Midnight’s Children

The Phillies got just what they were hoping for when they traded for Joe Blanton a few weeks ago. He was able to give the team 7 strong innings last night as the Phillies beat the Cardinals 2-1. Blanton allowed 1 run on 4 hits and 2 walks his best outing so far as a Phillie. If he can continue to give the team innings like this the trade will turn out to be a positive. They will need his best pitching to keep the gap growing between the Phillies & the Marlins and Mets.

The Phillies only managed 4 hits in the game but 2 of them were of the long ball variety. Greg Dobbs hit his 4th of the year in the 3rd inning and Ryan Howard hit his 31st in front of his famly in St Louis in the 4th inning to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead. That would turn out to be all the support Blanton would need. The bullpen continued to sparkle as Romero & Durbin combined for a scoreless 8th inning and Lidge came on in the 9th inning to record his 27th consecutive save. The lead is now 1-1/2 over the Marlins and 2 over the Mets who lost for the 2nd night in a row to Houston. The rubber game of the Cardinal series is tonight with Brett Myers 4-9 vs Todd Wellemeyer 8-4. Myers is looking for another strong effort to follow his win against the Nationals earlkier this week. The Phillies are hoping he can repeat his performance.

In his second start since returning from the minors Brett Myers was looking like the Brett Myers of old as he threw 7 solid innings allowing on 1 run on 4 hits and 1 walk. The Phillies have been hoping for an outing like this from Myers for many months now. He had control of all his pitches and you could see his confidence growing with each inning he pitched. Granted he was facing the last place Nationals but the Phillies will be hoping he can keep this up for the remainder of the season. It does not apprear the team will be able to trade for a quality starter before the deadline so having Myers turn it around now will be the only option the Phillies have at solidifying their rotation.

The Phillies offense was pretty quiet tonight with the exception of a 2-run homer from the ailing Chase Utley whose hip may require surgery at the end of the season. After having an unusual dry spell for the last few months the Phillies finally announced that Utley has had some discomfort with the hip and it has been hindering his swing. The fans kind of knew something was wrong but with the team not announcing it until today they were left to sit and wonder what was wrong with the always reliable Utley.

As the race for the National East pennant tightens up thePhillies are looking to bolster their pitching staff. There are not many quality starters available and with C.C. Sabathia being traded to Milwaukee and Rich Harden going to the Cubs the list has shortened considerably. The Phillies are desperate for a starter with the recent pitching of Adam Eaton reaching an all time low. They traded 3 minor leaguers to the A’s for Joe Blanton who has a 5-12 record this season. This is not the kind of move that will help the Phillies get to the World Series. The Phillies brass does not want to spend the money to get the necessary players to put this team over the top. One thing is for sure, the Mets will do whatever is necessary to put their team in a position to win. The Marlins will do less than the Phillies so the real competition will come from New York. The Phillies management wants nothing more than to take the hard earned money from their fans while giving them the best team they can for the least amount of money.

The Phillies watched their lead in the National League East dwindle to just a 1/2 game after another horrific outing by Adam Eaton. Hopefully the Phillies will not allow him to start another game after he lasted just 3-2/3 innings allowing 8 runs on 7 hits and 3 walks. The Phillies are assured of one sure thing every 5th day. The bullpen will be pitching long innings trying to hold the other team scoreless while the rest of the team tries to put a large numbrer of runs on the board after Eaton has left them in a huge hole. It is time to cut the ties with Eaton and accept the fact that management made a bad decision signing him to a 24 million dollar contract. We the fans can see how much of a mistake this was why can’t the management. Bring up ANYONE from the minors and they can not do a worse job than Eaton.

The Phillies are approaching the all star break after a weekend series with the Diamondbacks. They are hanging on to a slim 1-1/2 game lead over the surging Mets who have won 7 in a row while the Phillies are not playing good baseball. They have only won one series in their last ten and have wathced their record drop form 12 games over 500 to a mere 5 games. The hitting has been the main reason for the decline with the pretty much the entire lineup in a slump for the last month. With Jimmy Rollins not getting on base like he was at this time last year you can see it affecting the rest of the lineup. He is the catalyst for this team and as he goes so does the rest of the team. Ryan Howard has been the only bright spot in the last month as he has taken over the home run lead with 28 and rbi ttotal is now at 84. Howard’s average has risen to .234 whidch doesn’t sound impressive but remember he was hitting .190 in May. Brett Myers was sent down to the minors to work on his mental approach to starting. What a bunch of crap that is. Either you adjust to your role and accept it or find someone who wants the job. The Adam Eaton is back to normal as he has been absolutely bombed his last two outings. They Phillies are probalby not going to pick up a prime starter to help out for the stretch run so they better get their act together internally and figure this thing out or they will be blowing a real chance to repeat as National League East Champions. The Mets are waking up and will do exactly what the Phillies did to them last year if they get the opportunity. The Phillies are in the weakest division in baseball and should be up by a wider margin.

