Phils Make It Official

 

The Phils set an infamous mark atop the most losses in professional
sports history in '07, then won the World Series in '08.

A baseball season can be long and uniquely discombobulating.  There are times a team can appear to be floating in space like a disconnected satellite.  Often, it is deceptively unclear where a team truly stands.  Sure, there are the Standings and the Stats, which in baseball and for its analysts are always King.

However, neither tells the tale of a team's potential to move, suddenly, either up or down.  At any moment, there can be a massive slump that leads to a  great fall, like Humpty when he dumped or an unforeseeable 2nd-half climb to Wild Card and then Playoff glory, as has been the case in recent years with teams like S.F., who the Phils play tonight.

Sometimes the not knowing how good or how bad you actually are can feel like navigating on the ocean in a storm without a compass.  You can focus on the square inch of sea before you, but hopelessness and despair can seep in like fog and lead you in circles till you run out of steam.

The '64 Phils are considered the worst collapse ever.

That's the first of two reasons it was comforting when the Phillies dropped 2 at home to the Miami Marlins.  When you look square in the face of an 8-22 team, the worst team in all of baseball and drop 2-straight AT HOME to that team, you have OFFICIALLY HIT ROCK BOTTOM.  You know just where you stand.

The second reason for comfort is the fact that Phillies fans know losing.  It is second nature to our team, a team that has defined losing like no other franchise in organized sports history.



Last summer, the Phils resumed a familiar role.



All of the ups and downs of last season, the offensive woes and power outtages which have been increasing steadily the past few years and the disappointing playoff runs that ended abruptly culminated on Sunday in a demoralizing tapestry of defeat.

Saturday, the Phils took the field at Citizens Bank, the same field where we hoisted the World Series trophy 4 years ago.  I was there.  The stands were thumping so loud and so hard with anticipation of each out that the ground was literally shaking.  It was nerve-wracking, impossible, millions of Phillies' fans personal dreams being realized in the most public of ways on the international stage of a World Title.


The fan who wrote this sign in '08 may want it trashed now.



Saturday, the Phils took to that same field and fell flat on their faces.  They struck out 12 times, walked twice and managed only a single hit.  It was baseball's equivalent of a First Round Knockout.  They had their clocks cleaned and looked utterly hapless and hopeless doing it.  It couldn't have been scripted any better by the team's worst enemies, which is to say that it put a smile on the face of Dodgers and Mets fans everywhere.

You could argue, understandably, because the truth does hurt, that 20 year-old Jose Fernandez, who went 7 innings was just too good.  The problem with that theory is twofold: 

1) Fernandez had never won a major league game going into Saturday and had in fact posted the following numbers in his previous 3 starts: 13 IP, 15 hits, 11 runs, 8 BB.  Vs. the Phils Saturday?  7 IP, 1 hit, 0 runs, 1 BB, 9 S.O.  Bottom line?  Fernandez didn't suck down magic Nolan Ryan potion Saturday morning, the Phils were really that inept. 

2) Once Fernandez had left the game, the Phils struck out 3 times and went hit-less in their final 6 outs.  Two of those strikeouts were to closer Steve Cishek, whose ERA coming into the game was 5.25.  (Also not Nolan Ryan.)  Translation: The Phils were lifeless, down and out, out for the count and whatever other sports cliches you want to tag on to a dead duck.  Their 3-4-5 hitters (Utley-Howard-D.Young) posted a combined for 0-for-10 with SEVEN strikeouts!  Hard to believe.

Sunday, they had a chance at redemption.  They had Roy Halladay, their two-time Cy Young winning ace on the mound.  Halladay promptly surrendered 9 earned runs and 4 walks in just 2 1/3 innings.  Halladay was subsequently placed on the DL.  While it would be comforting to blame his drastic and staggering failure and in turn the team's on his ailing and aging body, the truth is of a less settling nature.  The 3 relief pitchers who followed his foray into a blistering and damning dagger-to-the-heart 14-2 loss to the worst team in all of baseball fared just the same as the injured Halladay.

During the remaining 6 2/3 innings, Valdes, Durbin and Horst surrendered 9 hits, 5 runs and 2 HR to a Marlins team that ranks 30th out of 30 MLB teams in runs, batting average and slugging percentage (they are 29th in on base percentage).  If only the Marlins could play every game against the Phils.  The 4 Phillies pitchers left the game with ERAs of 8.65, 7.00, 6.75 and 6.59.  This from a team that was recently proud leaders in pitching.  Today, the Phillies, who are near the bottom in every offensive category (24th in runs, 25th in batting average and 27th in both slugging percentage and on base percentage), are startlingly 26th in baseball with a 4.51 team ERA.

