Philadelphia Phillies (32-29)
Joe Blanton got the start and continued his poor play on the mound as the Phils got behind the eight ball and ended up losing in extra innings and was hamstrung by the play of Jayson Werth who struck out to end the game, Werth went 0-5 with three strikeouts.
The Phillies went on the lose the next day as well to split the series with the Padres as they wasted another quality start from Cole Hamels who carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning before Adrian Gonzalez homered. In support of Hamels, the Phillies only mustered one run going into a three-game set against the Florida Marlins.
And for one night, the Phillies look like they are supposed to look and scored 10 runs, which was the first time since mid-May that they scored in double-digits as the Phils won 10-8. All the important players got hits and Ryan Howard hit a home run, something he hasn't done as frequently this season. But, the Phillies were shutout the next day, not by the Marlins, but by rain.
Wednesday's Game 2 against the Marlins was rescheduled to September 6th and turned into a day-night doubleheader with the rescheduled game being the 1:05pm start time, so that meant the Phillies suddenly hot bats had to wait another day and face Josh Johnson which turned out to be double whammy.
The Phillies were shutout officially in this one as Johnson outpitched Roy Halladay in a pitching duel that ended with a 2-0 Marlins victory. Shutout for the seventh time this season, Philadelphia matched their shutout total from all of 2009 and was only able to manage four hits on te night and then the team traveled to Boston...
And proceeded to be schooled on the field in humiliating fashion, the Red Sox took Game 1 by a score of 12-2 and Jamie Moyer had the worst start of his career lasting just over a inning while allowing nine earned runs as Boston jumped out to a 12-0 lead in just three innings of play. It was the worst loss for the Phils in almost a year and it was followed by another massacre.
Joe Blanton's string of bad starts continued as he went four innings and gave up 13 hits and allowed the same number of earned runs Moyer gave up the night before, nine. As the Phillies lost again 10-2 and looked lifeless and defeated again and a players-only meeting followed. Blanton fell to 1-5 on the season and adding insult to injury, J.D Drew had a home run in the blow-out.
Cole Hamels ended the week on a good note though, getting the Phillies a 5-3 victory on Sunday. Hamels performed well following a second inning home run to Adrian Beltre as the Phillies now prepare for the New York Yankees tonight at "New" Yankee Stadium.
Record: 2-5
Avg Runs Per Game: 3.0
The Good: Roy Halladay- This one's obvious, Roy has been everything we've expected of him this season. He's only had two bad starts this year, games in which he's given up more than five earned runs. If you take out those two starts, then Halladay would have an ERA of 1.12. And even though he lost on Thursday, he still managed to lower his ERA to 1.97 in the process, Halladay has been great as advertised.
Placido Polanco- He has the highest batting average of any regular Phillie, minus the injured Jimmy Rollins who only has 41 at-bats. Polanco has proven that manager Charlie Manuel knew what he was talking about when he put Polanco in the number two spot in the lineup to start the season. In the last week, he's batting .400 and is batting .394 in June, he's been a tough out at the top of the lineup and the only consistent Phillie in the starting lineup.
The Bad: Chase Utley- Utley started out the season on an epic tear, and has since gone through what's been considered the worst slump of his career. There has been talk of a potential injury, but there has been no evidence to support that rumor. His average has dropped to a season-low .256 and he's only hitting .153 with no homers since May 20th.
Ryan Howard- Howard has hit a little better of late, but is experiencing a power outage much like Chase Utley. Howard has only 10 home runs this season, while last year he had 19 home runs at this point in the season. Howard is hitting .230 since May 20th.
The Ugly: Jayson Werth- It's been no secret how poorly Jayson Werth has played in the last month, but what makes his play worse is that while Howard and Utley have shown some signs of life, Werth has shown approximately two signs of life in the past month, the home-run last weekend and the big single on Sunday before a two-run shot by Raul Ibanez that gave the Phillies the lead for good. The reason Werth gets so much flack for his slump is because of how important he was earlier in the season, he was in a zone and now...not so much. His end of game strikeouts on back-to-back days, were definite low-lights from this past week.Joe Blanton- He has been without a doubt, the worst Phillies starter this season and his two starts this past week displayed how bad he has been on the mound. He has the highest ERA on staff of any Phillies pitcher, both reliever and starter, it stands at 7.28. The record sits at a immensely disappointing 1-5 and he has an ERA in June of 14.00 in only nine innings of action while giving up two home runs in each start.
Hopefully, this week will spell better fortunes for the Phils as the defending National League Champs are going into the Bronx to take on the champs tonight in a World Series rematch that isn't really getting the hype it deserves because of the Phillies recent poor play.
I mean, this is the first World Series rematch we've had in season since 2002 when the D'Backs and Yankees played each other following the 2001 seven game epic.
It's Roy Halladay vs C.C Sabathia in what should be an interesting one and this series will definitely be a good way to determine where the Phillies are since they will be facing the same 1-2-3 punch they faced last October. Burnett and Pettitte will be following Sabathia tomorrow and Thursday night. All the baseball eyes will be on New York for the next three days, let's hope the Phillies show up.
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