 2 complete majoke excuses for college students who never did anything fun or interesting (or even left their dorm room for the most part), what could be better? Essentially nothing. Heck, 85% of college is just killing time anyway.
We were living the dream any time I powered up my XBox but we also wanted to try watching The Good Shepherd again but could just never get the timing right with channel 72 (the awesome channel at Penn State that showed movies at 12, 3, 6, and 9, AM and PM. As great as that channel was, somehow it seemed impossible to ever be in the room at one of those times to actually catch the start of the movies. And, I love Matt Damon, but I really could just never get into The Good Shepherd. It's just a little slow and long for me. I tried watching it several times that year, a few times the next year when I DVR'd it in our apartment, and I vividly remember one attempt at home when it was on HBO. I would always fall asleep or just go extended periods of time without paying attention because I just got bored. And the deaf girl only sounds deaf like half the time she talks. So that bothered me.)
Here are some other examples in life of situations in which I've claimed to be "living the dream:"
-Getting my summer pay in a lump sum
-Having a 3-TV setup all of sophomore and junior years of college
-Having a 4-TV setup for March Madness (my dreams often involve television I guess)
-Phillies World Series
-Building LEGOs (as an adult)
-Building a fort out of furniture, sheets, and a crapload of duct tape (also as an adult)
-When you can replace chips with fries for only a dollar extra
-Working at The Perk in the mornings when I was 14 and getting free birch beer
-Drinking glass bottles of Coke
-Having the same apartment for 3 years of college so I didn't have to move every summer
-Working at Qdoba where I got paid to drive around and eat free food
-The feeling this summer that my only real responsibility right now is writing this blog
-Becoming a Most Valued Customer at Kohl's (a recent accomplishment that I'm super excited about)
-Basically whenever someone has asked me what I'm doing, what's up, how I'm doing, or any generic question like that
-Sitting on the bench at varsity basketball games this past year with little to no real responsibility
-One time in college when I had 8 strips of bacon and a beer for lunch
-Christmas break
-Spring break
-Summer break
-Any type of break
-Any time I've gotten free food. Ever.
Everyone has a dream they'd love to live, some just have looser requirements for that (seriously, LEGOs?). If I were a professional athlete, the dream for me would be to be a part of one of my hometown teams and win as much as I could with them. So, to me, Jamie Moyer has now lived the dream because he has been a part of one of the greatest eras in Phillies history. Jesse Biddle was selected in the first round of the MLB draft by the Phillies last year, and he's from Mount Airy. The dream? I'd say it's as close as he could get at this point in his life.
There are some sports figures though, that have dreams that I can't quite figure out. Rich Rodriguez, the recently-fired Michigan football coach, is my best example of this. He is a graduate of West Virginia, and he was coaching there from 2001 to 2007. After he had turned West Virginia into a perennial national title contender (despite being in the Big East. Yikes), he left to coach at Michigan. Then he got fired after 3 seasons because he sucked. As much as I enjoyed this, it made no sense to me in the first place that he would've left West Virginia. Wouldn't you have the most pride in the school that you went to and played for? What could be better than turning them into a national power with the goal of one day winning a national championship with them? I would want to stay there forever, but that was not enough for him. Because of that, he's a total failure now. And that's hilarious ("Hilarious for someone to lose a job? Cameron, you're cruel!" No, no I'm not. He made millions of dollars, and blew it because he got greedy. Totally his fault. And I have a hard time feeling bad for a rich person with nothing to do. Find something. You're rich)
Chase Utley also falls into this "What the heck was your dream" category but in a completely different way. I don't think he's a total douche like I do Rich Rodriguez. He's from Los Angeles, though (which would normally imply 'douche,' but this is Chase Utley people), and he absolutely kills when he goes back to LA to play the Dodgers. He has a .358 average at Dodger Stadium with 20 extra base hits in 95 at bats. His 1.114 OPS there is higher than it is at any ballpark in which he has played more than 3 games in his career. For many people, that would be great. They would probably love to play for their hometown team, but maybe they got passed over by them and the revenge is a sweet feeling. The dream? Quite possibly. Chase Utley, however, could have played for the Dodgers. He was drafted by them out of high school in 1997. In baseball, though, there are 50 rounds in the draft. And there are like 1,000 picks that somehow happen in between each round (yes, it's very weird. Don't bother looking into it). So he probably just got picked in like the 38th round, right? As a matter of fact, Chase Utley was chosen in the 2nd round. The 2nd round! By his hometown team! Isn't that the dream?
Instead of signing with the Dodgers, though, Utley went and played 3 years at UCLA where he met his wonderful, gorgeous wife, got drafted in the first round by the Phillies, hit a grand slam for his first career hit, became the object of every woman's affection and the envy of every man, helped to bring a championship to a city that desperately needed it, and saved a bunch of dogs. He also gave me one of the most legitimately depressing days of my life my sophomore year of college when, suddenly, for no real reason, I realized I would probably never get to be friends with him. This seriously affected my mood that whole day.
Is Chase Utley "living the dream?" Well, it's hard to deny how incredibly awesome his life is. But I can't imagine this was his dream growing up in Los Angeles. I guess sometimes, though, dreams can change.
(Is this post a blatant attempt at me explaining why I moved to Virginia? Actually, no. But does it do an excellent job of justifying my decision despite the fact that I had the opportunity to live my dream? It sure does. Chase Utley, you're an inspiration. I am in love with you. Is this weird? I'm not too worried about it, really. I wouldn't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I'm not worried at all.)
Game 1: Roy Halladay (14-4, 2.55 ERA) vs. Hiroki Kuroda (7-13, 2.96 ERA)
As I said in my preview of the first Dodgers series, Kuroda has killed the Phillies over the years. Adding Hunter Pence to that mix doesn't help us all that much, seeing as he is only 3 for 14 against Kuroda in his career. Although we beat him earlier this season, it was only a 2-0 game. I would expect a low-scoring game again in this one. A few of the Dodger hitters have gotten to Halladay over the years, but Andre Ethier stands out as one we should worry about. He is one of 2 threats in the Dodger lineup, and he is 5 for 7 with a double and a home run against Doc. Matt Kemp, the only other player we should worry about, is just 1 for 6 with 3 strikeouts.
Prediction: Phillies 3 Dodgers 1
Keep an eye out for: Halladay giving up his only run in the first inning with smooth sailing from there.