In short, they can't hit, they can't pitch, and they're old.


Phils presently promising more sleepless nights.

The Marlins came into Philly as the laughing stock of the professional sports world and left with their heads high on just their SECOND WINNING STREAK of the season.  If they could only play in Citizens Bank Park every night, the Fish might be in First Place.  The Phils had a chance, at home, to reach .500 for the first time since they were 6-6 after beating the Marlins on April 14th.  Instead they fell to 4 games under against a team that dropped 9-of-10 to start the year.

For weeks we heard talk from the team and local media that Ruiz and Delmon Young were riding in on white horses to save the season, much like Utley-Howard were expected to do in 2012.  Utley-Howard nearly did, vindicating front office claims that the product they were putting on the field was quality and competitive.  However, the difference between Utley-Howard and Ruiz-D. Young is that the former have MVP and All-Star honors while the latter are most recently known for their steroid use and hate-crime harassment charges. 

Ruiz and D. Young can't save this team any more than an umbrella can stop an avalanche.

Now, we're hearing that shutting down Doc will pave the road to success for the 2013 Phils.  Somehow, we're supposed to believe that deleting the staff Ace, a future Hall-of-Famer who has won Cy Young in both leagues is a great sign of good things to come.  Pardon me if I'm not buying it.

Now, after going 2-4 against 2 last-place teams, the Phils will spend the next 7 games on the road battling 2 winning teams with playoff potential, S.F. and Arizona.  Then, they will return home to host the Indians, who swept them last week and Cincinnati, another top-tier playoff caliber team.



Are these our final days with Utley?

The road ahead is long and hard.  The Phils, old and weak, appear unprepared.  The next few weeks will determine if the Phils will be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline.  I don't think there's any misreading which one they are today.  In short, this may be the last we see of Lee and Utley.  Who knows who else?  Last season, the team parted ways with high salary outfielders Pence and Victorino, each of whom was beloved by fans and is presently playing for a First Place team.  We were promised big name free agent outfield replacements and got castoff bargain basement buy Delmon Young and in-house perennial disappointment Domonic Brown instead.  Both have upside potential, Brown especially, but each comes with not a hint of capital risk.

Now, it seems apparent that the front office had another plan when they passed on adding big names this off-season.  Perhaps they saw the writing on the wall.  Perhaps they read 2012 as the beginning of the end.  Perhaps they saw that the end of 2013 would bring welcome relief in the end of Utley and Halladay's contracts, feeling that the only place to go from here is youth and rebuilding. 

Utley, for his part, has done as much as anyone could ask.  He has played every game and leads the team in HR and RBI. 

The team is still married to Hamels, Lee and Howard.  Lee would be a prize on the open market, although Howard is unmoveable due to his overblown salary.  He is making $20 million this year and has posted virtually the same HR-RBI production as Domonic Brown, who is making $500,000.  Cole Hamels appears untouchable, since he is the darling of team owner David Montgomery. 



Cliff Lee must show Ace-like consistency.

Cliff Lee has been particularly confounding of late.  After a fantastic start (3 games, 2-0, 1.52 ERA) he has surrendered a whopping 26 hits and 13 runs in 18 innings, while the team has lost all of his last 4 starts.

It's a long season.  There are 132 games remianing, plenty of opportunity for turnaround, both individual and collective.  If the Phillies are going to right this sinking ship, it will have to be first and foremost through their starting pitching.  By the end of 2010, management realised this was no longer a hitting team and retooled to unveil the 4 aces for 2011.  The result?  The best record in team history.  Now, Hamels and Lee will have to combine to fill the shoes of fallen star Ace Halladay.  They can, they've even shown flashes of it in the early going this season.  Meanwhile, the Phils will need contribution from Ruiz (.100), Rollins (.236), Delmon Young (.150) or Revere (.212).  They will need at least 2 of those 4 to find life-- and fast.

Finally, there needs to be a reliable long-term middle reliever.  Perhaps whoever they call up to take Halladay's roster spot (Tyler Cloyd?) will stay on in that role.  Charlie Manuel finally has a bridge to Jonathan Papelbon.  He needs at least one reliable long middle reliever during games where his starter exits early or on days when Aumont, Adams and Bastardo (best served in spot appearances or as set-up men) are spent. 

All of that is a tall order.  Can it happen?  With quality baseball intelligence in the Phils front office, fine tuning is always an option via trade and minor league promotion.  However, remember this: the wick is short on the current incarnation.  Whether we are buyers or sellers in a few short weeks is being determined, nightly, on the field.