• March 29, 2024

Despite Recent Success, The Phillies Are Still In Trouble

The Phillies play over the last week has been refreshing as they pulled to within striking distance of the division. However, the situation is still far from ideal.

The Braves and Mets are still in front of the Phillies, and neither team looks like they are going away. They both have strong starting rotations; rotations that have given the Phillies problems this season.

In order for the Phillies to pass both teams, the offense needs to play like they did against the Blue Jays and Indians. They need to be patient, work the pitch count, and get runners on base. On Monday against the Reds, they fell back into the old bad habits of last month.

It was only a matter of time before the Reds got to starter Kyle Kendrick, and having fallen back into bad offensive habits, once the Phillies fell behind, there wasn’t much hope they would be able to recover.

Another problem has been the constant flow of injuries. The Phillies haven’t had the original opening day roster and line up since 2 weeks into the season.  Jimmy Rollins’ calf injury has already been a lingering problem causing him to miss 2 long stretches of time, and it’s an injury that could easily recur.

Placido Polanco’s elbow has also been a lingering issue since he was hit by a pitch in early May. Polanco has also missed stretches of time due to the injury, and has needed several cortisone injections to try and quiet the injury. There is now talk that he may require surgery in the offseason to get it fixed.

Now Chase Utley has just injured his thumb as well. How many more setbacks can this lineup endure?

The offense as a whole just hasn’t been consistent enough throughout the season. And when the offense struggles, it only magnifies the other major issue on this team which is a lack of pitching depth. The Phillies don’t have the depth in the rotation or the bullpen to win many tight games. Pitchers like Kyle Kendrick, Jamie Moyer, and Joe Blanton need a decent amount of run support in order to have success.

The Phillies will struggle to win games against the better teams in the league unless their offense finds that consistency it’s been missing all season, and gets healthy.

Denny Basens

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Paul Mancini
Paul Mancini
July 1, 2010 10:26 am

The Phils were in trouble since the off-season in my book,
They did not address the Bullpen and or the Bench with enough quality players to get the job done for 2010. I predicted a 2nd place to the Braves in March and an early exit from 2010 playoffs as a Wild-Card team..Now they are playing worse than I expected due to the many injuries on top of their weakness of h a poor bullpen and bench… Now my revised prediction is for Phils for not to even make the Playoffs for 2010.. There are too many teams in the NL that have improved and the Phils are not one of them..
Look for the Braves,Cardinals,Giants or Dodgers win their Divisions with the Reds,Mets,Padres,Rockies
& Phils all competing for a Wild-Card spot….
Anyone notice that since they announced the long-term contract signed by 1B R Howard in May, that the Phils are playing below .500 baseball…

phillywill
phillywill
July 1, 2010 11:06 am

phils are fine playoffs a lock
while pitching is huge i kind of think the world series relies on how well we can hit once in the offs

Paul Mancini
Paul Mancini
July 1, 2010 11:11 am

I think only the NL East Winner is making the Playoffs this year and I don’t see the Phils overtaking the Braves (due to their overall pitching depth) and the Mets,Marlins and Nationals will all be battling hard to the end of the season. I think the Phils won’t win more than 84 games this year which won’t be enough for a WildCard spot which will go to the runner-up teams in the Central or West Divisions (Red/Cardinals or the Dodgers/Padres/Giants/Rockies)

phillywill
phillywill
July 1, 2010 12:19 pm

braves arent 2 good they certainly wont win the division and we will be within a gm or even ahead of them after this wk we play them after pirates we will win 5 of 6 book it

True_Eagles_Fan
True_Eagles_Fan
July 1, 2010 1:22 pm

Take a look at D Browns stats in AAA in 7 games the kid is hitting over .450 and with 2 homers and 6 RBIs. The Phillies need to make a move to wake this team up. And sorry to say it but it needs to be either fire Manuel to shake things up or trade Ibanez and bring up Brown. Ibanez trade will be hard to do but even if they have to eat half his salary they need to so. I dont want to hear that they cant afford to do it that is the biggest load of B.S Ive ever hear they are selling out every game and have done so for basiclly the last 3 years. And has anyone looked around them I know were I live all I see is people wearing Phillies gear. They are making loads of money. They can eat Ibanez contract and sign Werth.

Paul Mancini
Paul Mancini
July 1, 2010 8:26 pm

Bottom Line is that there are 7 teams with a better overall record than the Phils right now..

#1) Padres 46-32 (great pitching, good defense,a pitchers park and a solid bullpen and closer)
#2) Braves 46-33 (great pitching,small ball,great coaching,defense and solid bullpen and closer)
#3) Reds 45-35 (good hitting line-up,solid pitching and excellent bullpen)
#4) Mets 44-35 (timely hitting,better than expected pitching and defense and a proven closer)
#5) Dodgers 43-35 (shaky starting pitching, good young nucleaus of hitters,excellent bullpen)
#6) Cardinals 43-36 (great starters in Carpenter,Wainwright & Garcia,best player in Pujols,shaky
bullpen)
#7) Phillies 41-36 (Avg Starters after Halladay,shaky bullpen & closer, where’s the power # ‘s s and the defense is down this year as well as another weak bench w/injuries)
#8) Rockies 41-37 (Best Pitcher in Jiminez, good 2nd half team, solid bullpen, no Tulowitzke )
#9) SF Giants 40-37 (Lincecum,Cain, & Zito, great Closer in Wilson, Burrell has added some punch
to an otherwise average offense)

Only 4 of these teams will make the 2010 playoffs–
The Winner of each division (East,Central,West) and then the next best overall record for the 4th and
final spot called the Wild-Card. I think the NL East will only get the Division Winner in this years for the playoffs for the rest of the NL Easter will be beating each other up all Sept/Oct as they play each other quite a bit down the stretch. With all the teams improved (even Marlins and Nationals)
I don’t see an NL East team going on a tear like going 25-10 down the stretch with this many tough opponents and good starting pitchers in the NL East like (Santana,Pelfry, Johnson,Strasburg,Lowe,Hudson,Hanson,Jurgens..and closers like K-Rod, Billy Wagner, M Corpas
.. Does everyone think that a closing tandem of Contreras,Romero and Lidge is lights out and frightens anyone..The baseball cleat is on the other foot this season for as many games that the Phils would win late in hgames in seasons past are not losing those games this year due to a lack of big hits from Offense and a shaky bullpen to close out games… It is what it is, this 2010 Phillie version is just not that good and slightly above average which is where I think they will finish which I have been stating since Feb/March when they failed to go out and address their Bullpen & Bench with quality players…