{"id":765,"date":"2010-09-15T10:52:51","date_gmt":"2010-09-15T14:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=765"},"modified":"2010-09-15T10:53:40","modified_gmt":"2010-09-15T14:53:40","slug":"phillies-semi-weekly-report-card-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=765","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Semi-Weekly Report Card #14"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record since last Report Card:\u00a0 <\/strong>5-1<\/p>\n

Overall Record:\u00a0 <\/strong>85-61 (1st in division, 2 ahead of Atlanta)<\/p>\n

Another injury strikes, but the Phils keep right on rolling.\u00a0 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\u00a0six consecutive series since being swept by Houston late last month, winning 15 of 19 in that stretch.\u00a0 It sounds like a broken record at this point, but\u00a0the pitching was great this week, and the offense was good enough.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

No doubt, things are moving in the right\u00a0direction, but with\u00a0six\u00a0games against the Braves still to come, the division is still up for grabs.\u00a0 As an added challenge, Jimmy Rollins could be out for the rest of the regular season, with a strained hamstring.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In the meantime, Wilson Valdez is (again) an everyday starter.<\/p>\n

On to the grades:<\/p>\n

\"\"

Looking good leading off<\/p><\/div>\n

Position Players:<\/strong>\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They averaged 6 runs a game, including two double-digit run totals, and weren’t shutout once!\u00a0 Victorino has settled in nicely into the lead-off role, hitting .407 (11-27) this week, with 2 steals and 8 runs scored.\u00a0 He will most likely remain in the lead-spot for the rest of the season.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Carlos Ruiz continued his career year, hitting .500 (9-18) with a homer and 6 RBI.\u00a0 That production is made more important with him bumped up to the 7-hole due to the Rollins injury.\u00a0 Raul Ibanez also had a big week, hitting .409 (9-22) with\u00a05 extra-base hits, including 2 homers.\u00a0 Valdez continued his solid contributions, hitting .304 (7-23) with 2 doubles.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 And Jayson Werth’s somewhat up-and-down season was ‘down’ this week, as he hit .192 (5-26).<\/p>\n

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

<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"\"

The '08 Cole is Back<\/p><\/div>\n

Starting Pitchers:\u00a0<\/strong>How good has the starting pitching been for the Phillies?\u00a0 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 <\/em>pitcher on his own team.\u00a0 Cole Hamels continued to dominate this week in his two starts against the Marlins.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That 1 run snapped his 25 inning scoreless streak.\u00a0 All Phillie fans remember well\u00a0the last time Cole was pitching this well: October 2008.\u00a0 That is pretty exciting.<\/p>\n

Neither of those two efforts by Hamels, however, were enough to secure him the Start of the Week for a third straight time.\u00a0 That honor goes to Roy Oswalt, who looked effortless in throwing a four-hit, complete game shutout against the Mets on Sunday.\u00a0 How about Oswalt’s stats since becoming a Phillie: 6-1, 1.98 ERA.\u00a0 If you take away his\u00a0first start, when he was admittedly\u00a0too “amped up”, that ERA statistic reads 1.57, over 57.2 innings pitched.<\/p>\n

As for Halladay, he’s been far from bad lately, but he hasn’t been his normal dominant self, either.\u00a0 He allowed 4 runs in 7.2 innings on Friday.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

At the back of the rotation, Joe Blanton was\u00a0excellent 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.\u00a0 All told, Phillie starters allowed just 8 runs over these 6 games, good for a 1.74 ERA.<\/p>\n

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

Bullpen<\/strong>:\u00a0 The Phils received good news when it was determined that Brad Lidge’s elbow soreness was nothing serious.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He put the Marlins down 1-2-3 to\u00a0convert that opportunity.\u00a0 Here’s an interesting stat on Lidge: his WHIP (walks\u00a0x hits\/innings pitched) is actually lower this year than it was in ’08 (1.17 vs. 1.23).\u00a0\u00a0Since giving up that walk-off, 3-run homer to Ryan Zimmerman on July 31st, he’s allowed just one\u00a0earned run in 16.1 innings.\u00a0 The key to that success seems to be\u00a0his improved control, as he’s walked just three batters over that\u00a0span.<\/p>\n

Ryan Madson continues to dominate.\u00a0 Phillie fans should be feeling pretty good about the Madson-Lidge combo at the end of games.\u00a0 It’s the rest of the bullpen that is still some cause for concern.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

If you were looking\u00a0for answers to the lefty reliever situation, you\u00a0got absolutely none this\u00a0week.\u00a0 Romero made one\u00a0appearance and gave up hits to both hitters he\u00a0faced before being lifted.\u00a0 Bastardo also appeared just once and faced two hitters, striking out one and giving up a hit\u00a0to the other.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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

Up Next:\u00a0 <\/strong>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.\u00a0 The rotation has been set-up so that the Big Three will start the three games vs. Atlanta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Record since last Report Card:\u00a0 5-1 Overall Record:\u00a0 85-61 (1st in division, 2 ahead of Atlanta) Another injury strikes, but the Phils keep right on rolling.\u00a0 In the heat of a pennant race, it’s all about winning series, and after … 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":[23,377,30,222,210,14,16,788,408,309,322,218,213,369],"class_list":["post-765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","category-phils-weekly-report","tag-brad-lidge","tag-carlos-ruiz","tag-chase-utley","tag-cole-hamels","tag-jayson-werth","tag-jimmy-rollins","tag-phillies","tag-placido-polanco","tag-raul-ibanez","tag-roy-halladay","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-ryan-howard","tag-ryan-madson","tag-shane-victorino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765","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=765"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":771,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions\/771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}