Game 2: Cliff Lee (11-7, 2.96 ERA) vs. Ted Lilly (7-11, 4.86 ERA)
The last time these two faced each other, Lilly had a record of 4-4 and Lee was 4-5. They've since gone in completely opposite directions. Lilly has gone 3-7 with a 5.91 ERA and served up 13 home runs in just 10 starts. Lee, on the other hand, has gone 7-2 with a 2.22 ERA, allowing less hits (60) than he has strikeouts (67) in those 10 starts. The last time they faced off, both put their teams in good positions to win the game, but the Dodgers met up with Lee just as he was beginning his epic month of June. Kemp and Ethier are going to be the reason we lose if we lose a game in this series I would think, and they are just 1 for 10 against Lee. Lilly has not been overall that successful against the Phils in his career (1-5, 5.49 ERA), but he does have pretty good success against our current roster. I recently found out that his full name is Theodore Roosevelt Lilly, so that makes him freakin' sweet. Did you know that Teddy Roosevelt once got shot and then gave a speech right afterwards anyway, just because he was that much of the man? Well, he did.
Prediction: Phillies 7 Dodgers 2
Keep an eye out for: Lilly serving up a few more home runs, including one to Ryan Howard
Game 3: Vance Worley (8-1, 2.35 ERA) vs. Chad Billingsley (10-9, 4.17 ERA)
Billingsley has pretty average numbers against our organization (1-2, 3.19 ERA), but pretty not-so-great numbers against our actual players (.309 average, .902 OPS). In this final game of the series, Utley once again will be facing a pitcher he hasn't really hit around in his career (2 for 10 vs. Kuroda, 3 for 14 vs. Lilly, 2 for 7 vs. Billingsley). With his incredible numbers at Dodger Stadium, though, you kinda feel like something's gotta give here, and this should be the game he has the best chance of dominating. Oh, and remember when Vance Worley was bad? Yeah. Neither do I.
Prediction: Phillies 8 Dodgers 1
Keep an eye out for: Utley hitting two home runs on a warm, sunny afternoon in Los Angeles. (No, I did not look at the weather for this game. Anyone want to bet against that forecast, though? It's LA)
My goal throughout college was to get a teaching job at Pennridge right after graduation and get to coach basketball there as well. That's exactly what happened to me, so it was more than appropriate to say that I was, as a whole, "living the dream." Sometimes, though, I fear I would downplay how much my dream was being lived by saying that I was "living the dream" in much simpler situations, like ordering a Carousel Burger at The Perk. Yes, a combination of crisp bacon, bold bourbon sauce, sharp cheddar cheese and frizzled onions (formerly onion rings, a fantastic change to make it truly perfect) is absolutely delicious, but "the dream?" (For the record: Yes, that is the dream. Even more so than the Pennridge thing)
I remember when I started saying this all the time. Freshman year of college, my roommate Matt and I brought a 2nd TV to our dorm room after being there a few months. We could then both play separate video games at the same time. Or, one could play video games and a show, movie, or sporting event could be on the other TV. Or, we could watch two sporting events at once. For 2 complete majoke excuses for college students who never did anything fun or interesting (or even left their dorm room for the most part), what could be better? Essentially nothing. Heck, 85% of college is just killing time anyway.
We were living the dream any time I powered up my XBox but we also wanted to try watching The Good Shepherd again but could just never get the timing right with channel 72 (the awesome channel at Penn State that showed movies at 12, 3, 6, and 9, AM and PM. As great as that channel was, somehow it seemed impossible to ever be in the room at one of those times to actually catch the start of the movies. And, I love Matt Damon, but I really could just never get into The Good Shepherd. It's just a little slow and long for me. I tried watching it several times that year, a few times the next year when I DVR'd it in our apartment, and I vividly remember one attempt at home when it was on HBO. I would always fall asleep or just go extended periods of time without paying attention because I just got bored. And the deaf girl only sounds deaf like half the time she talks. So that bothered me.)
Here are some other examples in life of situations in which I've claimed to be "living the dream:"
-Getting my summer pay in a lump sum
-Having a 3-TV setup all of sophomore and junior years of college
-Having a 4-TV setup for March Madness (my dreams often involve television I guess)
-Phillies World Series
-Building LEGOs (as an adult)
-Building a fort out of furniture, sheets, and a crapload of duct tape (also as an adult)
-When you can replace chips with fries for only a dollar extra
-Working at The Perk in the mornings when I was 14 and getting free birch beer
-Drinking glass bottles of Coke
-Having the same apartment for 3 years of college so I didn't have to move every summer
-Working at Qdoba where I got paid to drive around and eat free food
-The feeling this summer that my only real responsibility right now is writing this blog
-Becoming a Most Valued Customer at Kohl's (a recent accomplishment that I'm super excited about)
-Basically whenever someone has asked me what I'm doing, what's up, how I'm doing, or any generic question like that
-Sitting on the bench at varsity basketball games this past year with little to no real responsibility
-One time in college when I had 8 strips of bacon and a beer for lunch
-Christmas break
-Spring break
-Summer break
-Any type of break
-Any time I've gotten free food. Ever.
Everyone has a dream they'd love to live, some just have looser requirements for that (seriously, LEGOs?). If I were a professional athlete, the dream for me would be to be a part of one of my hometown teams and win as much as I could with them. So, to me, Jamie Moyer has now lived the dream because he has been a part of one of the greatest eras in Phillies history. Jesse Biddle was selected in the first round of the MLB draft by the Phillies last year, and he's from Mount Airy. The dream? I'd say it's as close as he could get at this point in his life.
There are some sports figures though, that have dreams that I can't quite figure out. Rich Rodriguez, the recently-fired Michigan football coach, is my best example of this. He is a graduate of West Virginia, and he was coaching there from 2001 to 2007. After he had turned West Virginia into a perennial national title contender (despite being in the Big East. Yikes), he left to coach at Michigan. Then he got fired after 3 seasons because he sucked. As much as I enjoyed this, it made no sense to me in the first place that he would've left West Virginia. Wouldn't you have the most pride in the school that you went to and played for? What could be better than turning them into a national power with the goal of one day winning a national championship with them? I would want to stay there forever, but that was not enough for him. Because of that, he's a total failure now. And that's hilarious ("Hilarious for someone to lose a job? Cameron, you're cruel!" No, no I'm not. He made millions of dollars, and blew it because he got greedy. Totally his fault. And I have a hard time feeling bad for a rich person with nothing to do. Find something. You're rich)
Chase Utley also falls into this "What the heck was your dream" category but in a completely different way. I don't think he's a total douche like I do Rich Rodriguez. He's from Los Angeles, though (which would normally imply 'douche,' but this is Chase Utley people), and he absolutely kills when he goes back to LA to play the Dodgers. He has a .358 average at Dodger Stadium with 20 extra base hits in 95 at bats. His 1.114 OPS there is higher than it is at any ballpark in which he has played more than 3 games in his career. For many people, that would be great. They would probably love to play for their hometown team, but maybe they got passed over by them and the revenge is a sweet feeling. The dream? Quite possibly. Chase Utley, however, could have played for the Dodgers. He was drafted by them out of high school in 1997. In baseball, though, there are 50 rounds in the draft. And there are like 1,000 picks that somehow happen in between each round (yes, it's very weird. Don't bother looking into it). So he probably just got picked in like the 38th round, right? As a matter of fact, Chase Utley was chosen in the 2nd round. The 2nd round! By his hometown team! Isn't that the dream?
