Over the last three days, the Phillies put about $68 million in average-annual-value on the mound to start baseball games, and for two of those days the pitching stunk. In the case of Cole Hamels, I think this is simply a product of cold weather, and April in general. At the ripe old age of 29, he seems healthy to me, and he's just gotta get some innings in to get the command going.
Then there's Roy Halladay- I increasingly think he's finished, or at least hurt again. He showed up last year with issues, apparently from a lower back in jury, that then caused a lat pull in his pitching shoulder, which then caused his season to stink. Ok, fine. This year he showed up well rested, and claiming good health. In his first spring start, he was throwing 89-90, and for his first few starts he was getting outs. Then his velocity dropped. First he had dead arm, then fatigue, then a stomach virus, then he lost 10 pounds over night, and finally he just needed more innings. Then he goes to Atlanta to start the season, gets bombed, but strikes out 9 in 3 1/3 innings. We now know the bad part of that line is the more real part, as he got bombed again by the Mets. Halladay is in serious trouble.
Halladay's problems aren't just one thing. Yes, his velocity is down. Yes, his fastball is flattened out. Yes, he has zero command of his pitches. Yes, his confidence is down. Yes, to everything said negative here. Here's the truth though- you don't often see pitchers go from where Halladay was at the end of 2011 to the dumps he's at now, at least not this fast. There's two possibilities here- he's either hurt, or his arm is simply shot, worn down, and done. It could be his back again, it could be a shoulder injury, it could just be that 230 innings a year wore him out. I don't know. I just know that at this point my confidence in getting a good season out of Doc is at zero. My guess here is that it's his shoulder (a doctor friend watched him and said that on Monday), and Doc simply doesn't want to give up a year at age 36, facing free agency, to get it cleaned up. I want to hope that this isn't the case, like I want to believe he didn't throw Kratz under the bus after his first start. I don't though. I am starting to believe the Phillies would be better off with any of their AAA prospect arms in the rotation than Doc right now.
All of this is pretty important since the Phillies are only 3-5, now 1-7 like some people seem to believe. A big part of that is the pitching of Cliff Lee, who's pitching like a pitcher who got $120 million for five years in free agency. I don't know when Cliff Lee wasn't an ace (please don't tell me about his won-lost record in 2012), but there seems to be genuine surprise that this guy is still good. Really? I never had any decreased expectations of Lee, nor do I of Hamels now. The question about this team is, will it be enough? Yes, it's been ugly, but the Phillies next four games are against the Mets tonight, and three with the Marlins this weekend (in the heat of Miami), and that makes it plausible that they could be at or over .500 by then. Even if they are not, there will still be 150 games left. I've enjoyed hearing about how the Phillies are the "third or fourth most talented team in the division" from some blogs, but these same people claim that Michael Young and his 2012 average of .277, was one of the two or three worst players in the league last year (Yes, worse than Michael Martinez). The point there is, my expectation that this team is an 85-90 win team has not gone away yet. With two aces, why would I change that? If you get good seasons from Hamels, Lee, Kendrick, and Lannan, what would make this team bad? Just for the record too, I'm not on board with signing Oswalt and guaranteeing him a rotation slot. He looked pretty shot last year.
Well, my biggest fear is unfortunately in the dugout. There are few to no bigger Charlie Manuel fans than me, but I've been more frustrated with him than usual this season. His "platoon" in right-field has not really followed a "righty-lefty" split, but kind of just went on a hunch. That's, um, great. Then there's his bullpen use, which really alarms me. The home opener is the poster child to me, but I don't want to totally harp on just one game. In that game, the Phillies lead 4-2 with 2 outs in the 6th inning. They needed just ten outs. Game this out for a moment too, it was simple:
- Papelbon was going to be the last 3 outs.
- Adams was going to get the 3 outs before that.
- They needed just 4 additional outs, with both Aumont and Bastardo fully rested from the day before when Lee went 8 innings.
He went to Horst, Durbin, and Valdes instead, and watched the lead evaporate, and the other team then run away with an easy win. Generally speaking, inside of ten outs, with a lead, a manager should try to use his best four relievers to get those outs. I might be overly picking on Charlie here, but it's driving me absolutely nuts that Chad Durbin has inherited the most base-runners in this bullpen, but has the worst punch-out stuff to get out of those jams. I love Charlie for the parade he lead us to, but this is maddening.
I'm about as optimistic as we can be about things getting better. Sure, Michael Young won't end up with a .976 OPS most likely (he was .854 in his last great year, 2011), and sure, Chase Utley will drop a bit too, but the pitching should get better. This roster has holes (Valdes, the bench, right-field, etc.), but it will improve sometimes next month (I think). If it doesn't, this will be a different team come August. While Joseph, Asche, and Gillies are struggling, I wouldn't write any of them totally off yet in AAA, and Cesar Hernandez (.462/1.154) and Darin Ruf (.308/.719) are off to solid starts. This team could be turned over completely by next Opening Day, which should give you some light even if this season does go dark quickly.
