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| Harry Kalas would not be enjoying this season. |
The Phillies are not a good baseball team. Today's 6-1 loss was absolutely ugly, and dropped them to 24-26 on the season, third in the NL East on a day they could have pulled into a tie for second, and now sit seven games out of first place in the NL East after 50 games. There are 112 games to go, and it's worth asking: is there any reason to think they will be closer in a week, month, 50 games from now, or at the end of the season than they are now? Should you believe this team can catch the Nationals or Braves? My only answer I can come up with is no.
Before the season, I disagreed with some writers who said the team was hopeless. My theory was that with better health, they should return to contention, and a playoff spot. Their performance so far does not warrant that, and they are not really any healthier or better off than they were a year ago. Roy Halladay has had surgery and will be out until at least late August, if not for the season, which is eerily similar (or worse than) to last year. Chase Utley is hurt, again, and though it's not his knees, and his performance has been better than last year, there's not much reason to be hopeful that his season is looking up, especially since he had fallen a bit after a hot start. Ryan Howard, you could argue, looks permanently damaged since his injury in 2011, and has 6 homers at Memorial Day. Carlos Ruiz, an aging catcher who spent part of last year on the DL, is on the DL again after serving a suspension. Mike Adams is finally off the DL, but fellow pitching pick-up John Lannan has been out for a while and isn't throwing rehab starts yet. Tag onto this that free-agent and trade pick-ups Michael Young, Delmon Young, and Ben Revere have underwhelmed, and you have a 24-26 team heading into June, the month where injuries and bad baseball killed the 2012 version of the Phillies. In short, this team is neither as good as the 2011 team, nor is it more healthy than the 2012 team.
I'm not dumping on everyone, just most everyone on the team. Dom Brown appears to be settling into being an actual MLB starter, giving us a .262/.301/.471/.771 line, with a club leading 9 homers, with an impressive 17 extra-base hits. Besides him though, the only guy showing me any real future hope is Freddy Galvis, who's .260/.313/.416/.729 slash line is absolutely fine with his 6 extra-base hits and 5 walks in 83 plate appearances, not to mention his normally stellar defense. Tell me who you're excited to move forward with offensively besides these guys though? I won't dump on the starting pitching either, because (for the most part) the guys here have pitched fine. Beyond that though, I don't have positives. I had hopes for some of the young relief arms, but Phillippe Aumont totally underwhelmed.
If you want to take the eternally optimistic view, that's fine, it's possible to do. The outfield can't be worse than it was over these 50 games (right?), the bullpen hasn't blown a bunch of leads yet, and they're a good second half team. If you want to believe that, that's fine. I'm not with you though. I don't think you can watch this team and be overly optimistic right now.
This team, offensively, has been in decline since about late-May of 2010, and it has already been shutout as many times as it was last year. Last year was not good. The pitching is relying on young Jon Pettibone and Tyler Cloyd, both of whom are not fully developed into the pitchers they will be later. It feels to me like Charlie Manuel does not have confidence in the players he was given by Ruben Amaro, and I think that's telling that front office changes should be considered if this season does not turn around.
It's not quite time to abandon ship, and blow the team up. If we get to July in our current state, perhaps it will be time for this great era in Philadelphia Phillies baseball to come to an end, and for the core of the 2008 title team to no longer be the core of the Phillies going forward.