Instead of signing with the Dodgers, though, Utley went and played 3 years at UCLA where he met his wonderful, gorgeous wife, got drafted in the first round by the Phillies, hit a grand slam for his first career hit, became the object of every woman's affection and the envy of every man, helped to bring a championship to a city that desperately needed it, and saved a bunch of dogs. He also gave me one of the most legitimately depressing days of my life my sophomore year of college when, suddenly, for no real reason, I realized I would probably never get to be friends with him. This seriously affected my mood that whole day.
Is Chase Utley "living the dream?" Well, it's hard to deny how incredibly awesome his life is. But I can't imagine this was his dream growing up in Los Angeles. I guess sometimes, though, dreams can change.
(Is this post a blatant attempt at me explaining why I moved to Virginia? Actually, no. But does it do an excellent job of justifying my decision despite the fact that I had the opportunity to live my dream? It sure does. Chase Utley, you're an inspiration. I am in love with you. Is this weird? I'm not too worried about it, really. I wouldn't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I'm not worried at all.)
Game 1: Roy Halladay (14-4, 2.55 ERA) vs. Hiroki Kuroda (7-13, 2.96 ERA)
As I said in my preview of the first Dodgers series, Kuroda has killed the Phillies over the years. Adding Hunter Pence to that mix doesn't help us all that much, seeing as he is only 3 for 14 against Kuroda in his career. Although we beat him earlier this season, it was only a 2-0 game. I would expect a low-scoring game again in this one. A few of the Dodger hitters have gotten to Halladay over the years, but Andre Ethier stands out as one we should worry about. He is one of 2 threats in the Dodger lineup, and he is 5 for 7 with a double and a home run against Doc. Matt Kemp, the only other player we should worry about, is just 1 for 6 with 3 strikeouts.
Prediction: Phillies 3 Dodgers 1
Keep an eye out for: Halladay giving up his only run in the first inning with smooth sailing from there.
Game 2: Cliff Lee (11-7, 2.96 ERA) vs. Ted Lilly (7-11, 4.86 ERA)
The last time these two faced each other, Lilly had a record of 4-4 and Lee was 4-5. They've since gone in completely opposite directions. Lilly has gone 3-7 with a 5.91 ERA and served up 13 home runs in just 10 starts. Lee, on the other hand, has gone 7-2 with a 2.22 ERA, allowing less hits (60) than he has strikeouts (67) in those 10 starts. The last time they faced off, both put their teams in good positions to win the game, but the Dodgers met up with Lee just as he was beginning his epic month of June. Kemp and Ethier are going to be the reason we lose if we lose a game in this series I would think, and they are just 1 for 10 against Lee. Lilly has not been overall that successful against the Phils in his career (1-5, 5.49 ERA), but he does have pretty good success against our current roster. I recently found out that his full name is Theodore Roosevelt Lilly, so that makes him freakin' sweet. Did you know that Teddy Roosevelt once got shot and then gave a speech right afterwards anyway, just because he was that much of the man? Well, he did.
Prediction: Phillies 7 Dodgers 2
Keep an eye out for: Lilly serving up a few more home runs, including one to Ryan Howard
Game 3: Vance Worley (8-1, 2.35 ERA) vs. Chad Billingsley (10-9, 4.17 ERA)
Billingsley has pretty average numbers against our organization (1-2, 3.19 ERA), but pretty not-so-great numbers against our actual players (.309 average, .902 OPS). In this final game of the series, Utley once again will be facing a pitcher he hasn't really hit around in his career (2 for 10 vs. Kuroda, 3 for 14 vs. Lilly, 2 for 7 vs. Billingsley). With his incredible numbers at Dodger Stadium, though, you kinda feel like something's gotta give here, and this should be the game he has the best chance of dominating. Oh, and remember when Vance Worley was bad? Yeah. Neither do I.
Prediction: Phillies 8 Dodgers 1
Keep an eye out for: Utley hitting two home runs on a warm, sunny afternoon in Los Angeles. (No, I did not look at the weather for this game. Anyone want to bet against that forecast, though? It's LA)
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Giants Preview: Bullpens
Now that the trade deadline is over, I feel like I can post about a few different things that I've wanted to talk about, but I just felt like post-trade deadline would be the best timing for them. One of those things will be coming next week, when I will preview the Nationals series (our first full home series since the deadline) with my choices for walk-up songs for each of our players. Get pumped.
Another thing that I have wanted to talk about, though, is bullpens. I wanted to wait until after the deadline to see if we would add anything to our bullpen and what exactly that would be. I think it's totally fine that we did not, but I just figured that maybe it would add something to the discussion if we did.
Brian Wilson's beard has been a big talking point any time the Phillies play the Giants. Or any time the Giants play anyone. Or whenever someone talks about closers. Or if people talk about beards. Or, generally, if people talk about anything it seems (including how to dress their baby). He has a sweet beard, there's no denying that. Dying it with shoe polish takes it down a peg or two in my book, but that's a story for a different time. The real reason that his beard is even worthy of talking about, though, is because he is a great closer. If he had 18 saves, 5 blown saves, and a 4.50 ERA, people wouldn't really care about his facial hair decisions. Going 33 for 37 in save opportunities with a 2.88 ERA will give people something to talk about, though.
A good closer in general is worth talking about regardless of what's growing all over his face. We know from 2008 how valuable one can be. We also know from 2009 how valuable one can be (yikes). I question, though, is a closer really as valuable as we all think? And, if he is, why do we insist on using them in the wrong ways?
In theory, the 5 best pitchers on a baseball team are the 5 starters. The 6th best pitcher, however, will generally be the closer. Those should be the most reliable guys. You can argue Mariano Rivera is a better pitcher than Ivan Nova or some other majoke of a starter that the Yankees have this season, but, the bottom line is, you generally want your best pitchers starting. That's why the Red Sox wanted Jonathan Papelbon to be a starter for them initially...because he was really good. That's why we tried to make Ryan Madson into a starter. He was too good to be in the bullpen. It is only when starting doesn't work out or there is some other special circumstance that an excellent pitcher be kept in the bullpen.
