We won’t know right away if 2 walk off wins against the class of the National League Central will begin an ascent back to the top of the East for the Phillies, but it is a hell of a place to start.

The Phillies remain 5.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves, but there is cause for optimism even after a brutal outing by Kentucky Joe Blanton. Ryan Madson is back, Carlos Ruiz isn’t far behind – neither is Placido Polanco. Brad Lidge may have blown a save last night, but he’s also looked brilliant at times since returning from injury, something that pretty much never happened last year during his lost season.

With an impatient fireworks crowd booing everything that moved tonight, the Phils were able to find that magic that was part and parcel of their runs of the last 2 years. After the first few torrid weeks of winning this year, the Phils have not been the team you couldn’t give up on. They felt more like a team that had given up on themselves. Exhibit A? An uninspiring 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth in a 1 run game against the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates on Roy Halladay bobblehead night. Impatient at-bats, unfocused pitch selection and disinterested swings seemed to be the hallmarks of the 2010 Phillies.

The fans have been noticing too, as the bloom began to fully disengage from the rose in the last couple of week, resulting in some of the more sensitive of Phillies like Shane Victorino to implore fans not to quit on the team. Since the Phillies hadn’t given up on 2010, neither should the fans, Shane told us.

And why should they give up on 2010? Why should we? The Phillies are 5.5 games out of the division lead. That lead is hardly insurmountable with half a season to go, and the wild card race is littered with lesser teams that the Phils should be able to run down if the Braves do run away with the division.

In the bottom of the 5th inning, Charlie Manuel made a bad move (not the first tactical error he’s made in ’10) by allowing Joe Blanton to bat for himself despite evidence that this was simply not his night. Joe B. had already surrendered 6 runs on 10 hits. I’m sure Charlie wanted to give the bullpen a blow after a couple of extra inning games this week, but allowing Joe to go out in the 6th was a bad idea. The burly righthander allowed the first 2 batters to reach base with singles, and while neither scored after he left, Joe was serenaded by the boobirds on his way to the dugout. He tipped his cap, which was interpreted by some as sarcasm and by others as sincerity directed at fans behind the dugout who were encouraging him. I am going with the former.

Charlie could have avoided that ugly little scene by recognizing that Joe was cooked and saving him the boos.

Up in Flushing, the 2 teams the Phillies are looking up at in the NL East standings are battling each other. It’s hard to root for either of these teams, but this weekend, root Mets. If the Phillies could find a way to take the last 2 games of this series, and the Mets could win 2 vs. the Braves, the Phillies could be 3.5 games out at the break and just 1.5 games behind the Mets. With Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels on the mound for the last 2 games of these series, the Phillies have a great chance to go into the All Star break on something they’ve found elusive all season long.

A roll.

With the exception of playoff baseball, I’m not sure the Phillies are capable of taking us on a regular season roller coaster as unpredictable, annoying and ultimately exhilarating as the week we’ve just been through.

It started last Saturday night with the Phils being nearly no-hit by Red Sox righthander Daisuke Matsuzaka. Then a rubber match on Sunday looked very winnable on paper with Phillies ace Roy Halladay matching up against Tim Wakefield. The Phillies couldn’t connect with the flutterball all day, and only scored runs in the 9th inning when it hardly mattered.

An off day Monday preceded a 3 game set with the Mets in Flushing. By the time the Phillies headed south from New York to Florida on Thursday evening, they were mired in an epic hitting slump, having been shutout in all three games by an uninspiring Mets pitiching staff. In the final game of the series, the Phils had runners on base, but couldn’t help but hit into double play after double play, destroying any momentum that could have developed courtesy of baserunners.

Finally, on Friday night in South Florida, the Phils offense finally broke through, albeit in modest fashion. They scored 3 runs and held on for a 3-2 win to not only end a 5 game losing streak, but more importantly they got off the scoreless schneid.

Then on Saturday night, a pitching duel between Halladay and Floirida ace Josh Johnson lived up to the billing, with the only run being scored off an error by Marlins’ centerfielder Cameron Maybin. Johnson’s strong start will always be just a footnote in baseball history, as Halladay went the distance in recording just the 20 perfect qame in MLB history.

