Tagged: pedro feliz
BoSox take Series
And so begins the stretch of Interleague play. The Boston Red Sox got the best of the Phillies this weekend, taking 2 of 3 games, although only one would really suggest much dominance.
The first game on Friday was a great way to kick off the series. The Phillies and the Red Sox were tied at 2-2 and went off into extra innings for the third straight night. Joe Blanton pitched 7 solid innings, giving up 5 hits and 2 solo homers. Chan Ho Park came in to pitch two innings and then saw a parade from the bullpen. Ryan Madson pitched one inning, then Clay Condrey came in for one inning, followed by Kyle Kendrick for two (Kendrick was called up for an injured Scott Eyre who is joining Brad Lidge on the 15 day DL with a calf strain). Now, before we move onto the disaster that was the 13th inning, let’s take a trip back to the 11th and a homer that wouldn’t be. Greg Dobbs stepped in to pinch hit for Condrey and hit the ball, seemingly from the Phillies television feed, over the foul pole, which from what I understand, means that it is a fair ball. The ball was deemed foul, the umpire refused to review it, and Greg Dobbs ended up striking out. And so the game moved on to the 12th inning and a 1-2-3 by Kyle Kendrick. Then we got to the top of the 13th and everything began to unravel. After getting Youkilis out, Kendrick gave up 4 hits and walked Veritek, allowing 3 runs. This was something the Phils were unable to come back from and therefore took the loss. Certainly can’t say it wasn’t an exciting game, but unfortunately the Phils weren’t able to walk away with the win.
Saturday’s game was pretty brutal… not much of a different word to sum it up. The first inning saw Antonio Bastardo give up 5 runs in the first inning before going into an hour and a half rain delay. Being at the game, I’ll tell you it was good times. You get a pancho and sitting there in the rain is actually kind of cool. They put the Braves/Oriels game on and we just speculated on when this rain would finally let up. When it did, the grounds crew got a pretty nice ovation and soon baseball was underway once again. And the Phillies even looked like they might have a chance to catch up! The Fightins were able to get 1 run in the 3rd inning and 3 in the 4th while Chad Durbin was able to keep the Red Sox off the score board. Unfortunately the Sox were able to get back on in the 5th inning with 3 runs and everything was pretty much downhill from there. Well after midnight the final score was 11-6 and it was time to go home, get some rest and get back up Sunday morning to do it all again.
This afternoon’s contest saw J.A. Happ going up against Josh Beckett, and the Phils left field looked a bit different today with Rauuul Ibanez getting a day off for the first time in well over 200 games due to a bothersome Achilles tendon. Although the game got off to another embarassing start (4-1 in the BoSox’s favor by after the 2nd inning), the Phillies rallied to come back and ended up having a good outing, turning the tables and coming out on the winning end of an 11-6 game. Jimmy Rollins got the sole homer for the Phillies with everyone aside from Dobbs, Happ and Park getting at least 1 hit. And although I was distracted by a potential fight going on in 147/148, I did happen to catch Ryan Howard steal his 3rd base of the year. The stand-out Phillie of the game today, however, was Pedro Feliz. Always with strong defense, Pedro went 3-5 at the plate with 2 runs and 2 RBIs. A nice way to spend a sunny day in Philadelphia.
Some random tidbits:
- Philadelphia native and creator of the FX series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (my favorite current TV show) threw out the first pitch at Saturday’s game. I knew they were filming for next season around Philadelphia this week so I was hoping to see him at the ballpark this weekend!
- Just caught the series premiere of The Pen on MLB Network, which will be following the Phillies bullpen around up until the All-Star Break. It’s a really cool show and gave a lot of insight into the lives of someone in their position. I’m sure MLB Network will be replaying it all week if you didn’t get a chance to catch it tonight.
The Phillies get a day off tomorrow before beginning a 3-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday.
Phils Get the Better of West Coast Trip
Man, I can’t even begin to express how nice it was to actually watch a game that didn’t start past my bedtime. Granted I was falling asleep during this one, I made it through to see the Phillies take the win over the Dodgers to split the series and get the best of their west coast trip ending at 5-2.
Antonio Bastardo made his second start for the Phillies last night, going 5 innings and giving up 2 runs on 7 hits and 1 walk. He was able to switch his pitching up a bit more than his previous start where he threw close to all fast balls. His confidence was stellar and you could tell that he and Carlos Ruiz were on the same page. Kudos to Ruiz for handling Bastardo so well. They have fused very well, not that I would expect much less, and have really been a quality pairing. Chan Ho Park is on an upward hill of his roller coaster ride of a year, going 3 innings and giving up only 1 hit. If he would be able to consistantly do this he would be a great reliever, however I really don’t see that happening too soon. Ryan Madson came in in the 9th inning and gave up only one hit to Furcal before going 1-2-3 with Ausmus, Loretta and Pierre.
The Phillies offense looked slightly lackluster through the first couple innings but were able to pick it up a bit in the 5th. After Carlos Ruiz got a single to bat in a run, Shane Victorino came up and got a single as well with a lucky bounce to come with it. The ball hit pitcher Randy Wolf and easily drove Pedro Feliz in to put the Phils up 3-1. Skip ahead to the 7th inning and let’s take a look at the same two who drove in the runs in the 5th: Carlos Ruiz has a two-run homer and Victorino has a one-run homer. Follow that with another one-run homer from Ryan Howard in the 8th and we can call it a game.
It seems like this line-up shake-up is doing the Phillies well. JRoll went 2-4 with 1 run, which is much more than he has been doing in previous outings. Victorino went 2-5 with 1 homer, 2 RBIs and 1 run. Pedro Feliz went 1-2 with 2 runs and 1 RBI. Carlos Ruiz clearly had the best night, going 2-3 with 1 homer, 3 RBIs and 1 run. I would have to think it’s a little scary to other teams when the bottom of the line-up is producing as well as the Phillies have been. Ruiz seems to be able to be the clutch guy to turn to and Feliz has been as good offensively as he has been defensively. Considering that the middle of the line-up had fairly silent bats last night (Utley, Werth, Howard and Ibanez went a combined 2-17 with 1 homer and 1 additional run), it was good to see the bottom of the line-up pick up the slack.
Now the Phillies can finally get their internal clocks back on track as they head back to the east coast and up to New York to take on our ailing rivals in the Mets. They have been pretty banged up as of late and are only 2-4 in June having played the Pirates and the Nationals. The Mets ace pitcher in Johan Santana (7-3) will be on the mound facing off against J.A. Happ (4-0).
Onto updated All-Star game news, the Phillies have three, yes three, players in the lead to be in the starting line-up. The ever-deserving Raul Ibanez has gone from sixth to second to first in the past couple weeks. He now is leading the pack by roughly 150,000 votes over Ryan Braun. Chase Utley is still running away with the leading spot for 2nd basemen with Orlando Hudson by a little over 1 million votes. And in perhaps a bit of a surprise leap, Jimmy Rollins has taken first place over Hanley Ramirez by a fairly narrow margin of around 60,000 votes.
Lastly, I really just would like to share the hilarity of this interview with Phillies bench coach Pete Mackanin. You can see sunflower seeds being thrown at him before Scott Eyre decides to come into the picture. Thanks to The Fightins for the video.
Eyre vs. Mackanin from Mike Meech on Vimeo.
Good News, Bad News
Good news is always good to start with, right? Well, it is today anyway. Phillies win over the Nationals! The Nationals put up a good fight but the Fightins were able to hang in there to win 4-5. J.A. Happ, who was supposed to make his first start in Washington in the previous series, got the start tonight. Happ threw 96 pitches in 5.1 innings, giving up 3 runs (technically only the one homer to Willingham but got charged 2 when Durbin came in in the 5th), 3 hits, 5 strike outs and 3 balls. He seemed to have some difficulty with Willingham after he hit that homer… or maybe it was just revenge. Either way, out of his 4 times up, Willingham made the trek to first base twice after being hit by a ball from Happ. Regardless, another solid start from J.A. Happ. Coming off of his start against the Yankees I was expecting more of the same and certainly wasn’t disappointed. Happ is proving that he is certainly the right candidate to get that starting position over Chan Ho Park. In Charlie Manuel’s post-game press conference he said he would like to see Happ go between 105-110 pitches next time up. Hopefully that can happen and he can stretch himself out to try to finish up the 6th inning the next game or maybe even go into the 7th. The first couple guys in the Nationals’ batting order are no joke, regardless of the team’s record, so seeing him only give up 3 hits and one solo homer aren’t bad stats to have.
Nice to see the Phils bats come back to life as well. After a fairly underwhelming series against the Marlins, a number of Phils were stepping up against a fairly inexperienced starter in Ross Detwiler. Shane Victorino had a great night going 4-5 with 1 run. Rauuul Ibanez went 2-4 with 2 RBIs, 1 run, 2 doubles and 1 walk. Carlos Ruiz was on base after every time he stepped up to the plate via 2 doubles, 1 intentional walk and 1 hit by pitch with 1 RBI. Pedro Feliz was hitting hard tonight as well going 2-4 with 1 triple and 1 RBI. It’s really quite amazing how the bottom of the lineup has stepped up. When Werth is playing the way he should be, pitchers aren’t getting a break from the bottom of the order. Although the offense was helped by some fumbles by the Nats’ outfielders, it’s good to see some good things happening at home, albeit against the worst team in the NL.
I was also thrilled to see the bullpen do fairly well in getting the win for Happ. Aside from Chad Durbin’s shakey 2/3 of the 6th inning, Scott Eyre, Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge all got clean (or fairly clean in Madson’s case) innings. It’s good to see Lidge get the save in such a close situation. Although I do have all my confidence in him, I was a tad bit nervous after last week’s blown save, but he really stepped up, threw how we all know he can and got the job done.
Now that the good news is out of the way it’s onto the sad. After seeking a second opinion from Dr. Bryan Kelly, Brett Myers will indeed be going to get surgery on his right hip, more than likely sidelining him for the remainder of the season. It basically came down to the fact that whether Myers decided to stick it out the rest of the season with cortisone shots to take away the pain in his hip or have the surgery now, the fact was that surgery is an inevitable fate and that it would be better to do it now rather than later to avoid potential risk of injury to his arm from over-throwing, or even worse, a hip replacement in a few years. In a post-game interview on Comcast SportsNet tonight, Myers seemed fairly content with the decision. He said that after hearing from a specialist all of the details that he felt better about the surgery and the decision that he made. Myers will be a free agent after this season is over which obviously will put him and the Phillies organization in a somewhat awkward spot. If the Phils are able to get someone to step in and step up in a big way in Myers’ absense, it is likely that Myers may not have a spot on the Phillies roster next year. Regardless, here’s to a healthy and as speedy as possible recovery for Brett. He’ll be sorely missed but I’d rather see him get the surgery and come back at full strength than try to battle through the season and hurt himself more.
Tomorrow the Phillies will have Cole Hamels on the mound in a match-up against Shairon Martis, who apparently didn’t do all too well in his last outing, giving up 5 runs in 6 innings and only throwing 50% of his pitches for strikes. Here’s hoping that the bats can stay hot for the Phils and get the CBP moral up a little higher!
Hello, Joe!
I’ll admit that I had planned on coming and blogging about my opinions on the “Brad Lidge Situation” (as if there’s even a situation… Newsflash: he’s human), but I was captivated by one heck of a start by Joe Blanton! A career high 11 strike outs in 7 innings with no runs and 2 walks. These starters are really coming around in the past couple games and I’m thrilled to see it. Even though the Phils lost last night, Moyer’s outing wasn’t terrible. The word is promise, folks, and there’s lots of it. It’s tough to come into this season seeing the difficulty that we’ve been seeing in our starters and in Brad Lidge after coming out as Champs last year, but they are doing the same now as they were last year. The guys are getting settled in and things are starting to come around. I’m hoping that this start for Blanton carries over and continues throughout the season because that was some of the most solid pitching I’ve seen out of this bullpen all season. Well done, Mr. Blanton!
The offense looked much better today. Although there were plenty of runners stranded on base, they looked a lot less anemic than they did yesterday. Pedro Feliz looked mighty impressive getting 2 RBIs tonight, with Victorino, Howard and Ibanez bringing in the rest. Although Shane was unable to catch a would-be double hit by Cody Ross (who went a productive 3-4 tonight), he made up for it at the plate going 4-5 with 2 doubles. He easily did the best offensively tonight and certainly put that failed stolen base attempt from last night out of Phillies fans minds mightly quickly.
