My Fellow Phans,
I'm sure that most of you know about the various trash receptacles around Citizens Bank Park. However, the biggest trash holder is a large rectangular area in center field where the Phillies relievers sit each game and that is of course, the Phillies bullpen.
If the Phillies don't make the playoffs this year, don't blame the offense or the defense or the starting pitching. The bullpen would be responsible for such occurrences. Last night's game was the epitome of this point.
Kyle Kendrick struggled, no doubt about that. He's Jekyll and Hyde these days; he can be really good or really bad depending on the night. It almost looks like his problems are mental at the point as his demeanor dictates how he will pitch. But I digress.
So Kendrick departed, honestly earlier than I expected as Manuel has a habit of leaving pitchers in too long sometimes, and the bullpen entered. As bad as Kendrick was, the bullpen was even worse. The pen came in to give up 9 runs in 5.2 innings. I think its say to say that that is bad.
Bastardo came in first and allowed all the inherited runners to score including his own batter. Now during the 4th/5th innings, the Phillies made a valiant attempt at a comeback getting it to 7-4, after it had been 7-0. All the bullpen needed to do was hold it and not give up 9 runs.
Herndon came in and imploded in his second inning of work allowing 4 runs in a single inning. He got behind in the count and when he actually got ahead of hitters, he threw cookies that were launched into right field for doubles. It was truly a horrible inning. All the work the Phillies had done to make it a 3 run game was washed away in a heartbeat.
The Phillies continued to try to comeback scoring a few runs here and there. Meanwhile, the man who may be the worst reliever in baseball, Dannyz Baez came in and surprise surprise gave up a pair of runs in an inning of work to raise his amazing ERA to 5.54 which is the 2nd highest ERA in the NL amongst relievers with at least 52 appearances.
By the time, Baez had finished yet another bad inning, it was 13-5. The Phillies scored a pair in the 7th and in the 9th, but not before J.C. Romero gave up another pair of runs in just a third of an inning. What gets me about that inning was that Romero was left in to face the right handed hitting Casey Blake, who proceeded to homer off of him and than walked the pitcher, who was left handed, before being pulled. At this point, it seems Romero couldn't hit the plate if he was standing in the damn batters box. Does anybody know what the word control means?
Yes, he walked the relief pitcher, George Sherrill. Sherrill, who was just standing at the plate waiting for the at bat to end. All you had to do was put the ball over the plate. He wasn't going to swing at it. Talk about sad.
The only pitchers who weren't scored upon tonight are the only two relievers that I have any confidence in right now and they are Jose Contreras and Chad Durbin. Kudos to you guys on actually pitching respectably.
Also congrats to young Domonick Brown on hitting his first major league homer and to Ross Gload for hitting a pair of homers. Together, they knocked in 8 of the 9 Phillies runs. Thank you guys for showing up to play last night when a lot of other people seemed to stick their heads in the sand.
I sure hope Roy Oswalt is ready to go tonight since we will need him to pitch a lot of innings to rescue and help us avoid this trash dump that is our bullpen.
Until we meet again Phillies Fans; Happy Readings and Go Phillies!
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