After a tumultuous week that tested even the most hardened of the Fightins’ players, Halladay’s gem was an opportunity for the team to celebrate. It was great to the see all of the smiles and back slapping amongst the Phils as they celebrated the perfect game. Halladay was class personified, crediting Carlos Ruiz for leading the way to history:

“We felt like we got in a groove early and about the fifth or the sixth I was just following Chooch,” (Halladay) said. “I can’t say enough about the job he did today. Mixed pitches. For me it was really a no-brainer.”

The Marlins weren’t thrilled with home plate umpire Mike DiMuro’s strike zone, but they were quick to not make a big deal of it:

Chris Coghlan tossed his bat aside on the Marlins’ first plate appearance of the night, thinking he’d drawn a walk, only to hear plate umpire Mike DiMuro call strike three.

Coghlan wasn’t pleased, and that was a theme for the Marlins throughout.

“I thought they were balls, that’s why I took them. But obviously they’re too close to take,” Coghlan said. “I don’t want to talk about the strike zone because that’s discrediting what he did.”

The Marlins dug up the pitching rubber to give to Halladay, and their owner personally congratulated Doc, as did Vice President and most powerful Phillies fan in the world, Joe Biden.

It was the second perfect game in Phillies history, joining Jim Bunning’s Father’s Day gem in 1964, also his first season with the Phils.

A couple more stats on perfect games:

There have only been 8 in National League history, and the Phillies are now the only team in National League history to have 2.

There have been 6 perfect games to end with a 1-0 score, and in all 6 games, the lone run was unearned.

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The Phils couldn’t keep the good times going for long, losing today in another shutout. That is now 5 shutouts in their last 8 games, which is a historically bad stretch of baseball. The middle of the Phillies lineup is mired in a collective slump, led by Jayson Werth, who is hopefully hitting himself into a much more affordable contract extension for the Phils. Hey, I can hope.

Once the Nationals left town after the Phillies’ opening series last week, the Phils were in for a more challenging brand of hardball with pitching-rich Florida on their way into town and then a road trip starting with the Atlanta Braves.

After a strong offensive showing on Friday night supporting Roy Halladay’s 3rd win of the season, the Phils offense went cold. Ice cold. They scored just 1 run in Saturday night’s game at chilly Citizens Bank Park and were shut out in the series finale, spoiling a great 2008-esque start by much-maligned lefty Cole Hamels.

In the first 2 games of their current road trip, the Phils offense has mustered just 5 runs, but they were just one competent pitch from Ryan Madson away from taking both games from Atlanta by way of shutouts.

The last few games have stood in stark contrast to the first week or so of the season, when the Phillies simply out-slugged any issues that their pitching staff may have been going through. Despite losing 3 of their last 5 games, the Phils pitching has given more cause for optimism than any cold hitting could possibly negate.

Consider:

5 strong innings from Jamie Moyer after a disastrous first inning on Saturday night.
An 8 inning return to form for hard luck loser Cole Hamels on Sunday.
An 8 inning masterpiece by punching bag Kyle Kendrick.
A complete game shutout of the Braves by Roy Halladay.

In a 162 game season, hitting is going to come and go. Especially with this crop of Phillies who have a history of running into cold spells from time to time. They can’t score 7 or 8 runs every time out.

It’s pitching that will dictate what kind of stories are written about these 2010 Phillies. We know the hitters are gong to rake all year long. But with a sketchy bullpen and some question marks in the rotation, seeing Hamels and Kendrick pitch so well gives you a view on just how dominant this team can be. Before Sunday, only Halladay had pitched into the 7th inning. That’s just too much pressure on a bullpen that is missing key pieces and includes pitchers who haven’t exactly overwhelmed us thusfar (I’m looking at you, Danys).

With Joe Blanton on the mend and JC Romero and Brad LIdge pitching well in rehab assignments, more help is on the way for the pitching staff. And that offense won’t be cold for long. Good times loom.

The Phils dropped the final game of their opening series to the Nats today. Kyle Kendrick struggled, and newly acquired Nelson Figueroa surrendered the game winning run on a Ryan Zimmerman double in the 7th inning.

Perhaps most frustrating in today’s game was the squandered opportunity presented by a lead off double in the 9th inning by Chase Utley, who was eventually stranded at 3rd when the final out – a Shane Victorino pop up – landed in Christian Guzman’s glove.

So the Phillies and their Five Guys eating, beer chugging, economy stimulating fans head out of DC, a 2-1 record to show for it.

What did we learn about the local 9 during this series?

1. Phillies fans know the way to the District of Columbia. And Nationals fans know how to bitch about being outnumbered at their own ballpark.

2. Raul Ibanez’s hitting woes are mildly concerned about after a lackluster spring training and an .091 batting average against a Nationals pitching staff that most of the Phillies batters manhandled. Last year, Boston’s David Ortiz had an abysmal start to his season, but his results improved as the campaign wore on. One of Ortiz’s issue was his bat speed, something that appears to be ailing Raul as well. Lucky for our aging leftfielder, he has a nice reservoir of goodwill built up with Phillies fans, and he’ll have plenty of support while he gets his swing right. It’s still too early to start burying Raul.

3. Placido Polanco is already showing exactly why the Phillies gave him a contract that raised eyebrows in the offseason. While Polanco may not be quite the defensive third baseman that Pedro Feliz was for the Phils, his ability actually make contact with the baseball and take a pitch once in a while make him a worthy upgrade. Add in the fact that he is batting .500 through 3 games is nice, too.

4. Polanco displaced Shane Victorino in the 2 spot in the batting order, and so far the Flyin’ Hawaiian is struggling at the plate, hitting .167 and missing an opportunity to tie the game today in the 9th inning with Chase Utley standing just 90 feet away.

5. Cole Hamels has the shortest leash of any Phillie, at least in the eyes of the fans if not the manager. Cole did not pitch poorly in the Phils 8-4 win on Wednesday, but he did run into some characteristic trouble after giving up a home run to Ian Desmond in the 3rd inning, walking both Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn on a total of 9 pitches. But Hamels mostly worked his way out of trouble, giving up 2 ER over 5 innings and being pulled after throwing 103 pitches.

6. No one can let go of the Cliff Lee trade, including Jimmy Rollins.

7. When he isn’t bitching about the Lee trade, Jimmy is trying to pull a stick out of Roy Halladay’s ass, to no avail:

(The Phillies have) been trying to lure Halladay out of his shell slightly, only to find that “well, Roy is Roy,” Rollins said, almost sadly. “We’ve been trying to tell him, ‘You can’t do that here. You’ve got to let it fly a little bit.’”

So far, not so good, it appears. But then again, it’s early.

“We’re trying to figure him out a little bit,” Rollins said. “I’m sure he’s trying to do the same. But we’re like, ‘Once you become a rock star, then you’ll really be good.’”

8. Kyle Kendrick did not have a good outing today, going only 4 innings and giving up 5 earned runs. Which made the news that Joe Blanton is on schedule as he recovers from an oblique strain. Good news.

9. The Phillies lead all of Major League Baseball with 24 runs through 3 games.

Next up is a 3 game series with the winless Houston Astros.

The Phils blew the doors off the Nats yesterday in the 2010 opener. Roy Halladay threw 7 strong innings and looked like the guy we’ve been told about all of these months. The Phils offense was on fire, hanging an 11 spot on the Nats pitching staff.

The box score is only a sliver of the story. It was quite a day in the Nation’s Capitol:

After a 2008 season in which he led the Phillies in wins and win pct. and won a World Series for his hometown team, no one would have blamed a soon-to-be 46 year old Jamie Moyer from retiring from the game he’d been playing for over 2 decades.

Instead, the Phillies ageless lefty expressed a desire to continue pitching, and he doubled down by searching for a two-year contract for his services.

On Dec. 11, just a month and change after the World Series triumph, David Murphy reported that Jamie Moyer was being courted by the Milwaukee Brewers. It was one of the few reports linking Moyer to a team other than the Phils.

On Dec. 15, Moyer agreed to a 2 year, $13 million deal with the Phils.

At the time, it seemed like a lot to pay for a back of the rotation starter who would be on the verge of 48 at the end of the contract.