If nothing else, we can definitely agree that a closer is the best relief pitcher on a team. If that is the case, why are closers only used when a team is winning? I know that question seems kind of stupid at first, and, for the most part, it is a stupid question. Except when it comes to extra innings. The reason you put a closer in when you're up by 1 run in the 9th inning is because you know he can get you 3 outs without giving up a run and losing that lead. That makes sense. When it comes to extra innings, though, teams will swear by the statistics. They only want to put their closer in if he can get a save. Otherwise, what's the point, right?
Let's look at the Pirates 19-inning fiasco against the Braves last week. Daniel McCutchen, who had not thrown more than 52 pitches or 3 innings in a game this season, stayed in the game for 5.1 innings, throwing an incredible 92 pitches. He faced 24 batters, nearly double his previous season high. The obvious reason for this would be that the Pirates had no other pitchers, but that's not true. They had Joel Hanrahan, their closer, sitting in the bullpen. As of today, he is 30 for 31 in save opportunities with a 1.13 ERA. So, while Daniel McCutchen threw 92 pitches and ended up giving up the winning run, Hanrahan just waited. He waited until it was a save situation. A save situation that never came.
You do this as the away team because once you score in extra innings, you really don't want to blow it. So you go to the guy who will surely win you the game. So only once you have a lead do you turn to the guy are most confident can pitch a shutout inning. The Pirates, along with just about every other away team in extra innings, did not think that the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, or 19th innings were important enough to put in their best pitcher. It's almost as if giving up a run in one of those innings, with the game still tied, doesn't really matter to them. Here's my thinking on this:
If you give up a run with the game tied, you lose
If you give up a run while you're winning, the game continues
To me, of these two options, the latter seems much more appealing. So why not throw your closer for an inning or 2 when it really matters. Sure, you're giving yourself a bigger chance of losing a lead you may get later, but I think that's better than giving yourself a bigger chance of losing that game now. Does this not make sense to anyone else? Am I talking to myself?
It's as if the title of "closer" is the most valuable in all of sport. Once you've been dubbed a "closer," that's what you are, and it's what you shall forever be. No matter what the individual circumstance is, you should only pitch in a save situation, and every save situation should be yours.
Well, what if there are 3 lefties due up for the other team in the 9th? If it were the 7th, every good bullpen has a "left-handed specialist" that will absolutely handle that inning, no question. But in the 9th, we give it to the closer, no matter what hand he throws with. And the same goes for a "setup man." In 2008, Ryan Madson was our setup man and Brad Lidge was our closer. That's the 8th and 9th inning, always. Forget the fact that J.C. Romero could still throw strikes at that time and get out any left-handed hitter in the league. The 8th was for Madson, the 9th was for Lidge. It worked for us, but it goes against all of the logic used in the rest of the game it seems. In our series against the Padres at the beginning of last week, we had 7 straight lefties or switch hitters. In the 8th inning, with Utley, Howard, Victorino, Ibanez up, righty Mike Adams came in and pitched to them because he's the setup man. It worked, but why? One inning earlier and they would've used lefty Josh Spence they had waiting in the bullpen.
Much of this argument is actually totally pointless because, like I just said, it works. It worked for us in 2008. It worked for the Padres with Adams and Heath Bell. Mariano Rivera has always worked for the Yankees. Maybe there is a completely different mindset that goes with being a "closer" that some guys just don't have. But maybe that mindset has only been created because you take someone who is used to a certain situation and tell him, "Hey, no matter who is up or what the situation is, we're putting you in because we're winning. So win." If that means getting out 3 lefties, that's what it means. Even though someone else in the 'pen does only that, it's now been pushed onto someone new. I can see that being a tough thing to handle. Maybe tough enough that you grow out an awesome beard so people can start talking about something else.
Game 1: Cliff Lee (10-7, 3.14 ERA) vs. Madison Bumgarner (6-10, 3.80 ERA)
Neither of these guys pitched when we faced the Giants a week ago, so this is a tough matchup to predict. Lee is 3-0 with a 1.13 against the Giants in his career, including 2-0 with a 1.13 ERA in San Francisco. No one on their roster stands out as too much of a threat to Lee, aside from Aaron Rowand (.280, 4 2B, 1 HR) who does not always get much playing time for them. I expect success from Lee, but I would expect the same from Bumgarner. We've never faced the 22-year-old lefty, and I don't know if Hunter Pence alone has done enough to make us that much better against lefties. I give us the edge though because of Bumgarner's name. Bumgarner sounds hilarious to me. To "garner" something is basically to collect it, so to me it sounds like this guy is just going around collecting butts. I'm 9.
Prediction: Phillies 2 Giants 1
Keep an eye out for: Hunter Pence extending his Phillies hitting and winning streaks both to 6 games.
Game 2: Vance Worley (7-1, 2.33 ERA) vs. Jonathan Sanchez (4-5, 3.81 ERA)
I think this could possibly be the best matchup of the series. To put it simply, we suck against Sanchez. We have a whopping .180 average against him, including a 1 for 16 from Jimmy. That's pretty rare to see with Rollins being a leadoff hitter. Usually, even with a bad average against someone, he'll have a number of hits just because of how many at bats he can get. Not so for Sanchez. While we may not be able to hit too well, I don't know if the Giants will even step up to the plate after the whooping that the Vanimal put on them last week. His complete game 4-hitter was a thing of beauty, only ruined by Aaron Rowand and his stupid home run with his stupid broken face. I love him.
Prediction: Phillies 3 Giants 0
Keep an eye out for: the Phillies taking advantage of Sanchez's lack of control to get some base runners and manufacture a few runs. And Worley continuing his dominance against San Francisco as he auditions for a starting spot in a possible playoff series with the Giants
Game 3: Cole Hamels (12-6, 2.62 ERA) vs. Matt Cain (9-7, 3.10 ERA)
This is the same matchup as last week that we lost 2-1. Although my preview of last week's series did not preview this specific matchup (because Tim Lincecum had a tummy ache), I expect much of the same of what we saw in that game. I know the Phillies won't sweep this series, and I would be fine coming away from it with a 2-2 split. This game, however, feels like one we should win. Hamels and Cain both pitched very well, but one of them had to lose. Since that series, though, the Phillies have gone 6-0 and now have Hunter Pence. The Giants still have dumb crappy Carlos Beltran (who cares), and they've barely been able to win a game as they watch their division slowly slip away from them. Hilarious. What a difference a week makes.
Prediction: Phillies 2 Giants 1
Keep an eye out for: everything from that last game, reversed. It's gonna be crayay.
Game 4: Roy Oswalt (4-6, 3.79 ERA) vs. Tim Lincecum (9-9, 2.77 ERA)
Let me first say that 5 years ago, you would've been hard-pressed to find a 4-game series with all 8 starting pitchers having ERAs under 4.00. To some, this means the game is becoming boring. To me, this is awesome to watch. I love seeing hitters look absolutely stupid and pitchers dominate games. I have been lucky enough to see 3 different complete game shutouts live in my day, one by Brett Myers, one by J.A. Happ, and one by Jamie Moyer. Those games are just as exciting to me as a 20-5 game, which I have also seen live. Throughout this series, we can expect to see some great pitching, and it is something that should be appreciated. Unfortunately, I think Lincecum gets the better end of this one.
Prediction: Giants 4 Phillies 1
Keep an eye out for: Oswalt pitching well but coming out early as we try to ease him back into the rotation.
Another thing that I have wanted to talk about, though, is bullpens. I wanted to wait until after the deadline to see if we would add anything to our bullpen and what exactly that would be. I think it's totally fine that we did not, but I just figured that maybe it would add something to the discussion if we did.
Brian Wilson's beard has been a big talking point any time the Phillies play the Giants. Or any time the Giants play anyone. Or whenever someone talks about closers. Or if people talk about beards. Or, generally, if people talk about anything it seems (including how to dress their baby). He has a sweet beard, there's no denying that. Dying it with shoe polish takes it down a peg or two in my book, but that's a story for a different time. The real reason that his beard is even worthy of talking about, though, is because he is a great closer. If he had 18 saves, 5 blown saves, and a 4.50 ERA, people wouldn't really care about his facial hair decisions. Going 33 for 37 in save opportunities with a 2.88 ERA will give people something to talk about, though.
A good closer in general is worth talking about regardless of what's growing all over his face. We know from 2008 how valuable one can be. We also know from 2009 how valuable one can be (yikes). I question, though, is a closer really as valuable as we all think? And, if he is, why do we insist on using them in the wrong ways?
In theory, the 5 best pitchers on a baseball team are the 5 starters. The 6th best pitcher, however, will generally be the closer. Those should be the most reliable guys. You can argue Mariano Rivera is a better pitcher than Ivan Nova or some other majoke of a starter that the Yankees have this season, but, the bottom line is, you generally want your best pitchers starting. That's why the Red Sox wanted Jonathan Papelbon to be a starter for them initially...because he was really good. That's why we tried to make Ryan Madson into a starter. He was too good to be in the bullpen. It is only when starting doesn't work out or there is some other special circumstance that an excellent pitcher be kept in the bullpen.
If nothing else, we can definitely agree that a closer is the best relief pitcher on a team. If that is the case, why are closers only used when a team is winning? I know that question seems kind of stupid at first, and, for the most part, it is a stupid question. Except when it comes to extra innings. The reason you put a closer in when you're up by 1 run in the 9th inning is because you know he can get you 3 outs without giving up a run and losing that lead. That makes sense. When it comes to extra innings, though, teams will swear by the statistics. They only want to put their closer in if he can get a save. Otherwise, what's the point, right?
Let's look at the Pirates 19-inning fiasco against the Braves last week. Daniel McCutchen, who had not thrown more than 52 pitches or 3 innings in a game this season, stayed in the game for 5.1 innings, throwing an incredible 92 pitches. He faced 24 batters, nearly double his previous season high. The obvious reason for this would be that the Pirates had no other pitchers, but that's not true. They had Joel Hanrahan, their closer, sitting in the bullpen. As of today, he is 30 for 31 in save opportunities with a 1.13 ERA. So, while Daniel McCutchen threw 92 pitches and ended up giving up the winning run, Hanrahan just waited. He waited until it was a save situation. A save situation that never came.
You do this as the away team because once you score in extra innings, you really don't want to blow it. So you go to the guy who will surely win you the game. So only once you have a lead do you turn to the guy are most confident can pitch a shutout inning. The Pirates, along with just about every other away team in extra innings, did not think that the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, or 19th innings were important enough to put in their best pitcher. It's almost as if giving up a run in one of those innings, with the game still tied, doesn't really matter to them. Here's my thinking on this:
If you give up a run with the game tied, you lose
If you give up a run while you're winning, the game continues
To me, of these two options, the latter seems much more appealing. So why not throw your closer for an inning or 2 when it really matters. Sure, you're giving yourself a bigger chance of losing a lead you may get later, but I think that's better than giving yourself a bigger chance of losing that game now. Does this not make sense to anyone else? Am I talking to myself?
It's as if the title of "closer" is the most valuable in all of sport. Once you've been dubbed a "closer," that's what you are, and it's what you shall forever be. No matter what the individual circumstance is, you should only pitch in a save situation, and every save situation should be yours.
Well, what if there are 3 lefties due up for the other team in the 9th? If it were the 7th, every good bullpen has a "left-handed specialist" that will absolutely handle that inning, no question. But in the 9th, we give it to the closer, no matter what hand he throws with. And the same goes for a "setup man." In 2008, Ryan Madson was our setup man and Brad Lidge was our closer. That's the 8th and 9th inning, always. Forget the fact that J.C. Romero could still throw strikes at that time and get out any left-handed hitter in the league. The 8th was for Madson, the 9th was for Lidge. It worked for us, but it goes against all of the logic used in the rest of the game it seems. In our series against the Padres at the beginning of last week, we had 7 straight lefties or switch hitters. In the 8th inning, with Utley, Howard, Victorino, Ibanez up, righty Mike Adams came in and pitched to them because he's the setup man. It worked, but why? One inning earlier and they would've used lefty Josh Spence they had waiting in the bullpen.
Much of this argument is actually totally pointless because, like I just said, it works. It worked for us in 2008. It worked for the Padres with Adams and Heath Bell. Mariano Rivera has always worked for the Yankees. Maybe there is a completely different mindset that goes with being a "closer" that some guys just don't have. But maybe that mindset has only been created because you take someone who is used to a certain situation and tell him, "Hey, no matter who is up or what the situation is, we're putting you in because we're winning. So win." If that means getting out 3 lefties, that's what it means. Even though someone else in the 'pen does only that, it's now been pushed onto someone new. I can see that being a tough thing to handle. Maybe tough enough that you grow out an awesome beard so people can start talking about something else.
Game 1: Cliff Lee (10-7, 3.14 ERA) vs. Madison Bumgarner (6-10, 3.80 ERA)
Neither of these guys pitched when we faced the Giants a week ago, so this is a tough matchup to predict. Lee is 3-0 with a 1.13 against the Giants in his career, including 2-0 with a 1.13 ERA in San Francisco. No one on their roster stands out as too much of a threat to Lee, aside from Aaron Rowand (.280, 4 2B, 1 HR) who does not always get much playing time for them. I expect success from Lee, but I would expect the same from Bumgarner. We've never faced the 22-year-old lefty, and I don't know if Hunter Pence alone has done enough to make us that much better against lefties. I give us the edge though because of Bumgarner's name. Bumgarner sounds hilarious to me. To "garner" something is basically to collect it, so to me it sounds like this guy is just going around collecting butts. I'm 9.
