Lassitude

My one-week vacation away from blogging was a nice respite from the continuing lassitude surrounding the baseball team. The Philadelphia Phillies haven’t won a series since sweeping Arizona a month ago- and that didn’t change. Now that is lassitude.

Last night, the Phillies looked poised to purge the blight- rallying late to tie the game with the Padres. Get three outs from Flash, right?- and look to plate that big run in the ninth. Instead, Gordon served up a three run home run. Consequently, Ryan Madson will take the ball tonight to try- mind you, the key word being try in all things rotation-wise- to get the Phillies that second win in three tries that has alluded them for a month.

Rich Hofmann implies the Phillies sort of have to soldier on as long as they have a chance at the bare 85 wins it currently appears will win the Wild Card. You can’t disagree with that, per se.

But, be honest. There are seven teams ahead of the Phillies- and the odds are one of them will get enough of their stuff in one sock to push that number a little north of 85. Every year it looks like 85 could do it- but in the end you normally need at least 88- and those three games are a big difference.

Any big push can’t come at the expense of the things that absolutely need to get done around here. For example, David Dellucci is the sort of corner bat someone could pay for. In fact, a key reason they signed him was with an eye toward trading him; he is/was never going to play regularly here. There are serviceable arms in the ‘pen that could fetch a nice price- particularly with even decent relief pitching at a premium and everyone contending in he National League. They cannot rush Leiber or Wolf back in the rotation.

Plus, I’ve never bought this stuff that young players can’t be nurtured in winning ways on a team that isn’t contending. That’s ridiculous. A Phillies team trying frantically to get to 84 wins means the kids aren’t playing. It means Ryan Franklin is starting and Bell & Leiberthal are out there every day. Are you telling me none of the young pitchers could benefit from long looks in the second half more than Lidle or Franklin? Or that I need to see more Leiberthal at-bats and fewer from Carlos Ruiz? The only upside to losing 90 games is it gives you the luxury to play young players without real consequence- rather than trying to find if they can contribute next April when the games count again.

This team has some assets they either can or ought to move- and some guys who need to play in order to find out about them. I can’t see a club with a starting rotation featuring an ERA of just under six making a run at this thing- so play as much as you can with an eye toward next year.