Series 6 Pack: Philadelphia Phillies
So it wasn’t an ideal start to the nine game NL Interleague road trip for the Red Sox. They dropped two of three to the Pittsburgh Pirates, got knocked out of first place in the AL East and now head to Philadelphia to battle one of the top teams in the Majors for three games; the Phillies.
It doesn’t get any comfortable knowing that Josh Beckettwill pitch on Tuesday, which will be his first start in over two weeks. All Beckett has to do is out-duel left handed Cliff Lee who is undefeated in the month of June.
Add in the fact that the Red Sox bats have been silenced as of late, David Ortizhasn’t played in 3 games (despite some pinch hitting) and the defence suddenly can’t throw the ball to first without committing an error and Red Sox fans are collectively holding their breath when Boston visits “the city of brotherly love.”
With that being said, here is this series 6 pack. Thanks to Justin from the Philadelphia Fansided blog, “That Ball’s Outta Here” for answering the 6 pack on all things Philadelphia and helping you get a little more insight into the series.
1. What sets this 2011 Phillies team apart from the Championship team of 2008?
Multiple ace pitchers and the inability to create enough offense to win the game.
2. Charlie Manuel has made it known he wants a right handed bat. Who would be a good fit for the Phillies and what/who would they be willing to give up? With that being said, do the Phillies miss Jayson Werth?
I think the papers were saying Josh Willingham, Ryan Ludwick, and somebody else. And now Willingham’s on the DL so that leaves these other two guys, one of whom I seem to have forgotten. But this has all come with assurance that “making inquiries” and “acquiring” are two very different things. Amaro has been backpedaling out of his image as a top-hat-wearing payroll manager all season, swearing we will make no big name deal. So I’m not sure if this is even worth getting excited about, because there’s a good chance its just quiet babbling from behind the curtain. Of course Amaro is a bald faced liar so hell this could mean literally anything.
Speaking of Jayson Werth, we have no unresolved feelings about Jayson Werth.
3. After two .500 seasons, Cole Hamels appears to be back to his dominating ways that the baseball world saw in 2007 and 2008. Are you surprised by his renewed success? What’s been the biggest reason for his turnaround this year?
The endless devotion of Dash Treyhorn.
4. With no one currently hitting over .300 in the Phillies lineup, what level of concern, if any, is there that the club may be relying on their pitching too much?
Uh, the level is at 100%. As in, “Yes, that is exactly what’s happening.” But can you rely on pitching too much if you are set up to be a pitching-first team? Yes. You can. And we are doing it.
It’s fun to think that pitch counts have no effect on our starters with several exceptions. And maybe they don’t. I don’t know, I’m not an arm doctor. But I do know that the pitching is so good it gets the hitting off the hook. This Oakland series featured some of the more hideous heroics the Phillies have ever displayed. Ryan Howard gets an RBI for grounding into a double play? Ben Francisco walks off with a lucky squirt into left?
And since I usually envision the Phillies pitchers and Phillies hitters thinking as two amorphous collectives, I think the pitching side is feeling a little unsupported right now. How deep are they going to have to go and how often to ensure a victory? Right now they seem to be outrunning their offense’s ineptitude, but we’ve seen in the recent past that it can sink way lower.
5. With one of, if not the best starting rotation in the Majors, is anything short of a World Series title or at least an appearance, the expectations from Phillies fans?
A friend tried to convince me that there was more pressure on the Flyers to win the Stanley Cup this year than on the Phillies to win the World Series. He claimed because the Cup had “…been in the building!” the Flyers didn’t have a choice but to make it their’s. I then politely explained, in a series of crescendoing vulgarities, that he was wrong. The Phillies define “win now,” and though we may have changed the aura of our franchise forever, at the moment, we kind of need to do this, or we’re wasting everybody’s time. Namely Doc’s. I can’t think of someone who deserves a ring more who does not have one. I mean, Eric Bruntlett has a WS ring and Roy Halladaydoesn’t. Gross.
6. Many picked a Red Sox & Phillies World Series before the season started. With the two clubs locking horns in late June, what kind of hype is there around Philadelphia surrounding this series between the Phillies and Red Sox?
We’ve been busy hyping the Phillies since December. Because of this, the Flyers weren’t getting all the attention they feel they deserve and started trading half the team just so we’d look at them.
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