By the end of last June, a 6.05 ERA and several really ugly starts (including a 2.1 inning 7 run drubbing at the hands of the Mets), that 2 years and $13 million seemed like a really bad idea. Moyer was maintaining his standing as the staff Yoda that the likes of Cole Hamels and J.A. Happ would gravitate to, but $13 million is a lot of money for Rich Dubee’s assistant.

Jamie’s second half performance improved, as he posted a 6-4 record and a 3.78 ERA before his season was ended by a nasty groin injury on September 29.

In between the wins and losses, Moyer was also at the center of rotation drama when he was moved to the bullpen to make way for future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez. Moyer was less than pleased with the decision, and made his opinion known in a media session with reporters while the Phils were at Wrigley Field for a series against the Cubs.

The 2009 offseason gave fans and pundits alike tons of time to second guess Moyer’s contract as well as weighing in on the likelihood that Souderton’s favorite son would even contribute in 2010 to earn some of that remaining contract.

A funny thing has happened on the way to the 2010 season for Mr. Moyer – he actually pitched his ass off in spring training (11.2 IP, 0.77 ERA, 12 K, 0 BB). So much so that it is all but certain that he will be named the fifth starter for the Phillies over Kyle Kendrick, who also pitched very well (19.2 IP, 1.37 ERA).

Which brings us back to Ruben Amaro Jr., who’s impressive first year as the Phillies GM has been perceived as marred by an unnecessarily expense contract to an aging pitcher who no one else seemed particularly interested in giving a 2 year contract to after the 2008 season.

Should Moyer’s impressive spring training translate into a solid 2010 campaign that resembles 2007 and 2008 more than it does 2009, Ruben’s decision to give Jamie those 2 years may need a second look. There is still time for Jamie to prove that Amaro’s faith in December 2008 was justified – that a 47 year old lefty with fastballs that look like changeups can still get major league talent to swing and miss on a team that has championship aspirations again.

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The Shibe Times will get the opportunity to OD on Phillies baseball in the first 2 weeks of the season, as we head to 4 Phils games – the 4/2 exhibition against the Pirates (Mrs. Shibe Times is a Steel City native), the 4/5 opener in DC, the 4/12 home opener and what I hope will be Roy Halladay’s first Citizens Bank start on 4/17.

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I received an email from Tucker Wolfe, who’s father, Rich, put together a great book about Harry Kalas not long after the Phillies Hall of Famer broadcaster passed away last year. Wolfe is compiling stories for another book about the Phillies and is interested in stories from the average fan. If you have any ideas, shoot him an email at tuckerwolfe@gmail.com. They are running short on time before deadline, so don’t delay.

In my real job, I manage people. Sometimes my folks come dragging themselves into work despite having no business being in the office due to some contagious malady.

The last thing I want to hear from one of my employees is something along the lines of, “I’m not feeling too good today. Damn, this stomach bug is kicking my ass.”

Umm…go home. Right now. Don’t even get your coat. We’ll burn it for you.

In 2009, Brad Lidge had the pitching equivalent of the loosey juiceys. Luckily, it wasn’t something that anyone else on the pitching staff contracted, but he had no business coming to work regardless.

What’s worse, his bosses let him do it. Over. And over. And over.

I offer as new evidence the article in today’s Inquirer about Lidge using the Johnny Damon 2 base swipe in Game 4 of the 2009 World Series (referred to on this site as “Ruiz to Feliz to no one”) as motivation for improving his ability to hold runners on first base.

Lidge had this to say about the hoops he had to jump through to get the ball to the plate:

In order to minimize pain last year, he took to twisting the knee at the beginning of his motion, which relieved some of the pressure but slowed the pitch’s arrival at home plate.

“I had to twist, but that gave the runner extra time, about 0.4 [seconds],” Lidge said. “All of a sudden it becomes almost impossible for [catcher] Carlos [Ruiz] to throw a guy out, because of what I had to do just so I could pitch.”

And then this….

“One thing that comes from the surgery is feeling more agile and not worrying that when you spin off the mound to make a pickoff throw, your knee is going to get caught,” Lidge said. “When I did turn around and throw it to first, you were looking at a pretty stiff-bodied guy doing that.”

