{"id":547,"date":"2010-05-18T15:28:29","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T20:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=547"},"modified":"2010-05-18T15:32:06","modified_gmt":"2010-05-18T20:32:06","slug":"phillies-semi-weekly-report-card-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Semi-Weekly Report Card #6"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record since last Report Card: <\/strong>5-1<\/p>\n

Overall Record: <\/strong>24-13 (1st in division)<\/p>\n

\"contreras\"A second straight strong week saw the Phils take over the best record in the NL and a\u00a05-game lead in the division, which is easily the biggest lead for any team in baseball.\u00a0 The team was apparently unaffected by a start-and-stop beginning of the week, thanks to a rain-out on Tuesday, another rain-out for the second game of a double-header on Wednesday, and an off day\u00a0on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, an injury update is needed.\u00a0 First, the bad news, Brad Lidge is back on the DL with an elbow problem.\u00a0 It’s a shame, because he was really starting to show some positive signs, but now it just seems like it will be hard for the team to move forward under the assumption that he will be the closer.\u00a0 Carlos\u00a0Ruiz missed a few games with a knee injury, which left the Phils with their third-stringers\u00a0at\u00a0shortstop (Wilson Valdez)\u00a0and\u00a0catcher (Paul Hoover)\u00a0for the Milwaukee series, which they swept\u00a0anyway.\u00a0 The\u00a0really good news is that Jimmy Rollins and Carlos returned to\u00a0the line-up on Monday night in the 12-2 rout of the Pirates.<\/p>\n

Position Players:\u00a0 <\/strong>It was the best showing from this group since they dominated over the first 8 games of the season.\u00a0 They scored 9 runs or more in 4 of the 6 games.\u00a0 Considering that stat, nobody had a monster week, though Victorino and Howard each had 10 hits, with Howard adding a grand slam and 6 RBI against the Pirates on Monday.\u00a0 Ruiz stayed hot at the start of the week, going 4-5 with a homer in a win in Colorado.\u00a0 His replacement, Hoover, made a huge contribution in the Brewer series, going 5-10 with 3 walks and scoring 6 runs in the 3-game sweep.\u00a0 Solid contributions continued from Utley, Werth, and Polanco, while Ibanez continued to be the lone disappoinment offensively.<\/p>\n

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

Starting Pitchers:\u00a0 <\/strong>It wasn’t a spectacular week for the starters, especially compared to last week, but they were solid and they deserve credit for continuing to prevent over-exposure of the short-handed and not-so-great bullpen.\u00a0 The starter went at least 6 innings in every game, which really goes a long way towards making your bullpen look better than it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his third start of the season, Joe Blanton looked pretty good again but he ended up with yet another unimpressive line.\u00a0 He’s a had a little bad luck and could be on the verge of being the guy he was last season.\u00a0 Halladay, pitching in his hometown of Denver for the first time, fought his way to a no-decision on a day when he didn’t have his best stuff.\u00a0 Surprisingly, his start was the only game the Phils lost on the week.\u00a0 Hamels and Kendrick closed out the week with two strong starts.\u00a0 Hamels gave up\u00a0back-to-back solo shots\u00a0to the Brewers in the 6th inning, but was unscathed aside from that in his 6.2 innings of work.\u00a0 Kendrick went 8 strong against the lowly Pirates, giving up 2 runs for his second win.<\/p>\n

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

Bullpen: <\/strong>Another nice week from these guys, which is impressive with Lidge and Madson both out.\u00a0 On the other hand, with the starters eating innings and the offense putting up big numbers, they weren’t pitching in many pressure situations and they were well-rested.\u00a0 Any week that goes by without Nelson Figueroa appearing in a game is probably going to be a good week for this team.<\/p>\n

Jose Contreras has been the story, and he’s taken over the closer role.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see if he gives it\u00a0up at any point for the rest of the season.\u00a0 In 13.1 innings so far, he’s given up 1 run and struck out 18.\u00a0 On Friday, he came into the game with the Phils leading 10-6 with one out in the 9th, and runners on 1st and 2nd.\u00a0 He walked the first batter he faced, to load the bases, then threw two balls to the next batter, who represented the tying-run.\u00a0 After a timely visit from Rich Dubee, Contreras unleashed\u00a0a series of perfectly placed high-90’s fastballs and splitters to strike out the next two batters and end the game.<\/p>\n

With Contreras unavailable on Sunday, J.C. Romero got the save opportunity and he responded with a 1-2-3 9th inning to secure the 4-2 win.<\/p>\n

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

Up Next:\u00a0 <\/strong>The homestand that began last night continues.\u00a0 One more with Pittsburgh, then two with the Cubs, and Boston comes to town over the weekend.\u00a0 The rotation, starting tonight, sets up as Halladay, Moyer, Blanton, Hamels, Kendrick.\u00a0 That means Halladay will be on the hill against the BoSox on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Record since last Report Card: 5-1 Overall Record: 24-13 (1st in division) A second straight strong week saw the Phils take over the best record in the NL and a\u00a05-game lead in the division, which is easily the biggest lead … 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":[23,356,222,632,14,308,1031,367,16,700,746,309,218,369],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","category-phils-weekly-report","tag-brad-lidge","tag-brewers","tag-cole-hamels","tag-jc-romero","tag-jimmy-rollins","tag-joe-blanton","tag-jose-contreras","tag-kyle-kendrick","tag-phillies","tag-pirates","tag-rockies","tag-roy-halladay","tag-ryan-howard","tag-shane-victorino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","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=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}