Prediction: Phillies 2 Giants 1
Keep an eye out for: Hunter Pence extending his Phillies hitting and winning streaks both to 6 games.
Game 2: Vance Worley (7-1, 2.33 ERA) vs. Jonathan Sanchez (4-5, 3.81 ERA)
I think this could possibly be the best matchup of the series. To put it simply, we suck against Sanchez. We have a whopping .180 average against him, including a 1 for 16 from Jimmy. That's pretty rare to see with Rollins being a leadoff hitter. Usually, even with a bad average against someone, he'll have a number of hits just because of how many at bats he can get. Not so for Sanchez. While we may not be able to hit too well, I don't know if the Giants will even step up to the plate after the whooping that the Vanimal put on them last week. His complete game 4-hitter was a thing of beauty, only ruined by Aaron Rowand and his stupid home run with his stupid broken face. I love him.
Prediction: Phillies 3 Giants 0
Keep an eye out for: the Phillies taking advantage of Sanchez's lack of control to get some base runners and manufacture a few runs. And Worley continuing his dominance against San Francisco as he auditions for a starting spot in a possible playoff series with the Giants
Game 3: Cole Hamels (12-6, 2.62 ERA) vs. Matt Cain (9-7, 3.10 ERA)
This is the same matchup as last week that we lost 2-1. Although my preview of last week's series did not preview this specific matchup (because Tim Lincecum had a tummy ache), I expect much of the same of what we saw in that game. I know the Phillies won't sweep this series, and I would be fine coming away from it with a 2-2 split. This game, however, feels like one we should win. Hamels and Cain both pitched very well, but one of them had to lose. Since that series, though, the Phillies have gone 6-0 and now have Hunter Pence. The Giants still have dumb crappy Carlos Beltran (who cares), and they've barely been able to win a game as they watch their division slowly slip away from them. Hilarious. What a difference a week makes.
Prediction: Phillies 2 Giants 1
Keep an eye out for: everything from that last game, reversed. It's gonna be crayay.
Game 4: Roy Oswalt (4-6, 3.79 ERA) vs. Tim Lincecum (9-9, 2.77 ERA)
Let me first say that 5 years ago, you would've been hard-pressed to find a 4-game series with all 8 starting pitchers having ERAs under 4.00. To some, this means the game is becoming boring. To me, this is awesome to watch. I love seeing hitters look absolutely stupid and pitchers dominate games. I have been lucky enough to see 3 different complete game shutouts live in my day, one by Brett Myers, one by J.A. Happ, and one by Jamie Moyer. Those games are just as exciting to me as a 20-5 game, which I have also seen live. Throughout this series, we can expect to see some great pitching, and it is something that should be appreciated. Unfortunately, I think Lincecum gets the better end of this one.
Prediction: Giants 4 Phillies 1
Keep an eye out for: Oswalt pitching well but coming out early as we try to ease him back into the rotation.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Twitter Poll
To all (4) of my loyal readers:
There is a poll on the right side of the blog here asking if you would follow a Twitter associated with this blog. I'm trying to get an idea if I should do that or not. To follow it, you would probably have to create a Twitter account, but that's not tough to do and you don't have to really know how to use it just to follow someone. I think it could be a really cool way to basically watch games together. Using Twitter, everybody can post their thoughts live as a game is happening and it can basically be a running conversation among anyone who wants to be a part of it.
Please vote! Seriously. Just do it.
There is a poll on the right side of the blog here asking if you would follow a Twitter associated with this blog. I'm trying to get an idea if I should do that or not. To follow it, you would probably have to create a Twitter account, but that's not tough to do and you don't have to really know how to use it just to follow someone. I think it could be a really cool way to basically watch games together. Using Twitter, everybody can post their thoughts live as a game is happening and it can basically be a running conversation among anyone who wants to be a part of it.
Please vote! Seriously. Just do it.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Rockies Series: Trade Reaction
I have written about the possibility of getting Hunter Pence twice now with quite mixed reviews. To sum up my opinions, I wanted him once because I thought we'd get him for a great price. I then didn't really want him because the price was too high, but I also pointed out how funny-looking he is as a professional athlete. Now we have him, and, judging by the reactions I've gotten from people, you basically have no idea how I actually feel about this trade. And rightfully so. So now that the trade deadline has passed, there are new rumors to be cleared up. Does Cameron really hate Hunter Pence?
In a word, NO!
In more words, I don't hate him at all. There's no denying that he's a great addition to the team, and a huge upgrade right now over whoever it is he is replacing. It just so happens to be Domonic Brown that he is replacing currently. A big reason I didn't want to post on Saturday or Sunday is because I wanted to fully process this deal before I reacted to it publicly. My initial thoughts were:
-Great deal, we got Pence for a great price
-Are we kidding sending Domonic Brown down to Lehigh Valley to make room for him?!
Now that I've had time to find some more things out and think about the whole thing, this is how I feel some 60 hours later:
-Great deal, we got Pence for a great price
-Sending down Domonic Brown seems to be the right thing right now
The great price is easy to explain. We lost Jarred Cosart, projected to be a top-of-the-rotation guy in a few years. That's a shame, but we have plenty of pitching prospects and are not exactly hurting for a starting pitcher any time soon. I feel fine losing Jonathan Singleton. I had him projected to be an outfielder for us in the future, but he is actually a first baseman. His experiment in left field in the minors was a failure. Is that because of an ankle injury, or is it because he's just a horrible left fielder? I don't know, but it appears that his best fit right now is as a first baseman, something we will not need in the foreseeable future. Losing him is no big deal. Josh Zeid is a prospect that I had never heard of until this deal, which I think is hilarious because of how much the Astros* apparently wanted out of it. A player to be named later is something that I will only talk about if this post is extra short and you want me to get into how complicated I think that situation is. (note: "you want me to" in the previous sentence actually means "I want to")
As for the situation with Domonic Brown, it was so frustrating at first glance. I was ecstatic to keep him in Philadelphia, but I wanted to hang someone when I found out he was the one being sent down to make room for Pence. We needed a right-handed bat, and we got one. So, naturally, we would get rid of either Ben Francisco or John Mayberry, our 2 current right-handed outfielders. It would most likely be Mayberry (much to my dismay) because he has been back and forth all season. Instead of doing that, though, we got rid of our everyday right fielder in Brown. While this makes sense because Pence is a right fielder, I kind of anticipated one of those 2 moving to left or, at worst, Brown just serving as a pinch hitter and randomly giving Suckhole days off in left. So this move made me pretty angry at first.