It was great to see Brad Lidge come in and get the save. He gave up a run but in the end he was able to get the win for Joe Blanton and the save for himself. If you will humor me, I would like to go off on a small rant regarding fans’ opinions on what should be done with Lidge. I had read many blogs and heard many people talking about how Lidge should just be sat or that he should be demoted and put Madson in as the closer. To what point and purpose? Brad Lidge was brought in here as a closer, he should be the closer. He was perfect last year which is a highly impressive accomplishment. But, as I said before, he also happens to be a human being like you and I. We all have our bad days, our slumps, but ours aren’t as publicized as a professional athlete’s is. I completely and 100% agree with the comments made by Charlie Manuel regarding this situation. These quotes were lifted from a Daily News article by John Smallwood [source]:
“Right now, I’m not even going to talk about that. I want Lidge to feel we have all the confidence in the world in him, because we do.
“He’s my guy. Of course, people are going to want to voice their opinion, say sit him down.
“What is sitting going to do for him? He’s still got to simulate. He’s got to pitch and get somebody out. I think what’s going to right [Lidge] is to go out there and have a good inning. He does that a couple of games in a row, and you’ll see a big difference. Once he gets command, he’ll be off to the races.”
“If I went up to [Lidge] and said, ‘You failed 2 days, so I’m going to sit you 3, 4, 5 days,’ or ‘slide you down to the sixth or seventh inning.’ How would you feel? I’d say, ‘Chuck don’t like me too good.’ “
“To me, I think about treating Lidge right. I think he deserves a chance to work things out.”
“I think his stuff is there and it’s just a matter of him making more quality pitches and cutting down on walks and things. If he were throwing 85, 86 [mph] and I didn’t see a good slider, maybe we’d be talking different.
“His stuff is still there and it will play out over 162 games. That’s what makes him a good closer. Will he blow a few games? Yeah. But his stuff will play out.”
Brad Lidge was given the chance tonight and he was able to get the save. It’s all about working through whatever’s going on with him to get to where he was last year. I have all the confidence in the world in him and I’m looking forward to seeing him back to his former self.
Okay, now that that rant is done, I must give credit where credit is due on a fantastic catch by Wes Helms in the bottom of the sixth inning to rob Carlos Ruiz of his second double of the night. What a catch. I could watch that over and over again. Just a wonderful piece of defense. And speaking of awesome defensive plays, what about the almost-awesome defensive play that could have been in the top of the sixth that almost got Cantu out. JRoll was able to get his hands on the ball and get it just a bit too far off for Ryan Howard to scoop up and get the out. Even though they weren’t able to complete the play, kudos to Rollins for even getting the ball close to Ryan in the slippery conditions tonight.
Good to see Jayson Werth break out of his slump. Werth was able to get a double in the bottom of the seventh but was stranded on base. Jayson’s been able to maintain a strong defense but his offense has fizzled out a little bit. Not to fear, however, as the man himself as well as the rest of us realize, he can be quite the streaky player.
“I’m focused on winning ballgames and playing good. As far as proving I can play every day, if you would have asked the same question a week ago, there would have been no doubt about it. But then you go 2-for-27 and then all of a sudden, you’re asked if you can play baseball every day.”
“I’m streaky. I’ve always been like that. It’s ups and downs. It’s like a roller coaster. You’re hot. You’re cold. You’re hot. You’re cold. I don’t think it’s about the pitching, either. I don’t think it’s righties or lefties or playing every day or anything like that. It’s finding your swing and don’t lose it. And when you do lose it, coming out of it as soon as you can. That’s part of playing every day. When you’re playing every day, you get four at-bats.” [source]
Tomorrow the Phils will play the last game of the series against the Marlins in a battle of the right hand pitchers. Brett Myers will be coming back off his amazing start against the Yankees on Friday where he pitched 8 innings. Burke Badenhop will be making his first start of the season for the Marlins. Here’s hoping the Phils can come out the winners in this one and improve that home record just a little bit!
Ramblings of a Phillies Fan 