MVN - Most Valuable Network

Victorino’s Walk-Off Hit Gives Mets Unhappy Holiday

The Phillies certainly got off to a good start in a very important four-game series against the Mets, winning 3-2 on a Shane Victorino walk-off RBI single in the ninth. Pedro Feliz easily scored the winning run after doubling with two outs.

It’s safe to say this pitching matchup benefited the Mets, as we saw Johan Santana take the hill against J.A. Happ, a 6′6 lefty whose only other major league start was a loss to the Mets last season. Both pitchers looked very good early, but Happ ran into control problems in the fifth, walking three men in the inning. After walking David Wright with the bases loaded, Happ was pulled for Chad Durbin, who struck out Carlos Beltran to end the inning. Durbin went on to strike out five more batters for a perfect 2 1/3 innings pitched.

The Phils tied the game in the sixth inning, when Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell came through with consecutive two-out RBI singles. The Mets had a chance to take the lead in the eighth, but a Beltran popup and Carlos Delgado groundout stranded Endy Chavez at second. Brad Lidge got three outs on five pitches in the ninth, and would have come out for another inning if the Phillies didn’t win it in the ninth.

Three stars of the game:

1) Shane Victorino, for obvious reasons. The Mets could have walked Victorino and pitched to Chris Coste with a base open in the ninth, but chose to pitch to the Flyin’ Hawaiian instead. Victorino has struggled with runners in scoring position this season, hitting a meager .222, but came through with a very important hit that will hopefully serve as the catalyst for some more mid-season Mets domination.

2) Chad Durbin, for ending a potential big inning for the Mets in the fifth and keeping them off base in the following two innings. As I told MVN-Mets writer Jessica Bader last night, Durbin has been the biggest surprise for the Phillies this season, and one of their most valuable players during the first half of the season. He has pitched 14 1/3 innings of scoreless relief against N.L. East opponents, including 6.2 against the Mets alone.

3) Ryan Howard, for putting the first run on the board for the Phillies against Santana. Howard’s struggles this season have been well documented, but he has been very good lately, driving in 29 runs in his last 27 games. Despite his low batting average, Howard is hitting .330 with RISP and .327 with 2 outs and RISP, two very impressive averages. His hit was key, because the Phillies weren’t doing much of anything off of Santana to that point in the game. In each game Santana has pitched against the Phils, they have gotten to him late. If Howard didn’t pick up that clutch two-out single in the sixth, we could have been looking at a shutout from Santana, who only threw 95 pitches in his eight innings of work.

The Phils move to 48-39 with the win, and currently hold leads of 3, 5.5, and 7 over the Marlins, Mets, and Braves. As I write this, the Marlins are clinging on to a 17-16 lead over the Rockies in the eighth in a truly wild game. The Rockies have overcome deficits of 5, 6, and 9 runs, as well as scored in the first seven innings of the game, and are still losing! Wow.

Jamie Moyer takes on John Maine tomorrow night. Moyer’s major league debut took place when Maine was five years old.

Better than Brett? Phillies hope so

The last time the Phillies were in Atlanta, they swept the Braves. After losing six straight series, they’re in a position to do the same tonight with Cole Hamels on the hill. Hamels was moved up to start tonight due to the off day on Monday and the demotion of pitcher Brett Myers to the minors. As of now, the Phillies have not named a starter for Friday’s game against the Mets. Who will it be? There are options.

J.A. Happ: Happ seems like the most logical choice to take Myers’ start tomorrow night. He’s 5-6 this year at Triple-A Lehigh Valley with a 3.54 ERA. What Happ has going for him is the fact that he is the Phillies’ hottest minor league pitcher right now. In June, he went 3-1 with a 2.51 ERA. He has struck out 104 batters in just 101.2 innings pitched, and has made a strong case to be Myers’ replacement. The 2004 third round draft pick from Northwestern started one game last season for the Phillies. Ironically enough, it was against the Mets. It was a less than impressive debut for Happ, as the lefty lasted just four innings, allowing seven hits and five runs. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, but Happ’s made enough of one this season to warrant a call-up.

Kris Benson: The story of Benson is murky, to say the least. We’ve seen plenty of reports about Benson missing starts and getting them pushed back. At times, it’s been frustrating to see a lack of progress in him. However, Benson started Sunday at Lehigh Valley, and threw 73 pitches, 49 for strikes. He gave up four runs and five hits in four innings, but was able to reach the low 90’s on the radar gun a couple of times. He was consistently in the upper 80’s. Benson hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2006, but his long road back to the Show may be about over. Even if he doesn’t get the call-up for Friday, and it’s highly unlikely he does, he could replace another Phillies pitcher as the season progresses.

Carlos Carrasco: Either the Phillies are hiding something, or there’s bad news. Last night, Carrasco was scheduled to pitch for the Reading Phillies in Eastern League action. However, the Phils’ top pitching prospect was scratched from his start last night with shoulder tightness. So, either Carrasco is injured, or the Phils’ front office is planning on calling up the 21-year old to make the start tomorrow night. Carrasco is 5-7 with a 4.18 ERA in 97 innings pitched this season. As the top prospect, he’s been bantered about in trade rumors for the past few seasons. The Phillies will be making a mistake with him if they trade him, however. They need to remember that he’s just 21, and young pitchers sometimes take a little while to develop (See Floyd, Gavin). If he does miraculously get the call-up, it will be his first start in the Bigs.