Ok, we knew that Brad Lidge was not himself even after coming off the 15 day DL on June 25. After blowing his ninth game on Aug. 25th, Andy Martino wrote this:

So what’s wrong with the guy this year, after a perfect 2008? I would not be at all surprised if we learned during the offseason that his knee was more seriously injured than we knew, but that is mere speculation right now.

Lidge blew 2 more saves in the regular season and flirted with danger on more than one occasion in the postseason. His meltdown was complete in the Game 4 after the Phils had tied the game on a Pedro Feliz home run off of Joba Chamberlin in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Oh, and then he proceeded to have 65 (ok, 2) surgeries after the season to fix all of the shit that was actually causing him to not be the Brad Lidge of 2008. Great.

Charlie and Dubee cannot let this happen again. It is completely ridiculous that they kept trotting him out there in unbelievably high leverage situations when they clearly knew he wasn’t at his best. I like “players” coaches as much as the next guy, but you don’t let a guy like Lidge, who would take the ball if his arm was dangling from his shoulder by one tendon, if you know he needs nearly a half a second more than usual to deliver the ball to home plate.

Lidge freely offers this information up in such a matter of fact manner months after we watched the Game 4 debacle signal the beginning of the end for our beloved Fightins’. It pisses me off. It seems like Charlie allowed Lidge’s desire to try and gut it out to cloud his decision making on how to handle the bullpen. Ryan Madson hardly set the world on fire in in the closers role when given the opportunity, but I can’t help but wonder what if.

Charlie’s job is to toe the line between keeping his players focused and motivated and ensuring that he is fielding the 25 best possible Phillies to win games. As it relates to Brad Lidge, he gets an “F” for 2009.

Since last year is just a memory now, thoughts turn to 2010 and what Charlie and Dubee will do the next time they have a pitcher with the runs. They’d better give him some Immodium and send his ass home. Especially when a little thing like a World Series is hanging in the balance.

The fun of filling out a March Madness bracket has created the opportunity for all sort of iterations of the seeding and one and done mentality of the NCAA tournament.

More often times than not, these types of brackets are annoying and stupid.

But not when The Shibe Times gets a 10 seed in the Lauber Region of The Phield. Sweet!!!

I’m going to need some serious help from my miniscule legion of readers, my Mom, and whoever else has an internet connection. I am up against Phinally Philly, an all-Philly sports blog with a killer design and far more updated content than this thirty-something father of 3 with no co-bloggers can muster.

There were 65 blogs (naturally) chosen for the bracket, and that certainly doesn’t cover all of the Phillies blogs out there. So I was happy to be seeded PERIOD, let alone get greedy for a better seed. Based on my less than robust posting frequency during the offseason, I gotta love a 10 seed.

Anyway, I don’t know which day our matchup will be, but this is a David vs. Goliath matchup. Phinally Philly has 2400 followers on twitter. I’d love to get to 150 by opening day.

Buster Olney is no dummy. He worked the Yankees beat for the New York Times, he’s an author and a Hall of Fame voter.

But, man, he laid an egg this weekend.

Olney is the subject of much criticism right now for a report he filed with ESPN that cites a source that said that the Phillies have kicked around the idea of trading Ryan Howard for all-world slugger and first baseman Albert Pujols.

So let me get this straight. The Phillies have spoken about trading one of their players for the best player in baseball? I’m sure the other 28 teams that don’t employ Pujols have never sat in the conference room and daydreamed about scoring Pujols and plugging him into the 3 hole of their lineup.

It’s just a stupid article, and Olney’s comments since his article has gone viral are no better. He is quick to let everyone know that this trade is nowhere near complete and that he was simply reporting that the Phillies have kicked around the idea. If that was “all it was” – just a harmless little note about the Phillies kicking around Pujols as a possible trade target – why even write it? At least at this point when there is nothing more than a source saying the Phillies discussed it and an adamant denial from Ruben?

Sometimes a story shouild be allowed to gestate a little to see if it has a chance to go anywhere or at least add some meat to a pretty bare skeleton. Instead, I get the sense that Buster was hitting the send button to ESPN to file the story before his “source” had even finished talking.