The more I think about it, though, the more it actually does make sense. Hear me out on this one. The obvious reason that the Phillies will tell you is for Brown to continue getting at bats every day. That's legitimately important for him right now as he continues to develop as a hitter. But, the other big thing is his defense. He clearly needs to work on that if he wants to be a solid defender for us in the outfield. The exciting part is, on his player profile currently for the Iron Pigs, he is listed as a left fielder. WARNING: TWISTED INTERPRETATION AHEAD This means that Brown has been sent down to the minors with the ultimate goal of getting used to playing left field and getting better at it. Right now, Ibanez is swinging a hot bat. The good news about that, though, is that he will stop that run starting today. It's August 1, the perfect time for Ibanez to show his true colors because a new month is starting. We will hang on to this good July for another 2 weeks before we realize as an organization that he is total majokey garbage. By that time, Domonic Brown will be a Gold Glove outfielder, and he will be back up, taking Ibanez's place and forcing him to be designated for assignment so a stupid team, thinking he can make a difference, will pick him up on a run to the playoffs. This is gonna be hilarious.
Note: Will this really happen? Not at all. Can a man dream? This is America, isn't it? Aren't we in America? OK good.
*I will no longer be calling them the Asstros simply because it turned out they were all talk. The deal we made was a good one, and you have to kind of feel bad for a team that gave up the 2 players it probably didn't really want to give up, while keeping the players it was trying to move. They talked a big game, but they're just adorable in the end.
So, overall, I am absolutely thrilled with this trade. I can't wait for Brown to get back up, but I think that, without a doubt, Hunter Pence is an upgrade for the time being. He plays hard and is a perfect fit for a Philadelphia sports team. This does not, however, mean that I won't find myself hilarious for calling this the "worst trade ever" every time he fails to get a hit or make an amazing defensive play. That's not my real opinion, but, as you may know, I'll do anything for a laugh. What a sad existence.
Game 1: Cole Hamels (12-6, 2.61 ERA) vs. Jhoulys Chacin (8-8, 3.50 ERA)
The last time we faced the Rockies, we were struggling horribly to score runs. Despite that, Hamels was able to pick up a win with an 8-inning, 1-run performance as we won 2-1. At that time, we were without Victorino, Utley, and, obviously, Pence. Chacin pitched well against us, but he has gone 0-4 with a 5.82 ERA in his last 6 starts. Hamels was awful in his only career start at Coors Field, giving up 7 runs in less than 4 innings. I expect that anything could happen in this series with 2 potentially good offenses playing in the thin air of Colorado, but I am hoping that Hamels can overcome that.
Prediction: Phillies 6 Rockies 3
Keep an eye out for: production from Ryan Howard. With Hunter Pence protecting him, hopefully he sees some better pitches the rest of this season. Also, I bet on him to have over 2.5 runs/hits/RBI in this game. Gotta love gambling addictions!
Game 2: Kyle Kendrick (5-5, 3.52 ERA) vs. Aaron Cook (2-5, 5.05 ERA)
Kendrick got shellacked by the Rockies the last time he faced them, and he has a 6.35 ERA in 3 career starts at Coors Field. The good news is, Aaron Cook is 1-6 with a 6.05 ERA in 10 career starts against the Phillies. He has struggled the most against our biggest hitters. Rollins is a career .375 hitter against him, Utley a .417 hitter with 12 RBI, and Howard has hit .391 against him. Seth Smith has been Kendrick's biggest problem, going 8 for 11 against him with 3 doubles. The Rockies as a team, though, are hitting .382 against him. This does not look like it's going to end up being too much of a pitchers' duel.
Prediction: Rockies 9 Phillies 7
Keep an eye out for: lots of home runs coming from both teams, along with Christopher Wheeler having a near heart attack talking about the size of the park, the thin air, and how easy it is to hit a home run.
Game 3: Roy Halladay (13-4, 2.44 ERA) vs. Jason Hammel (6-10, 4.65 ERA)
I have an important announcement to make. This will be the last game that I predict a complete game shutout for Halladay. It will mark the 8th straight start for him that I have predicted it, and it is getting to the point where I think it's my fault that he can't throw one. Although I actually expect it in every one of his games, I don't need to put that undue pressure on Roy. I am making this my last one because he is going to be playing this game back in his hometown of Denver. He is 2-0 with a 0.77 ERA against the Rockies in his career. On the flip side, Hammel has a 5.40 ERA against the Phils and is 3-7 with a 5.10 ERA at home this season.
Prediction: Phillies 5 Rockies 0
Keep an eye out for: Ibanez going hitless in the series and, thus, pulling us one step closer to a post-Raoops era
All right I just finished this post and still have about 50 minutes until game time, so I'm going to give a few thoughts on a player to be named later. How does this make any sense? If it is what it sounds like, I'm basically to understand that we have made a trade but the conditions of that trade are not actually set. Don't we still have to negotiate to figure out that last player? Who gets to decide? We already have Hunter Pence, so can't we just keep denying the Astros whoever they want to take? Or, can't they just take anyone they want, including some high prospect we didn't anticipate giving up?
In other trades, I have heard of a player to be named later only being called that because of a rule in baseball saying that a player has to spend one full year with the first team he signs a contract with. So a draft pick from last year cannot technically be traded until the one year anniversary of him signing a contract. But in hearing Ruben Amaro Jr. talk about this player to be named later, I did not get the impression that that was the case. He said that the Astros have until August 31 to figure out who it is going to be. So, even though the trade is complete, I feel like a lot of talking still needs to happen between our two organizations. I am sure we don't want to give up a top prospect like Jesse Biddle, but I'm also sure that the Astros don't want to get stuck with someone like Raul Ibanez. It's overall just a weird concept.
In a word, NO!
In more words, I don't hate him at all. There's no denying that he's a great addition to the team, and a huge upgrade right now over whoever it is he is replacing. It just so happens to be Domonic Brown that he is replacing currently. A big reason I didn't want to post on Saturday or Sunday is because I wanted to fully process this deal before I reacted to it publicly. My initial thoughts were:
-Great deal, we got Pence for a great price
-Are we kidding sending Domonic Brown down to Lehigh Valley to make room for him?!
