Phillies Complete Successful Homestand with Win over Mets

My Fellow Phans,

So far, so good for the Phillies. They had one small hiccup in the road with that Tuesday abomination, but otherwise, they’ve been great.

Worried about the Phillies offensive? I recall that I implored you not to worry about our hitters in a post way back before the season started.

So, after 6 games, the Phillies are hitting a robust .353, which is tops in the Majors. They have scored 43 runs, just 2 behind  the Reds and White Soxs. Now don’t forget that these two teams have powerhouse lineups and are expected to score a lot of runs this season. They have scored more runs then the Rangers, Yankees, and Red Soxs. They are also second in the majors in hits, just 1 behind the White Soxs.

Now, they didn’t do this against bad pitching either. They faceda pair of starters on Houston, Brett Myers and Wandy Rodriguez, who posted very good ERAs last year: 3.14 and 3.60 respectively. Throw into that equation, that Rodriguez was a left hander and this opening home stand seems all that more impressive.

Then came the Mets. Now, I am going to leave Thursday out of this discussion. I truly have no idea what happened to the offense that night. I’m not going to make excuses, but it was surprising. All we did was knock him around for 6 runs in 4 innings.

The Phillies then proceeded to shlack Mike Pelfrey, a man with a 3.91 ERA against us last year and then following that, they beat Jon Niese. His stats against us last year were nothing special, just 1-1 with a 2.14 ERA plus 20 strikeouts in 21 innings. Those 6 runs were more than the total he gave up last year against us (5).

Still Worried? I think the Phillies have shown they are capable of scoring runs and hitting. Now, I know we all can agree that they will not keep up this hitting, but we can rest assured that the Phillies lineup is not going to be as bad this year as people make it out to be.

On the other side of the ball, the pitching has been good. Our first 3 starters have pitched up to par, although Hamels and Blanton both had mini speed bumps this past weekend. It’s too early to start to worry about either guy, but I am curious to see how they throw during their next outing.

So, now we go on the road as we open up Turner Field and face the Atlanta Braves. That series preview is still to come. Stay tuned!

Until we meet again Phillies Fans; Happy Readings and Go Phillies!