{"id":544,"date":"2010-05-10T08:23:44","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T13:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=544"},"modified":"2010-05-10T08:37:22","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T13:37:22","slug":"phillies-semi-weekly-report-card-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=544","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Semi-Weekly Report Card #5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record since last\u00a0Report Card: <\/strong>5-2<\/p>\n

Overall Record:\u00a0<\/strong>19-12 (1st in division)<\/p>\n

After a hot start to the season, the Phils were 7-9 in their previous 16 games\u00a0coming into this week.\u00a0 Although the offense\u00a0hadn’t been great, the pitching was the main culprit.\u00a0 That changed this week.\u00a0 The starting pitchers, in particular, had an incredible week, and the\u00a0bullpen also\u00a0bounced back from a rough stretch.<\/p>\n

Position Players: <\/strong>An up-and-down week with the bats, but fairly solid for the most part.\u00a0 Jayson Werth continues to rake, with 8 extra base hits on the week (3 HR, 5\u00a02B).\u00a0 He’s hitting .349 on the season, slugging .688, and the dollar signs in his eyes keep getting bigger.\u00a0 He’s just become such a lethal hitter.\u00a0 In the 1st inning on Thursday, he came to bat with\u00a0two runners on-base.\u00a0 With the count 1-2, Kyle Lohse threw\u00a0him an excellent slider that broke off the outside\u00a0of the\u00a0plate, and Werth just watched it go for a ball.\u00a0 The next pitch, he took an outside fastball the opposite way for a 3-run homer.\u00a0 STUD.<\/p>\n

The Hit of the Week Award goes to Carlos Ruiz, who hit a walk-off homer to beat the Cards 2-1 on Tuesday night. A couple pitches before the homer, Carlos hit the longest ball I’ve ever seen him hit, but it went just foul down the left-field line.\u00a0 Maybe the most shocking stat of the season so far: Carlos is leading the NL in on-base percentage (.465), and by 20 points! In other catcher news (and obligatory injury news), Brian Schneider hit the DL with a strained leg muscle, so journeyman Paul Hoover will backup Carlos for the next two weeks.<\/p>\n

Defensively, Shane Victorino deserves a mention for the best catch I’ve seen by a Phillie yet this season, on a full-out sprint to deep right-center, he made a full extension grab a few feet in front of the wall.\u00a0 All in all, a pretty run-of-the-mill week for this offense, but they did get the job done when they needed to, for the most part.<\/p>\n

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

Starting Pitchers:\u00a0 <\/strong>This group was absolutely the story of the week, and it was certainly a welcome sight.\u00a0 During the\"moyer\" four-game winning streak from Tuesday to Friday, they had one of the best string of starts you’ll see.\u00a0 Cole Hamels started it off with a dominating effort, taking a shut-out into the 9th inning before giving up a run and exiting the game.\u00a0 You could tell he was poised for a good game just from looking at his stuff.\u00a0 His fastball hit 95 a few times, and the change-up was nearly unhittable.\u00a0 I’m almost afraid to say this, but he looked like the ’08 Cole.<\/p>\n

The next night, Kyle Kendrick was pitching to keep his rotation spot, and all he did was pitch 7 shutout innings in a 4-0 win.\u00a0 Then came Doc Halladay’s turn and he\u00a0provided your standard Halladay start: 7 innings, 2 runs (only 1 earned), and 9 strikeouts.\u00a0 His 6 wins are tied for the league lead.\u00a0 One thing I’ve learned about Halladay is that, as mild-mannered as he seems normally, he is fiery when he’s out on the mound.\u00a0 It was the second straight start where he was really jawing at the ump and shaking his head when he didn’t get strike calls.\u00a0 It seems like the umps have respect for him though.\u00a0 After the incident in this game, he was talking to the ump after the inning and they were both laughing.<\/p>\n

The final start in the stretch was the best of the bunch, as 47-year-old Jamie Moyer became the oldest pitcher in ML history to pitch a shutout.\u00a0 Not only was it a shutout, but he also gave up just two hits (both singles) and no walks, in a complete dismantling and domination of the Braves offense.\u00a0 As you’d expect, it was just Moyer at his best, keeping hitters off-balance all game and not letting them get the barrell on the ball.\u00a0 The final tally for the starters in that 4-game stretch: 31 innings, 2 earned runs.\u00a0 That’s how you get on winning streaks, I guess.<\/p>\n

Aside from those four starts, Joe Blanton made his first two starts of the season and looked pretty good both times, even though he took two losses.\u00a0 They were definitely encouraging starts though.<\/p>\n

Grade: <\/em>A<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bullpen:\u00a0 <\/strong>Considering what the starters did, there wasn’t much of a workload for this bunch, but they did an excellent job when they got the chance.\u00a0 After Nelson Figueroa gave up two runs in Monday’s loss, the relievers only gave up one more run the rest of the week.\u00a0 Brad Lidge came into Tuesday’s game in the 9th inning with a man on 2nd and no outs, and the game tied 1-1.\u00a0 He looked really good in getting three straight outs and keeping it tied.\u00a0 Jose Contreras, who’s ERA on the season is now under 1, pitched a scoreless 10th inning and got the win.<\/p>\n

Lidge didn’t pitch again until Sunday, when had a 1-2-3 9th for the save.\u00a0 So, he’s taken back his closer role, which is great.\u00a0\u00a0His fastball velocity looks good, and the slider\u00a0seems to be improving and, hopefully, building back to where it was in ’08.\u00a0And Contreras is definitely the main set-up man for the time being.\u00a0 Chad Durbin also continues to pitch well.<\/p>\n

Grade: <\/em>A-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Up Next: <\/strong>The team hits the road for six games in Colorado and Milwaukee.\u00a0 Phils starters for the Rockies series, starting tonight,\u00a0will be Kendrick-Halladay-Moyer.\u00a0 Halladay will be pitching in his hometown for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Record since last\u00a0Report Card: 5-2 Overall Record:\u00a019-12 (1st in division) After a hot start to the season, the Phils were 7-9 in their previous 16 games\u00a0coming into this week.\u00a0 Although the offense\u00a0hadn’t been great, the pitching was the main culprit.\u00a0 … 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":[13,1028],"tags":[23,568,796,83,377,222,327,210,308,1031,367,16,309,369],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","category-phils-weekly-report","tag-brad-lidge","tag-braves","tag-brian-schneider","tag-cardinals","tag-carlos-ruiz","tag-cole-hamels","tag-jamie-moyer","tag-jayson-werth","tag-joe-blanton","tag-jose-contreras","tag-kyle-kendrick","tag-phillies","tag-roy-halladay","tag-shane-victorino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","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=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}