Phast Phive: Phor Shame!
By Justin Klugh
YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM THE SUCKING, CHARLIE.
Links to follow.
Justin Klugh
You know who is scoring more than that Phillies, other than the teams that they’re playing? The Flyers. By a lot, sometimes. And they’re playing in playoff games not piss-ant little regular season games that nobody likes anyway.
Well, tonight, the Flyers have the chance to end the dreams of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampax spokesperson Sidney Crosby. The highly-touted Pens were chosen by many to send Philadelphia home early, but now, with the Flyers up 3-0 on the series, Sidney Crosby reacting in desperation like a mother penguin protecting her egg (but failing and dying because she’s too much of a pansy), and the Flyers refusing to die, I think we can all see that it’s over.
But that doesn’t mean you have to stop paying attention to the Phillies! In fact, how can you, when people are still doing shit like this.
John Stolnis
So far in 2012, my worst fears about John Mayberry Jr. have been realized. Understanding it’s still early, Mayberry Jr.’s poor start has helped cripple an offense that didn’t have a lot of bullets to begin with. The other thing Mayberry Jr.’s slow start has done is open a door for Juan Pierre to get regular playing time in left field. I’ll repeat that. Juan Pierre has become the everyday left fielder for the Philadelphia Phillies. And while Pierre has done an OK job getting his hits early, asking him to be the everyday left fielder may not be the greatest idea, especially if Domonic Brown continues to play well in AAA.
And it’s nice to see a mainstream writer like Tom Verducci of CNNSI.com get it. Most don’t. But this column on the fallacy of the modern day bullpen in baseball is just sheer brilliance and should be must-read material for everyone who follows the sport. It’s especially poignant for Phillies fans, considering how much money the Phils dumped into the lap of Jonathan Papelbon this offseason. The good news is that the Phils appear to have a solid stock of young bullpen arms in AA and AAA, which could give them tremendous financial and roster flexibility should anything happen to Paps.
John Ricco
Last week, we got news that Pat Burrell would be signing with the Phillies. Much to our dismay, he won’t be batting 5th for the offesnively-challenged Phils—he’ll be retiring. David Murphy takes a look at the numbers to see where Burrell fits into Phillies history.
A few weeks before the season began, I wrote a piece that looked into how the Phils would hit lefthanded pitching this year. Being a natural pessimist, my answer was “not well”. Turns out I was right: David Hale points out that the Phillies are hitting just .229/.244/.301 against southpaws. Yeesh.
Tony DiStefano
With the Phillies not hitting that ball all that well tonight, I really wish that I could throw up some sort of Flyers link to make everyone feel better. Maybe the Phillies should just hire Hulk Hogan to speak to the team before they hit the field. In actuality, I have a sneaking suspicion that this whole “not having guys on the roster that can hit the ball” thing is going to get old pretty fast and the team will end up calling up Dom Brown. People actually agree with me too, especially when John Mayberry Jr. is struggling and we are reactionaries.
Ethan Seidel
In case you haven’t been paying attention to the Phillies at all (you probably wouldn’t be reading this), Paul Boye of Crashburn Alley has a very matter of fact summary of the things we know through 10 games. The most encouraging thing about the Phils so far is that there are 152 games left.
If you think teams are locking up their young stars more and more today you would be right. Matthew Futterman of the WSJ breaks down the “death” of free agency, as teams are wising up and investing in the young talent them have rather than vets who’s best years are behind them (LA Angels excluded).