Phillies: A sub-.500 Team Chasing a Sort of Relevance

One could be encouraged by young Hamel’s start last night. It was just the sort of hopeful outing a team focused on next year likes to see from a young starting pitcher: a brave effort, facing pressure to keep the other team down as his team scuffled with the bats, on the road. Not too bad, Cole.

But for this year’s team, as opposed to next year, the result was not so good. Yo! Phillies! Uhm guys? You know, well… a team chasing three teams for the wild card can’t waste starts like that. Heck, a sub-.500 team chasing a sort of relevance can’t waste starts like that. The Phillies get under way here shortly- and win or lose, it is another pretty lost week competiton-wise. After taking the opening game, the Phillies managed to lose the weekend series to the Mets- so no matter what happens today, it is another .500 week (or worse) for a .500 team (or worse). The little sunshine and verve they injected into their season last week sort waned immediately upon hitting on the road.

And once again, Jimmy Rollins proves why batting him lead-off pretty much goes a long way to sentencing a ball club to win one, lose one approach. The Braves' pitcher was Hudson last night. While he did pitch very well, early in the game he loses focus to start an inning and walks the pitcher. Immediately, Jimmy Rollins comes up and strikes out?

I mean, Rollins cannot strike out there- particularly with Hudson going along so well. Jimmy has to have an at-bat there that gives the Phillies a chance to scratch out a cheap run- try to manufacture some sort of crude offense to get them to three runs and a chance against a guy going good on the hill that night. Makes that eventual 3-1 game into 3-2, maybe 3-3 thru a semi-inteligent approach to hitting.