The Phillies started off their 9 game road with losing 2 of 3 to the A’s. They dropped a 5-0 game yesterday after sanpping their six gaming losing streak the day before. This now makes 5 consecutive series the Phillies have lost. They remain in 1st place in the National East by 2 games over Flordia only because the Marlins have lost 4 in a row. The hitting has been the big problem for the Phillies who have been in a team slump since they cored the 20 runs in Atlanta a few weeks ago. Their pitching has been suspect also with Adam Eaton taking the loss yesterday with a less than stellar start. He has fallen back into his old ways of getting in early trouble in the count and once he does that he is done. Brett Myers gets the start tonigght which could be his last if it is not a qality performance. The Phillies front office can’t afford to wait any longer on Myers and his mental status. He can’t re-adjust to being a starter and wants to be in the bullpen again. That’s a bunch of crap. If you are a pitcher it doesn’t matter if you start or relieve. You’re in there to do a job and if you can’t get it done then they should waive his ass goddbye. Enough is enough.

The Phillies offense continues to slump and the result was a 3-2 loss to the L.A. Angels who swept the 3-game series this weekend. The Angels have the best road record in baseball and proved why as their pitching shut down the Phillies bats with some smart pitching. Their offense generated enough runs to give their team the lead so the pitchers could stick with their game plan of throwing mostly off speed stuff to the fastball hitting Phillies. Cole Hamels pitched pretty well today pitching 7 innings while allowing 3 runs on 6 hits. Chase Utley did start today after taking yesterday off amdist his 0-25 slump the longest of his career. He did go 1-4 today breaking the 0 for. The Phillies are of to Oakland & Texas this week and will face the A’s  tomorrow night after finishing their interleague homestand at 1-5. If this is how they will be playing if they reach the world series against American League clubs they might as well not bother.

The Phillies proved they still have a long way to go if they want to contend with the big boys after Boston came to town for an inter league series and took 2 out of 3. J.D. Drew went 4-5 leading the Red Sox in the victory. He tagged Kyle Kendrick with a 3-run homer in the 1st inning and the Sox never looked back. They built a 7-2 lead before the Phillies cut it to 7-4. That would be as close as the would get and once Jonathan Paplebon takes the hill in the 9th inning you can pretty much consider the game over. The Phillies won the 1st game on Monday but could not muster much offense over the last two games. Chase took another 0-4 and was hitless in the series. This is the longest draught in his career and when you take his bat and keep it silent you can deal with the rest of the Phillies lineup without too much of a problem. The Phillies have tomorrow off before the best road team in baseball the Los Angerles Angels comes to town on Friday. Should be a good series and the fans will enjoy seeing a team that they don’t get to see very often.

After returning from a 5-4 road trip to Atlanta, Florida & St. Louis the Phillies started inter league play tonight against the world champion Red Sox. Cole Hamels went 7 strong innings allowing just 2 runs on 7 hit while walking 2 and striking out 5. The offense was led by Ryan Howard who hit 2 home runs and had a triple while driving in 4 runs to tie for the league lead in rbi’s. Howard raised his average to .224 with his 3-5 night.  

The Phillies beat Flordia tonight behind the 2 hit pitching of veteran Jamie Moyer. They really needed this kind of pitching effort from their starter tonight. Moyer was simply magnificent as he baffled the Marlin hitters with changeups and curve balls all night. He went 8 innings allowing just the 2 hits and 0 walks. Easily his best outing of the season. Moyer raised his record to a solid 7-3 and is top starter for a rotation that has pithced well all season except for Brett Myers. The win for the Phillies was important after dropping the first two games in the series. They are now 4-2 on the road trip and are headed to St.Louis for a weekend series. The will not have to face the Cardinals top pitcher in Adam Wainwright or Albert Pujols who was just put on the disabled list yesterday. The Phillies could not have expected Moyer to be as sharp as he has thus far. Every win they get out of his 45-year old arm is a bonus and just having him around the clubhouse is a positive influence on any team. We’re just glad to have him in Philadelphia.