Now that I've had time to find some more things out and think about the whole thing, this is how I feel some 60 hours later:
-Great deal, we got Pence for a great price
-Sending down Domonic Brown seems to be the right thing right now
The great price is easy to explain. We lost Jarred Cosart, projected to be a top-of-the-rotation guy in a few years. That's a shame, but we have plenty of pitching prospects and are not exactly hurting for a starting pitcher any time soon. I feel fine losing Jonathan Singleton. I had him projected to be an outfielder for us in the future, but he is actually a first baseman. His experiment in left field in the minors was a failure. Is that because of an ankle injury, or is it because he's just a horrible left fielder? I don't know, but it appears that his best fit right now is as a first baseman, something we will not need in the foreseeable future. Losing him is no big deal. Josh Zeid is a prospect that I had never heard of until this deal, which I think is hilarious because of how much the Astros* apparently wanted out of it. A player to be named later is something that I will only talk about if this post is extra short and you want me to get into how complicated I think that situation is. (note: "you want me to" in the previous sentence actually means "I want to")
As for the situation with Domonic Brown, it was so frustrating at first glance. I was ecstatic to keep him in Philadelphia, but I wanted to hang someone when I found out he was the one being sent down to make room for Pence. We needed a right-handed bat, and we got one. So, naturally, we would get rid of either Ben Francisco or John Mayberry, our 2 current right-handed outfielders. It would most likely be Mayberry (much to my dismay) because he has been back and forth all season. Instead of doing that, though, we got rid of our everyday right fielder in Brown. While this makes sense because Pence is a right fielder, I kind of anticipated one of those 2 moving to left or, at worst, Brown just serving as a pinch hitter and randomly giving Suckhole days off in left. So this move made me pretty angry at first.
The more I think about it, though, the more it actually does make sense. Hear me out on this one. The obvious reason that the Phillies will tell you is for Brown to continue getting at bats every day. That's legitimately important for him right now as he continues to develop as a hitter. But, the other big thing is his defense. He clearly needs to work on that if he wants to be a solid defender for us in the outfield. The exciting part is, on his player profile currently for the Iron Pigs, he is listed as a left fielder. WARNING: TWISTED INTERPRETATION AHEAD This means that Brown has been sent down to the minors with the ultimate goal of getting used to playing left field and getting better at it. Right now, Ibanez is swinging a hot bat. The good news about that, though, is that he will stop that run starting today. It's August 1, the perfect time for Ibanez to show his true colors because a new month is starting. We will hang on to this good July for another 2 weeks before we realize as an organization that he is total majokey garbage. By that time, Domonic Brown will be a Gold Glove outfielder, and he will be back up, taking Ibanez's place and forcing him to be designated for assignment so a stupid team, thinking he can make a difference, will pick him up on a run to the playoffs. This is gonna be hilarious.
Note: Will this really happen? Not at all. Can a man dream? This is America, isn't it? Aren't we in America? OK good.
*I will no longer be calling them the Asstros simply because it turned out they were all talk. The deal we made was a good one, and you have to kind of feel bad for a team that gave up the 2 players it probably didn't really want to give up, while keeping the players it was trying to move. They talked a big game, but they're just adorable in the end.
So, overall, I am absolutely thrilled with this trade. I can't wait for Brown to get back up, but I think that, without a doubt, Hunter Pence is an upgrade for the time being. He plays hard and is a perfect fit for a Philadelphia sports team. This does not, however, mean that I won't find myself hilarious for calling this the "worst trade ever" every time he fails to get a hit or make an amazing defensive play. That's not my real opinion, but, as you may know, I'll do anything for a laugh. What a sad existence.
Game 1: Cole Hamels (12-6, 2.61 ERA) vs. Jhoulys Chacin (8-8, 3.50 ERA)
The last time we faced the Rockies, we were struggling horribly to score runs. Despite that, Hamels was able to pick up a win with an 8-inning, 1-run performance as we won 2-1. At that time, we were without Victorino, Utley, and, obviously, Pence. Chacin pitched well against us, but he has gone 0-4 with a 5.82 ERA in his last 6 starts. Hamels was awful in his only career start at Coors Field, giving up 7 runs in less than 4 innings. I expect that anything could happen in this series with 2 potentially good offenses playing in the thin air of Colorado, but I am hoping that Hamels can overcome that.
Prediction: Phillies 6 Rockies 3
Keep an eye out for: production from Ryan Howard. With Hunter Pence protecting him, hopefully he sees some better pitches the rest of this season. Also, I bet on him to have over 2.5 runs/hits/RBI in this game. Gotta love gambling addictions!
Game 2: Kyle Kendrick (5-5, 3.52 ERA) vs. Aaron Cook (2-5, 5.05 ERA)
Kendrick got shellacked by the Rockies the last time he faced them, and he has a 6.35 ERA in 3 career starts at Coors Field. The good news is, Aaron Cook is 1-6 with a 6.05 ERA in 10 career starts against the Phillies. He has struggled the most against our biggest hitters. Rollins is a career .375 hitter against him, Utley a .417 hitter with 12 RBI, and Howard has hit .391 against him. Seth Smith has been Kendrick's biggest problem, going 8 for 11 against him with 3 doubles. The Rockies as a team, though, are hitting .382 against him. This does not look like it's going to end up being too much of a pitchers' duel.
Prediction: Rockies 9 Phillies 7
Keep an eye out for: lots of home runs coming from both teams, along with Christopher Wheeler having a near heart attack talking about the size of the park, the thin air, and how easy it is to hit a home run.
Game 3: Roy Halladay (13-4, 2.44 ERA) vs. Jason Hammel (6-10, 4.65 ERA)
I have an important announcement to make. This will be the last game that I predict a complete game shutout for Halladay. It will mark the 8th straight start for him that I have predicted it, and it is getting to the point where I think it's my fault that he can't throw one. Although I actually expect it in every one of his games, I don't need to put that undue pressure on Roy. I am making this my last one because he is going to be playing this game back in his hometown of Denver. He is 2-0 with a 0.77 ERA against the Rockies in his career. On the flip side, Hammel has a 5.40 ERA against the Phils and is 3-7 with a 5.10 ERA at home this season.
Prediction: Phillies 5 Rockies 0
Keep an eye out for: Ibanez going hitless in the series and, thus, pulling us one step closer to a post-Raoops era
All right I just finished this post and still have about 50 minutes until game time, so I'm going to give a few thoughts on a player to be named later. How does this make any sense? If it is what it sounds like, I'm basically to understand that we have made a trade but the conditions of that trade are not actually set. Don't we still have to negotiate to figure out that last player? Who gets to decide? We already have Hunter Pence, so can't we just keep denying the Astros whoever they want to take? Or, can't they just take anyone they want, including some high prospect we didn't anticipate giving up?
In other trades, I have heard of a player to be named later only being called that because of a rule in baseball saying that a player has to spend one full year with the first team he signs a contract with. So a draft pick from last year cannot technically be traded until the one year anniversary of him signing a contract. But in hearing Ruben Amaro Jr. talk about this player to be named later, I did not get the impression that that was the case. He said that the Astros have until August 31 to figure out who it is going to be. So, even though the trade is complete, I feel like a lot of talking still needs to happen between our two organizations. I am sure we don't want to give up a top prospect like Jesse Biddle, but I'm also sure that the Astros don't want to get stuck with someone like Raul Ibanez. It's overall just a weird concept.
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