Liberty Ball

While it may seem odd that a team’s opening day starter would eventually become the closer in the same year, it’s not as odd as at least I thought.  According to this Baseball Prospectus story, there have been eight occasions where an opening day starter logged three or more saves in the same season.  And it’s also interesting the most saves by an opening day starer is none other then Tom Gordon with Boston in 1997.  He saved eleven games that year.

The Phillies have dropped two of their last three games and they’ve lost some ground to the streaking Mets.  In the win on Friday, Jon Lieber had a nice start and the guy he replaced, Bret Myers, saved the game for him.

And since we’re on the subject of Myers, he’s been nothing short of awesome since moving into the pen.  As a reliever. he’s struck out 28 in 18 2/3 innings and he has a 0.96 ERA.  He’s also held hitters to a nice .229/.299/.300 line out of the pen, and that’s despite a .366 batting average against on ball put into play.  I was skeptical at first but if the Phillies get back into contention, this could be one of the moves that got them there.

It looks like I picked the right time to comeback.  Net/hosting problems prevented from hosting for a couple of weeks but I’m now back and just in time because the Phillies are slowly pushing themselves back into contention.  And they’ve done it with three straight wins over a team that had the best record in the National League heading into the series.

The Phillies have a long way to go though because they site 5 1/2 games back.  They have one more against the Brewers and then it’s interleague play when the Blue Jays of all teams roll into town.

Aaron Rowand has been one of the hot batters for the Phillies.  He leads the team with a .340 batting average and he’s almost matched last season’s walk total of 18 with 17 walks on the season.  While you expect top notch performance from guys like Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins, having Rowand break out like this is a pleasant surprise.

And then there’s Ryan Howard, who’s sitting on the disabled list.  Maybe holding off on a long term deal was a prudent move by the Phillies.  At least Utley is earning his paycheck.  We just have to hope that when Howard comes back, he’s productive and can give the team a nice boost.

Cole Hamels has definitely established himself as the team’s ace.  70 strikeouts in 62 2/3 innings is quite a mark and he’s done it while keeping his walks down.   The eight homers are a concern but you can’t argue with the 6-1 record.  And Bret Myers has done really well out of the pen. While you’d hate to pay a guy that much as a middle reliever, he’s done the job and he has 45 strikeouts in 33 innings.  In fact I’m hoping to take a look at Bret Myers a little more closer here this week.

The only downer is that Adam Eaton has hardly lit it up since he got his chance in the rotation.  He has had two nice starts in a row though so hopefully that’s the new trend.

Anyway, just getting back into it and you should be seeing more regular posts here from here on out since the problems are fixed.  I’m also hoping to make some more progress on the Mike Schmidt retro but that’s kind of stalled.  Go Phillies.