The Phillies at the quarter turn

It’s mid-May and the Philadelphia Phillies are approaching the quarter-turn of season, and what better time to look at the goings on of the defending National League East champions.

As of May 12, the Phillies are 21-18, which, while not exactly dominating, is a good sign in comparison to the tortoise-slow starts of years past, and puts them 2.5 games back of the first place Florida Marlins. In fact, the Phillies have made it to the top of the division a full five months sooner than last year!

So let’s take a look at the good and the bad so far this year for the Phillies.

The Good:
Chase Utley is on fire. Right after opening day, I predicted that Utley would bring the Phillies their third straight National League MVP, and he is just tearing up the league, hitting .327 with 13 homers and 28 RBIs. I know it is still early, but Chutley is on pace for a 50-homer season.

Pat Burrell is smacking the cover off the ball like it’s a contract year, because, well, it is. Along with Utley, Pat the Bat has carried the Phillies offense, which despite pitiful output from several key hitters, is still among the league leaders in runs scored. Burrell is hitting just under .300, but has added 9 homers and 31 RBIs, putting him on pace to approach career highs in both categories.

The Phillies bullpen has bailed out the hitters and starters on more occasions than I can count already this season. Just look at the numbers. Brad Lidge, Chad Durbin, J.C. Romero and Rudy Seanez all have ERAs south of 2.00. In fact, if you take out the five run debacle on opening day by Tom Gordon, the Phillies top five relievers have given up just 12 runs in 88 innings. The concern here is that the pen is being severely overworked due to the fact that Cole Hamels is the only Phillies starter who has given them consistent, quality innings. In fact, Brett Myers is the only other starter averaging more than 6 innings per start, but his ERA is 5.33, so I don’t think it’s really a good thing that he’s pitching so much. More on Brett in the bad section.

The Bad:

The Phillies hitters who are not named Utley or Burrell. What is wrong with these guys? Ryan Howard, Carlos Ruiz, Pedro Feliz, Shane Victorino, and Jayson Werth are all under-performing this year.

Jayson Werth started out hot, but is just 4-for-24 in the month of May and the rest of the starters haven’t been told that the season has started.

Feliz, Ruiz and Werth aren’t key catalysts for the Phillies offense, but the two guys that need to get going are Howard and Victorino.

Ryan Howard is playing like a guy who is content with the $10 million arbitration award he received in the offseason, and refuses to make a single adjustment at the plate. It has gotten so bad for Howard that even the Phillies announcers are making comments about his stubbornness at plate. Howard is hitting in pitcher territory at .171, and has struck out 54 times in 39 games, putting him on pace to break his own strikeout record. It’s easy to look the other way when a guy strikes out 199 times if he also smacks 47 homers and drives in 136 runs like he did last year, but this year, he’s on pace for less than 30 homers, and the ones that he does knock out of the park seem to be accidents.

While Victorino did miss time this season with a leg injury, he is hitting just .232, and what’s worse is that he can’t seem to draw a walk at the top of the lineup. Luckily, he’ll slide back into the 2-hole in the lineup now that Jimmy Rollins has returned from injury.

Switching over to pitching, the Phillies starters have not been consistent. Nothing infuriates me more than a pitcher tossing a gem one game and then following it up with a clunker. Cole Hamels has pitched brilliantly this year, despite his pedestrian 4-3 record. After Hamels, the other four starters all have ERAs around 5.00 and WHIPs at about 1.50.

Those are bad numbers, but luckily the bullpen has been pitching so many solid innings, the Phillies team ERA is actually more than a half of a run lower than last year. Through 39 games, the Phillies team ERA is 4.05, and that includes Jamie Moyer, Ryan Madson, Brett Myers, Adam Eaton and Clay Condrey all delivering ERAs above 5.00.

I’ll admit that I expect poor pitching from Madson, Eaton and Condrey, but Brett Myers has been especially frustrating this season. From opening day when he made the comments about losing his command when making the switch from the bullpen to the rotation, to his puzzling lack of velocity on some days, Myers has been a disappointment all season. The problem with Myers, who is 2-3 with a 5.33 ERA, is that he isn’t pitching poorly, he just makes poor pitches. I’m not crazy, there really is a difference between those two assessments. Adam Eaton and Ryan Madson pitch poorly. They get hit hard consistently. Brett Myers pitches well and keeps hitters off-balance, but he makes a mistake with one pitch and it gets crushed. Myers has served up 12 homers this year in eight starts. For instance, look at his starts against the Cubs and the Astros in April. In back-to-back starts, he gave up a total of four runs in 15 innings pitched, but all four runs were scored on solo homers. I’m not ready to write off Myers yet. He can turn it around if he just focuses better during the game, because as we saw last season, his stuff really is electric.

The final analysis of the first quarter of the Phillies season is quite interesting. The bullpen is the strongest part of this team, and the hitters struggle, yet seem to score runs at the most opportunistic times.

The hitters need to get on track in a hurry, because this pitching staff can’t and won’t carry the team for the next 120 games. The bullpen should remain solid, but for the next four-and-a-half months, can the starters keep getting them the ball with the lead if the hitters don’t round into form? And, at what point will the arms in the bullpen start to tire out from constant use. At least there are five arms out there that can be trusted with a lead, unlike last year when there were only three.

Needless to say, it should be an interesting couple of months considering the Braves are starting to get a little healthier, the Mets are playing just as inconsistent as the Phillies, and most shocking, the Marlins’ youngsters have progressed to the point where there are eerie similarities between this team and the 2003 team that shocked the New York Yankees to win the World Series.