Dealing in Reality

To be honest, I have not followed the Phillies with my usual fervor over the past few weeks. Life gets in the way sometimes, but more than anything, the Phillies have gotten in the way. There are so many sad and depressing facts oozing out of this ball club's lineup I can barely stand to watch it. Here is a sample text conversation I had this morning with my father. The Phils lost 9 – 3 to the Red Sox in Boston on Monday, May 27th. Memorial Day. Two meaningless runs were scored in the 8th.

Peter: How can the hitting be this bad? The pitcher was no good at all yesterday for Boston. But did not hit him?

Alex: There’s no talent left.

Alex: Kratz has 5 home runs. Howard 6.

Peter: Been following the game hard since 1964 (not a good year to start following the Phils). It does not drop off like this. Something is in the water. I believe they will catch fire yet. The paper went brutal on them today.


Well Peter, sadly, it has dropped off like that. Let’s just throw some numbers at you that are sure to make you cringe and feel like the once tortured fan base the Phillies used to have.


Phillies NL Rank and amount of Home Runs:


2007: 1st by 36 home runs (213)

2008: 1st by 8 home runs (214)

2009: 1st by 34 home runs (224)

2010: 5th (166)

2011: 8th (153) – Still won 102 games.

2012: 8th (158)

2013: 10th (44 in 51 games)



The Phillies of the past few years would lie in the weeds if they didn’t jump out to an early lead, and then (insert any name here) would come through with a 3 run bomb in the late innings to win the game. That simply just doesn’t happen anymore, as evidenced by the serious decline in power numbers from this ballclub.

Ryan Howard is not hitting 40+ home runs any more. Chase Utley is not hitting 30+ home runs any more. Jayson Werth isn’t here. Raul Ibanez is chugging along at age 40 (he’ll turn 41 in a week) with more home runs (9) than everyone on the team except Dom Brown. Pat Burrell retired. The rest of the lineup, save Brown, has been wildly inconsistent, at best.

The two biggest things teams can do offensively to win ball games are get on base, and hit home runs. The Phillies don’t do either, so here they are mustering enough pitching to stay somewhat relevant because no team in the NL East can seem to get going. Maybe they are still in it, but this team just absolutely refuses to change its approach at the plate. They have to be more selective and work to get opposing starters out of games earlier. Every time I switch over to a Phils game I see that the other team’s starter has 56 pitches through 4 2/3 and the Phils have zero runs and no one is on base. This is literally without fail what happens in what seems like 9 out of 10 ball games. They just don’t change. What is the old saying? Something about a zebra and stripes. The Phillies, all of them down from Ruben Amaro, Charlie Manuel, to Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard, are not going to change it seems. I’m not sure why we’re still waiting for it to happen? We have to deal in reality.

That reality is that Cole Hamels is making $19.5 million this year and he hasn’t pitched with a lead in 10 straight starts.

That reality is that Ryan Howard is making $20 million this year and he has 6 home runs in 186 plate appearances.

The reality is that they have scored 2 or fewer runs in 20! of 50! games. That's 40% - yikes!

The reality is that if you bump that number to 3 or fewer it jumps to 27 out of 50 games the Phillies have failed to score at least 4 runs in. 

That reality is that Chase Utley (currently on the DL) has the highest batting average on the team at a whopping .272.

That reality is that the backup catcher is the 2nd biggest power threat on the team right now.

You just can't win enough ball games to make the playoffs with all of the facts above.

It’s not a reality that any of us want, but it is one we are going to have to come to grips with, sooner rather than later.