Record since last Report Card: 5-1
Overall Record: 85-61 (1st in division, 2 ahead of Atlanta)
Another injury strikes, but the Phils keep right on rolling. In the heat of a pennant race, it’s all about winning series, and after knocking off the Marlins on Tuesday night, the Phils have now won six consecutive series since being swept by Houston late last month, winning 15 of 19 in that stretch. It sounds like a broken record at this point, but the pitching was great this week, and the offense was good enough.
No doubt, things are moving in the right direction, but with six games against the Braves still to come, the division is still up for grabs. As an added challenge, Jimmy Rollins could be out for the rest of the regular season, with a strained hamstring. It’s hard to believe he wouldn’t be in there for the last series of the year, against Atlanta, if the division is still on the line, but we’ve seen already this year how hitters take some time to get their timing back after an injury. In the meantime, Wilson Valdez is (again) an everyday starter.
On to the grades:
Looking good leading off
Position Players: For the ’08 or ’09 Phillies, this would’ve been a fairly average week for the offense, but for the ’10 squad, it was a breath of fresh air. They averaged 6 runs a game, including two double-digit run totals, and weren’t shutout once! Victorino has settled in nicely into the lead-off role, hitting .407 (11-27) this week, with 2 steals and 8 runs scored. He will most likely remain in the lead-spot for the rest of the season. Utley and Howard continued their recent production in the middle of the order, combining to hit .341 (15-44) with 4 homers and 16 RBI, including 6 RBI’s by Howard in last Wednesday’s win.
Carlos Ruiz continued his career year, hitting .500 (9-18) with a homer and 6 RBI. That production is made more important with him bumped up to the 7-hole due to the Rollins injury. Raul Ibanez also had a big week, hitting .409 (9-22) with 5 extra-base hits, including 2 homers. Valdez continued his solid contributions, hitting .304 (7-23) with 2 doubles.
On the negative side, Polanco had an usually poor week, hitting .185 (5-27), though he did have a big RBI double in Tuesday night’s tight win over Florida. And Jayson Werth’s somewhat up-and-down season was ‘down’ this week, as he hit .192 (5-26).
Grade: B+
The '08 Cole is Back
Starting Pitchers: How good has the starting pitching been for the Phillies? Well, over the past few weeks, Roy Halladay (AKA the best pitcher on the planet and a Cy Young favorite) has been clearly the third best pitcher on his own team. Cole Hamels continued to dominate this week in his two starts against the Marlins. He pitched 7 shutout innings, allowing 4 hits, to beat them last Wednesday, then struck out 13 Marlins in 6.2 innings, allowing 1 run, on Tuesday. That 1 run snapped his 25 inning scoreless streak. All Phillie fans remember well the last time Cole was pitching this well: October 2008. That is pretty exciting.
Neither of those two efforts by Hamels, however, were enough to secure him the Start of the Week for a third straight time. That honor goes to Roy Oswalt, who looked effortless in throwing a four-hit, complete game shutout against the Mets on Sunday. How about Oswalt’s stats since becoming a Phillie: 6-1, 1.98 ERA. If you take away his first start, when he was admittedly too “amped up”, that ERA statistic reads 1.57, over 57.2 innings pitched.
As for Halladay, he’s been far from bad lately, but he hasn’t been his normal dominant self, either. He allowed 4 runs in 7.2 innings on Friday. He’s now allowed at least 3 runs in four straight starts, and more than 3 runs in back-to-back starts for the first time all season. It’s probably just a minor blip, but it’s worth considering that Halladay may be starting to run out of steam a little bit, having already thrown 228 innings on the year.
At the back of the rotation, Joe Blanton was excellent on Monday, allowing 1 run in 6 innings pitched, and Kyle Kendrick was left in the rotation, giving up just 2 runs in 5 innings in Saturday’s loss. All told, Phillie starters allowed just 8 runs over these 6 games, good for a 1.74 ERA.
Grade: A
Bullpen: The Phils received good news when it was determined that Brad Lidge’s elbow soreness was nothing serious. He was ready to go on Friday night, but no save opportunities came until Tuesday, so he got some extra rest, which can’t be a bad thing at this point of the season. He put the Marlins down 1-2-3 to convert that opportunity. Here’s an interesting stat on Lidge: his WHIP (walks x hits/innings pitched) is actually lower this year than it was in ’08 (1.17 vs. 1.23). Since giving up that walk-off, 3-run homer to Ryan Zimmerman on July 31st, he’s allowed just one earned run in 16.1 innings. The key to that success seems to be his improved control, as he’s walked just three batters over that span.
Ryan Madson continues to dominate. Phillie fans should be feeling pretty good about the Madson-Lidge combo at the end of games. It’s the rest of the bullpen that is still some cause for concern. Though Contreras and Durbin haven’t been as effective lately, there is still plenty of reason to have confidence in them, and they will continue to get the key 6th and 7th inning calls.
If you were looking for answers to the lefty reliever situation, you got absolutely none this week. Romero made one appearance and gave up hits to both hitters he faced before being lifted. Bastardo also appeared just once and faced two hitters, striking out one and giving up a hit to the other. The Nate Robertson experiment came to a very quick halt, as he gave up 6 runs in one inning of relief and was cut loose the following day.
Grade: C
Up Next: They’ll go for the sweep against the Marlins tonight before flying home, where they’ll get the Nationals over the weekend before welcoming in the Braves for what will surely be a playoff atmosphere at the Bank. The rotation has been set-up so that the Big Three will start the three games vs. Atlanta.