So, those are the three main options for the Phillies as of now. Of course, by the time July 31st rolls around, there may be a new face in the rotation from the outside. For now, it’s just about trying to get to the 31st.

Lou to the Bigs? It should be elementary

“Ground ball to short, flip to second for one, back to first for the double play.” That’s a line we’ve heard all too often this season when Carlos Ruiz has been at the plate. Be it a grounder to third, second, short, or first, Ruiz has grounded into nine double plays. Of course, we know we can’t just judge a player based on the amount of the double plays he’s grounded into. So we’ll also judge Ruiz on his poor OPS, which is .601, and the fact that his slightly above average defensive skills do not nearly mask his lackluster abilities at the plate.

Last year, Ruiz posted a .259/.340/.396 campaign and was lauded, as he should have been. Ruiz was everything we could have expected him to be in his 115 games played last year. He truly emerged as the best catcher on the team, after the Phillies realized that Rod Barajas was a mistake. Any thoughts about Ruiz being able to handle the tough load of a full season were put to rest, and Ruiz was set to get the majority of the playing time in 2008 with Chris Coste playing his tandem partner.

However, through 80 games, we’ve learned a few things. Pedro Feliz and Geoff Jenkins have been major disappointments. The starting pitching has been decent, and the bullpen has been fantastic. Ruiz has not. The fact of the matter is, while guys like Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard have all struggled of late, they carried this team for parts of the season. Ruiz has never been asked to carry the team, but he hasn’t been even bearable at any point of the season. No hot streaks, no reaching-base streaks, and just four multi-hit games in the 56 he has appeared in.

Already at 29 years of age, Ruiz isn’t helping himself. There’s talent in the minor leagues. Jason Jaramillo, a relative disappointment in his own right, would be a better option than Ruiz. The right man for the job, however? It’s Lou Marson. The Phillies’ 4th round pick in 2004 his hitting .328 with two homeruns and 37 RBI for Double-A Reading. He has posted an on-base percentage of .449. And at this point, the choice needs to be clear for Phillies management. Marson needs to be promoted to the Majors as fast as possible, and the team needs to find a way to end the Carlos Ruiz experiment.

Coste has been a superb “backup” this season for the Phillies. It’s a term that should be used lightly considering the fact that Coste has been infinitely better than Ruiz in every way this year. Not only has he had a .315/.375/.531 season in his 130 at bats, he’s thrown out 10 of 33 base-runners. Ruiz has thrown out 13 of 50. Coste should start seeing more playing time, and he should do it while having Marson as his partner. Enough is enough. It’s time to say goodbye to Carlos.

Phillies Finally End Losing Streak

The Phillies ended their longest losing streak since July 2006 with a 4-0 win over the Oakland Athletics. During the six-game losing streak, the Phils provided little offense, hitting just .170 while leaving 77 men on base. That’s a whopping average of 13 LOB per game.

Chase Utley hopefully put an end to his uncharacteristic slump, in which he was 1-29, by going 4-5. He was stranded on base several times and thrown out at home by A’s right fielder Ryan Sweeney, so while you won’t see any runs scored or driven in for Utley in the box score, his four hits were crucial to the Phillies pulling this one out.

Kyle Kendrick (7-3) was brilliant, pitching eight shutout innings for the longest outing of his career. He also surrendered a career low five baserunners (four hits, one walk.) The only time the A’s threatened against Kendrick was in the 8th, when they had runners on 1st and 2nd with one out. Kendrick struck out Mark Ellis and fielded a groundball off the bat of Ryan Sweeney to end the inning, and the potential rally. J.C. Romero pitched a scoreless ninth to complete the shutout.

The Phils created several runs for themselves in this game by executing a double-steal in the 1st inning that led to a sac fly, and using the tremendous speed of Shane Victorino to score him from first on a single by Chris Coste. The first inning sac fly was a bang-bang play, as was Sweeney’s throw to the plate that gunned down Utley, but the Phils showed that they will be as aggressive as possible while trying to break out of this rut.

The Phillies still struggled with men on tonight (11 LOB), as this game should have been a blowout. They left Utley on third with one out in the 5th, left men on 1st and 2nd with none out in the 7th, and stranded the bases loaded with no outs in the 8th. The Phils have been a good situational hitting team all season, as evidenced by their .393 batting average with men on 3rd and less than 2 out, but simply have not picked up the timely hit since the first game of the Red Sox series.

Other thoughts:

• Utley’s slump was well chronicled, but nobody has seemed to notice how awful Geoff Jenkins has played lately. Jenkins is 0 for his last 23, and 2-38 over his last twelve games. His average has dropped from .286 to .243 in the process. Jenkins has an extremely low .295 OBP and .385 slugging percentage for the season. It might be time to make Jayson Werth the everyday right fielder. Jenkins may have been an expensive offseason acquisition, but that money wasn’t spent on a guy who would have a lower OPS than Paul Bako midway through the season.
• These next few series are crucial for the Phillies. This losing streak saw their N.L. East lead shrink by several games over the Mets and Braves, but thanks to the poor play of every team in the division, the Phils are still in a pretty good position. After finishing this series with the A’s tomorrow and traveling to Texas for three, the Phils close out the road trip in Atlanta, where they swept the Braves before this skid started. Those three games are followed by a series at home with the Mets. All in all, the next week and a half will be VERY important, as you don’t want to allow the Braves or Mets to get back in this thing or rejuvenate them in any way.