Phillies Fans Could See It Coming

You could almost see it coming from a mile away. The Phillies were set to face a team who had not won a road game in the entire month of September. They were facing a young pitcher who has not been able to get anybody out in the major leagues, sporting a 11.74 ERA as a starter. The Phillies had their top starting pitcher over the past month on the hill. Their opponent is playing out the string while the Phillies are motivated to close out the division championship and better their playoff seeding.

You could almost see it coming from a mile away. Of course, the Phillies could barely scratch out any hits while the Astros strung together 15 hits to easily win 8-2. Yorman Bazardo, Manny Parra and Anibal Sanchez- so hittable throughout the league, so unhittable for the Phillies. You could see it coming, but its hard to explain.

Cole Hamels must have felt like he went back in time to a less kind month earlier this season. As Hamels experienced previously in his most frustrating season, the Astros used an array of bunts, swinging bunts, dribblers, bloopers and broken bat dunkers to complement and make the well hit balls hurt. A game that he appeared to be controlling, suddenly got away and turned into defeat.

All the while, the Braves continued to put W's on the schedule, shutting out the Marlins 4-0, which cuts what was recently an 8.5 game deficit to 4 games in the NL East. Things are starting to get uncomfortable. It is conceivable that the Braves will win out, facing an almost extinct Marlins team 2 more games and then the dreadful Nationals for the final four games of the season. The Phillies have 2 more games against the Astros, who they have yet to beat this season, and then 3 games against the Marlins, who would love to knock the Phillies off.

There were a few developments on the bullpen front. Tyler Walker pretty much ruled out a more prominent role by following up his 9th inning loss on Saturday with a bad outing that allowed the Astros to break the game wide open. JC Romero made his return in the 8th inning, yielding a couple hits, but no runs. Brad Lidge pitched the 9th inning and escaped without giving up any runs after a hit batter and single.

Tonight the Phillies face another scary challenge similar to last night. Wilton Lopez gets the start for Houston. His unknown stature is highlighted by the fact that his photo does not appear on his online profile and he comes into the game with an 8.44 ERA. Lets hope the hometown team breaks from the recent trend and finds a way to raise his ERA, while J.A. Happ gets back to campaigning for the NL Rookie-of-the-Year award.

Houston, We Have a Problem

The Phillies headed to Houston toting an 8.5 game lead in the NL East to face an Astros team that was seemingly moving backwards, having lost 8 of the previous 10 games. Four days ago it seemed to be a good opportunity to extend their lead in the 4-game extended weekend set. Unfortunately, it did not work that way as the Phillies came up empty for the series.

Today followed a similar pattern as yesterday, with the Phillies taking an early lead, yielding it to the Astros and then not being able to rally in the late innings. Friday's lopsided loss was followed with three straight one run defeats. Meanwhile, the Florida Marlins took two of three games to narrow the gap to 6 games.

Charlie Manual expressed his great displeasure about the team's weekend effort after the game suggesting that players may have gotten a little too comfortable. Manuel has been around long enough to know that it is dangerous for players to think they can turn it on and off as needed. Perhaps the Mets felt that way the previous two seasons?

The Phillies have gone into September the past two seasons with the inherent motivation that comes from being the team trying to make up ground. This year it will require a different type of mental toughness to make a sprint to the finish line without looking back.
J.A. Happ, Besides losing ground in the standings, a few new situations bear watching. J.A. Happ was pulled from his scheduled start today due to a strained oblique muscle. Also, Ryan Madson was unavailable due to the same type of injury. The team hopes that the injuries are minor and both players will recover quickly, but they also have seen the same injury land Clay Condrey on the Disabled List since late July with no signs of a return anytime soon. Losing either or both of those players for any extended period would be surely problematic.

Fortunately, Jamie Moyer provides some insurance for Happ. Moyer was able to step into today on short rest and produce another strong performance. He has pitched remarkably well since being taken out of the rotation a few weeks ago, going 2-0 with a 1.86 ERA.

Ryan Howard, the August NL Player of the Month, has continued his hot hitting. Today he went 3-4 and crushed a home run high off the concrete facade in left-centerfield. The ball hit well above the yellow home run line in Minute Maid stadium, which seems to have been designed by the firm Wiffle Ball Architectural Associates. Raul Ibanez followed Howard's shot with a home run of his own and is starting to show some signs of emerging from his two month slump.

Lets hope that Charlie's message lands safely on his players. One series sweep is not worthy of deep concern, but the team would be wise to turn up the thrusters to maintain a safe cruising distance.

Not the Phillies' or Cliff Lee's Night

Somedays you just seem to get up on the wrong side of the bed. Yesterday appeared to be one of those days for Cliff Lee and the entire Phillies team as they were defeated 7-0 by the Houston Astros. This is not to suggest that the outcome would have been different, but everything seemed to be dropping in for a mediocre Astros team while the Phillies were hitting balls at defenders or just short of where they needed to go.

Last night was the second straight game that Lee struggled after looking like a cross between Steve Carlton and Ron Guidry in their prime in his first five Phillies appearances. When he departed after 3 innings, he had already given up 9 hits and 6 runs. The second inning was particularly painful as Lee threw a total of 42 pitches and surrendered a two-run double to opposing pitcher Wandy Rodriquez (who seemed to be channeling Brett Meyers) on the tenth pitch of the atbat.

The game surely demonstrated the fine line that exists between success and failure. Lee's pitch quality and command did not seem noticeably different than his first five outings, but Astros hitters were able to combine an array of dribblers, dinkers and dunkers with a couple hard hit balls to send Lee to the club house early. Besides Rodriguez's liner down the right field line, Hunter Pence drove a fly ball into the right field stands, just out of the reach of Jayson Werth. These were the only hard hit balls off Lee, but were more than enough to bury the Phils.

Regardless of the soft nature of some of the Astros scoring, the Phillies offense remained stagnant. In contrast to their opponent, they did hit some hard line drives directly at the Astros' infielders, Shane Victorino missed a 2-out, 2-run homer by a couple feet and the game fittingly ended on a line drive double play off the bat of Miguel Cairo. Tough luck notwithstanding, last night's game followed their recent lackluster offensive trend. The Phillies have now scored a total of 7 runs in the past 6 games, and are averaging only 1.6 runs over the last 8 games. Some of that can be attributed to tough pitching opponents, but surely some it falls squarely on their own shoulders.

Last night's game also highlighted that no team ever has the game mastered or can take winning for granted regardless of its lead in the standings, even when you are sending your CY Young award winning ace to the hill against a .500 club. The Phillies team is a compilation of gamers with an intense fighting spirit, but it is also not immune to human nature when an 8.5 game comfort zone engulfs the team.

Games like last night, offensive lulls, stoppers occasionally faltering, balls cracking off the top of the fence, opponents bloopers finding open spaces, etc are a good reminder that the team needs to keep on grinding. And, recent Phillies teams have proven that seemingly large leads in the standings can evaporate quickly. All teams have ebbs and flows in the 162-game marathon of a season, but there is no time better than today to kick up the focus and intensity for the remaining 30 regular season games.