{"id":1951,"date":"2011-05-16T11:11:22","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T15:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1951"},"modified":"2011-05-16T11:11:45","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T15:11:45","slug":"phillies-report-card-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1951","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Report Card #4"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Time may be running out for Francisco to claim the RF spot<\/p><\/div>\n

Record since last Report Card:<\/strong> 4-5<\/p>\n

Overall Record:\u00a0 <\/strong>25-14 (1st in division)<\/p>\n

Throughout the season (roughly every 10 games) we’ll review how the Phils have been performing over the past week or two and hand out some grades.\u00a0 These grades reflect the team’s performance since the previous Report Card.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Phils are roughly halfway through their first tough stretch of the schedule, and the results so far are underwhelming.\u00a0 They dropped 5 of 9 games to their chief divison rivals, Atlanta and Florida.\u00a0 On to the grades:<\/p>\n

Position Players:
\n<\/strong>As the team continues to wait for Chase Utley to come to the rescue, the offense continues to sputter along.\u00a0 Over these last 9 games, they averaged just 3 runs, with the team batting average hovering around the Mendoza line.<\/p>\n

Placido Polanco’s move from 2nd to 3rd in the line-up seems to coincide with a lengthy slump, as he hit .182 (6-33).\u00a0 Polanco is a questionable #3 hitter at the best of times, but when he’s not even hitting many\u00a0singles, he’s a black hole in the middle of the order.\u00a0 Meanwhile, despite a couple big hits, J-Roll’s resurgence was stalled.\u00a0 He produced just a .260 OBP\u00a0and had no stolen bases out of the leadoff spot.<\/p>\n

The Ben Francisco-as-right-fielder experiment\u00a0will come to a decision point in the near future, so he\u00a0needs to get it together.\u00a0 He hit just 2 for 22 in this stretch, while John Mayberry delivered a 2-run homer in Atlanta on Sunday when he got a start in Francisco’s place.\u00a0 With the team needing every little bit of production it can find right now, Charlie may have to make the move to Mayberry.<\/p>\n

Not that they\u00a0were that good, but Howard and\u00a0Victorino were the best of the bunch.\u00a0 Howard hit three homers with six RBI, even though his average was just .207.\u00a0 Victorino had a 15-game hit streak end on Saturday, though he was mostly just getting one hit every game.\u00a0 He did have five extra-base hits though, including homer.\u00a0 But he left that game Saturday with a sore hamstring and is day-to-day for now.<\/p>\n

Carlos Ruiz came back from the DL just as Schneider went on the DL.\u00a0\u00a0Chooch ended a 26\u00a0at-bat hitless streak (stretching back to before\u00a0his injury) with a single on Sunday in Atlanta.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The team’s stellar defense wasn’t evident over the past week.\u00a0 Most notably, they made three mistakes (though just one error) in the 8th inning\u00a0on Tuesday that led to the Marlins’ game-winning run in a 2-1 loss.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>D<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starting Pitchers:
\n<\/strong>The team got a sense of “how the other half lives” when the starting pitchers turned in just a solid\u00a0effort over these nine games, rather than spectacular.\u00a0 The poor offense doesn’t seem like such a problem when the starters are giving up 1 or 2 runs every time out, but we saw what happens when that luxury disappears.<\/p>\n

Cliff Lee struck out a ridiculous 16 Braves, but gave up three runs and lost.\u00a0 He also surrendered three in a no-decision to the Marlins.\u00a0 Blanton gave up just five runs combined in two starts, but he only made it through 5 innings each time.\u00a0 In Hamels’s two starts, he struck out 16 with just 2 walks, but he gave up 7 runs and, like Lee, took a loss and a no-decision.<\/p>\n

The Start of the Week goes to Halladay but, tellingly, he took the loss despite allowing one earned run in 8 innings of work against the Marlins.\u00a0 He was a victim of those 8th inning defensive breakdowns (error by Rollins, passed ball by Sardinha, poor play by Polanco) that led to an unearned run and a 2-1 Marlin win.<\/p>\n

Kyle Kendrick made his first start of the year, in place of the injured Oswalt, and gave\u00a0up no runs on two hits in 5 innings in a win over the Braves.\u00a0 Oswalt is expected to return on Tuesday in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>B<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bullpen:
\n<\/strong>I don’t want to jinx anything, but for the first time in his career, Ryan Madson is finding success in the closer role.\u00a0 He saved all four wins over this stretch, giving up just two hits, one walk, and no runs.<\/p>\n

Getting the ball to Madson, though, has been interesting, as Charlie has had to patch together a group of inexperienced and\/or unreliable arms in the 7th and 8th innings.\u00a0 Charlie has said that he views Bastardo as his 8th inning man at the moment, and Bastardo did nothing to lose that spot, with three scoreless outings.<\/p>\n

J.C. Romero and Danys Baez would seem to be leading candidates to fill key roles in this depleted pen, but they don’t seem up to the task.\u00a0 Both men, unfortunately,\u00a0have looked similar to the largely ineffective relievers they were a year ago.\u00a0 Romero’s wildness has returned, with 4 walks in 3.2 innings, including two runs allowed in Saturday’s loss in Atlanta.\u00a0 Baez was also touched for two runs by the Braves in the late-innings of a loss.<\/p>\n

When you have two backend relievers hurt, you hope that’s an opportunity for others to emerge and prove themselves.\u00a0 The man that may have taken advantage of that (as well as injuries to starters) is Vance Worley.\u00a0 He had two great starts but, of course, spots in the this starting rotation are pretty hard to come by.\u00a0 Worley may make himself into a valuable relief pitcher for this team, very possibly filling the Chad Durbin role once the ‘pen is at full strength.\u00a0 Worley bridged three innings from Blanton to Madson against the Marlins, giving up one run.\u00a0 He also got the ball in the 8th inning of a one-run game in Atlanta on Friday, and got the job done.<\/p>\n

Scott Mathieson was called up and had one appearance, giving up 2 hits and 2 walks, but managing to give up no runs in his one inning.\u00a0 It could’ve been nice to see him get a quick shot at redemption, but he hasn’t appeared in any of the six games since that outing, and it seems very possible that he’ll be headed back to AAA when Oswalt returns tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>B-<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Record since last Report Card: 4-5 Overall Record:\u00a0 25-14 (1st in division) Throughout the season (roughly every 10 games) we’ll review how the Phils have been performing over the past week or two and hand out some grades.\u00a0 These grades … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[689,382,655,14,653,16,788,309,213,1039,369,1064],"class_list":["post-1951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-ben-francisco","tag-charlie-manuel","tag-cliff-lee","tag-jimmy-rollins","tag-john-mayberry","tag-phillies","tag-placido-polanco","tag-roy-halladay","tag-ryan-madson","tag-scott-mathieson","tag-shane-victorino","tag-vance-worley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1951"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1953,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951\/revisions\/1953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}