Is this what serious baseball journalists have been reduced to in the age of the 24 hour news cycle and the race to scoop the other 56,000 writers opining on baseball, either professionally or from the comfort of their living room couch? An article that the Phillies had a conversation wondering if they could trade Ryan Howard for Albert Pujols is news?

Here’s some breaking news: a conversation between Ruben Amaro Jr. and his lieutenants that goes no further isn’t news. I have no doubt that it may have occurred. And who knows, maybe it will happen down the road, but right now? Not news. A phone call to Cardinals’ GM John Mozeliak? News. Spitballing in Ruben Amaro Jr.’s office about what-ifs? Not news.

The reaction to the “news” on sports talk radio is hilarious. The common question is “Would you do it?” There were plenty of fans out there unwilling to sign off on the trade because of allegiances to Ryan Howard, which I understand. But the question I haven’t heard is, “Exactly how much do you think the Cardinals would want in return IN ADDITION TO Ryan Howard? Phillies Long Drive thinks it starts with Dom Brown and gets worse from there. Howard for Pujols straight up? I will wear an Adam Eaton jersey and a Mets thong with nothing else on for a year to Citizens Bank Park if that ever happens.

Lastly, Buster’s contemporaries are coming out in support of their embattled buddy, including former ESPN scribe Peter Gammons, who tweeted, “Buster Olney never wrote Howard-Pujols was hot, only that Phils talked what of among selves. Read before trashing”. He should have written, “Buster Olney never got enough to make it newsworthy, only that Phils talked among themselves. Think before writing, Buster”.

It was one of those surreal “How did we get here?” moments.

Halloween, 2009. Sect. 421. My Dad and I were still buried under our ponchos even though the rain was pretty much gone. Cole Hamels was walking off the mound in the top of the fifth inning after squandering an early 3-0 Phils’ lead in Game 3 of the World Series.

Before Charlie Manuel had taken the ball from Cole, you knew what was coming. Hamels ambled his way off the mound – dejected, and a healthy round of booing acted as the soundtrack for his long walk back to the dugout.

This was just one year after the parade. Is there any precedent for a Philly athlete going from the hero of a championship team to heel in one years’ time?

Hamels, for his part, laid pretty low after the Series was over. After his ill-advised postgame remarks from Game 3 about looking forward to the end of the season, Hamels essentially vanished. All that was left was plenty of ink to burn through on speculating about what 2009 would mean for Hamels’ 2010 and beyond. Talk of secondary pitches was popular, as 2009 clearly demonstrated that Cole could not dominate based on a plus fastball, killer change and subpar curveball.

By all accounts, Hamels has come to spring training with a renewed focus. He showed up early, has demonstrated a desire to master not just one, but 2 additional pitches and he’s saying all the right things to the scribes. I think that the appropriate stance for even the most cynical among us is to see how it goes – give Cole a chance in April to show us that 2009 was to Cole what 2003 was to Pat Burrell – a lost year. A barely explainable, completely forgettable and regrettable crap year.

Which brings me back to Halloween, 2009. The boos. It’s been months, and the wounds from the 2009 Series have almost entirely healed, but it won’t take more than 1 bad start before the natives get restless. April will go a long way to determining how successful Hamels is in 2010. If he starts off strong, he’ll get the fans back and the bad memories from 2009 will continue to dissipate. If he gets hit around in April and doesn’t make it to the 6th inning in his first 2 starts, gestures when his defense boots a ball and in general gives up a run every other inning he is pitching, he is going to become persona non grata in a hurry. And then God knows where it will go from there. He’s used up his mulligans with the average fan. Don’t believe me? Listen to the chatter in the mens’ room during one of his outings when it isn’t going well.

My guess is that Hamels is going to start well and that 2010 will be a much better year. Not for reasons like BABIP or other metrics that speak to the notion that Hamels was as much a victim of bad luck in 2009 as he was himself. But because he had a real offseason, he prepped his arm in a much better fashion and is already showing velocity that is at or near where you’d expect it to be during the regular season. Because he showed up early and seems to be focused on a big rebound. Because he’s a year older and certainly wiser for living through 2009. Because maybe he needed to be knocked off that pedestal that we all elevated him to in order to build an even higher one.

As for the fans, I think they’ll forgive and forget. At least during the first homestand.