Despite the legitimate excitement generated by both the Flyers and Sixers making the playoffs, the Phillies talk did not disappoint:
April 7th
Regarding the torrid start of Pat Burrell, Rich Hoffman said:
At a certain point everybody will begin to say, "well, it's a contract year." Now I don't know that that's it or not. His history is great one month, and really, really awful, tough to look at the next month."
True. Contract year or not, we should be encouraged that Burrell seems to be picking up where he left off in the second half of last season. Unless you're Les Bowen, who said:
What scares me about him is he doesn't ever seem to have much insight into why things are going well or why they are going poorly. You ask him what he did to turn things around, he has no idea. So he could just as easily start looking at inside strikes over and over again as hitting them out like he is doing right now. There is nothing to criticize right now.
But I've got three or four really good columns ripping him to shreds ready to go the moment there is, he added. Maybe they should have spent a little less time on Burrell and a little more time on the $10 million dollar man.
April 9th
On the issue of Jimmy Rollins' ankle, Bob Cooney said:
DL . . . This time of year, something like that . . . DL . . . If you don't DL him, you could go through the whole year without having [Jimmy at 100%] . . . If you DL him you are guaranteed only no having [him] for two weeks or so . . . if this thing lingers and lingers that first to third thing goes away - oh, Jimmy has to pull up at second because the ankle is still bothering him a little bit . . . can't have that.
Eddie Moran agreed:
Soft cast him and shut him down right now. There are 152 games left, get it out of the way and fix it right now.
Lacking the first-hand knowledge that can only come with being on the Phillies medical staff, I must agree with them. I suppose we will know more when we see the starting line-ups Tuesday night.
April 10th
John Marzano preaches to the choir:
It made me more angry and more frustrated the other day when I watched Kyle Lohse go out and throw seven and two-thirds innings, shutout baseball. For $4.25 million, solidify your starting rotation, give you the #3 starter that you need - we talked about before, you have a #1, a #2, and three #5s, we mentioned that before - if you get that #3 starter, you put him in the rotation, the whole team is going to feel better about themselves, I can't understand for the life of me why, for $4.25 million, the Phillies wouldn't go for that.
Paul Hagen asked, "But John, who, in your mind, didn't go for it?"
JM: You hear things, you don't know how true it is . . . the truth that I heard was that, "well, we hit rock bottom when we signed the third baseman, we gave him the three year contract, we didn't have any more to spend."
PH: So you don't blame the general manager necessarily?
JM: I blame the organization . . . I'm not finger pointing at Charlie, I'm not finger pointing at anyone. But I'm like, come on! This is Philadelphia! If you want to have a chance to just be competitive, yeah, that's fine, go to Kansas City. If you want a chance to be a World Series champion, loosen up the purse strings every once and a while. I'm not saying the Phillies don't spend money. We've been around these people all the time. I think they're wonderful people but . . . Do you really believe the Philadelphia Phillies are committed to winning a World Series Championship?
An excellent question, one I asked here... And I couldn't agree more regarding Kyle Lohse, as I noted here... All I can say is, preach on Brother John!
---
3 comments:
What scares me about him is he doesn't ever seem to have much insight into why things are going well or why they are going poorly. You ask him what he did to turn things around, he has no idea. So he could just as easily start looking at inside strikes over and over again as hitting them out like he is doing right now. There is nothing to criticize right now.
But I've got three or four really good columns ripping him to shreds ready to go the moment there is, he added. Maybe they should have spent a little less time on Burrell and a little more time on the $10 million dollar man.
While I appreciate your cynicism -- and you're probably right that Mr. Bowen has an agenda -- I think he makes a good point. For example, when asked what he did differently in the second half of the season last year, Burrell offered that he "got a lot more hits." Funny and endearing, but it makes me wonder if he really does know what he's doing out there.
Oh, and "dnL" upside-down is "7up."
He hit poorly in May and June and great in July and August, the end result of which was that he finished with numbers stikingly similar to his seasonal averages.
To look just at either two month stretch and come to a conclusion on Pat Burrell - either that he sucks or should be hitting .325 all the time - is ill-advised. You know full well the dangers of small sample sizes. It's baseball. Over the long haul, all things being equal, players' numbers will correct themselves.
Plus Mr. Bowen neglected to mention what other beat writers said over and over again last season when Pat got hot, which was that his teammates were not surprised by his sudden explosion. Whether it was true or simply the talking points, they all said Pat had a great work ethic, kept a level head, and hoped would pay off. It did.
Or did it? Sometimes there is no explanation. Sometimes you just hit 'em where they ain't.
Post a Comment