by Chris Pollay
Regardless of who wins today's matchup between the Florida Marlins and the Atlanta Braves, Philly will start the final month of the 2009 regular season with a 7 1/2 game lead with 34 games left to play.
The schedule is divided up evenly with 17 home games and 17 road games. However, it'd probably be better news if the Phils had a lot more road games left as they still boast the best road record in MLB at 41-23.
Still, anyway you slice it, the Phils are in great shape and are highly likely to make a third consecutive postseason appearance.
Of those remaining 34 games, 22 are against opponents who are currently under .500 in the win column. In fact, the Phillies have a combined 43-28 record against their remaining opponents, which include: San Francisco (3 games); Houston (8 games); Washington (6 games); New York Mets (4 games); Atlanta (3 games); Florida (6 games); and Milwaukee (4 games).
The team continues to play solidly, winning 15 games during the month of August including 14 of their last 19. The team is hot and a lot of positive signs are popping up.
Ryan Howard has been on a tear lately. Jimmy Rollins has been swinging the bat well for a long stretch. In all, four different sluggers (Howard, Utley, Werth and Ibañez) have at least 27 homers this season. That's some serious firepower.
In fact, the team still leads the National League in numerous categories: home runs, runs, total bases, SLG and OPS. The team's hitting will keep them in almost every ball game.
So, their postseason run will probably depend a lot more on pitching. The starters are an intimidating rotation. Cliff Lee finally proved he was human with his first bad start with the team. The Braves beat him up on Saturday by garnering ten hits (including three homers) and scoring six earned runs. Lee only lasted five innings.
To put that in perspective, Lee had not given up a homer in his five previous starts (all wins) and he had never lasted less than seven innings in an outing. Even more impressive, he had given up only three earned runs altogether in his five starts prior to Saturday. After the Braves lit him up, his ERA (since joining the team) jumped from .675 to 1.8, which is still quite impressive overall.
Joe Blanton, who delivered a gutsy pitching performance on Sunday to help the Phils take the series, has been consistent for a long, long time now. He hasn't given up more than three earned runs in any of his last 12 starts.
J.A. Happ has exceeded any and all expectations. The young hurler is 10 and 3 this season with a stringent 2.63 ERA. He was 3 and 1 in August and never gave up more than three runs in any of those starts.
Those three pitchers are all pitching like aces right now, which shows how deep the starting pitching is for the Phillies. After all, the MVP of the 2008 World Series is not one of their three top options at the moment. Still, don't bet against Cole Hamels if the team makes it to the postseason. He has been shaky in August, to be sure, but I believe he will lead by example in September.
Starting pitching won't be the issue for the Phillies as the season winds down. It's all about the bullpen, which, of course, has been struggling all season long. The team seems no closer to finding a secure closer, either. Brad Lidge did manage to save the game on Sunday, but his 7.03 ERA is not going to scare any teams when the Phillies hold a late lead from here on out.
Opponents will take comfort that he has blown nine saves in 36 opportunities. That's once every four chances!
Manager Charlie Manuel has one month to go to try to fix the problem, and though the Phillies should have a lot of options to consider, they are running out of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment