Midnight’s Children

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 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.

After taking 2 of 3 from the Cubs over the weekend the Phillies had Monday off. They will start a 3 game series with the Houston Astros tonight and will send Adam Eaton to the mound for his third start of the season. So far Eaton has pitched pretty well but you can’t help but hold your breath every time he starts to the mound. In my opinion he is a total waste of time as a starting pitcher and probably wouldn’t be much of a reliever. He just doesn’t have what it takes to succeed in the big leagues. Hopefully the Phillies will have had a good day of rest and will come out swinging. They really miss Jimmy Rollins in the line-up and need to get him back to give them the spark at the top of the line-up.

The Philadelphia Phillies will begin the season Monday at home in defense of the National League East title. The pitching is still going to be key if the Phils are to repeat. The offense will take care of itself but the bullpen and the starting pitching is still quite questionable. The addition of Brad Lidge as closer allows the Phils to move Brett Myers back to the starting rotation where the they really need help. Myers had a good spring and was the most consistent starter. They still have Adam Eaton on the roster which in my opinion is a huge mistake. The guy just can’t pitch. Tom Gordon will start out as the closer and when Lidge comes off the D.L. they should be set as long as no one else gets hurt.

In a game that should not have been close at the end the Jaguars kicked a last minute field goal to hold off the Steelers in Pittsburgh. The Jaguars controlled the 1st half and took a 21-7 lead at the half. They increased the lead to 28-10 after 3 quarters before the Steelers ran off 19 unanswered points. Ben Roethlisberger was intercepted 3 times in the loss.

Tommy Glavine signed a 1 year deal with the Braves. He is one of the last of the real good guys still palying professional ball. He took less money ($8,000.000) to go back to Atlanta than he could have made elsewhere. He said he did it because he didn’t want the pressure that goes with being the number one guy on a staff. He would rather take less and just go out and have fun pitching. I don’t know of too many players at his age that would do that. he really isn’t a number one guy anymore but his prsence on a team is worth much more.

The Phillies are 4 1/2 games out in 3rd place behind the Mets and Braves as we near the All-Star break. They are over .500 and that is great considering they have over 30 million dollars worth of Pitching on the disabled list. In fact they have lost over 30 man games alone with those 6 pitchers. Things don’t look as bad as the Philly sportscasters like to make it seem.

I am tired of hearing announcers kiss up to Barry Bonds. Everyone knows the guy was on steroids and I don’t care if he hits 800 home runs. Hank Aaron will always be the home run king of this era, just as the Babe was the king of his era. Barry is not. Maybe A-Rod will pass Bonds at some point. One can only hope Barry contracts a flesh eating disease before he hits 755.

I just wanted to see what everyone else thinks. Do you think Ryan Howard will hit more than 40 home runs this year? If he does, do you think the Phillies will make the playoffs? Just comment and let me know. I believe yes on both answers.