Inside and outside the headlines

The close look at last night's 7-6 win reveals an ensemble cast that shared a starring role.

Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News said Chase Utley was the understated key in drawing walks and keeping the lineup moving. Phil Gianficaro, here at the Reading Eagle, praised Ryan Howard, calling his 10th-inning hit the exclamation point on their 7-6 comeback win, following his 2-run shot to get them on the board. I thought Bobby Abreu played a substantial role, with a clutch, 2-run homer in the eighth and 10th-inning walk off Mike Stanton. Until Abreu’s homer, Livan Hernandez stifled the Phillies lineup with his bedazzling low 80s fastball and changeup. No disrespect to the job Howard and Utley did, but Abreu’s blast finally broke Livan’s back.

These were the highlights from a 7-6 dramatic comeback. But the win mostly boiled down to a total team effort late in the game to scratch out the win. Tom Goyne, who writes Phillies baseball at Balls, Sticks and Stuff, posted a graph this morning to illustrate the comeback.

Going inside the numbers, we find several unheralded players doing a lot of things right. Here's some good stuff from the 2006 season that hasn't made headlines:

-- Pat Burrell is the Phillies unsung defender. Of all the regulars besides Mike Lieberthal at catcher, Burrell ranks highest in zone rating (.897). This is pulling from a very small data set, but the naked eye backs it up. Burrell has judged everything correctly, holding more than one batter to a single, including last night when he cut down Brian Schneider’s hit heading toward the corner.

--- David Bell is having another solid campaign with the mit. Considering the number of balls put in play by the starting rotation, it’s tough to argue against his full-time status.

--- Aaron Rowand, as expected, is starting to dig his feet into Philadelphia soil. Loved the helmet slam and profanity after his strikeout. Rowand was the first player to congratulate Howard after his game-winning hit.

--- In bullpen, Tom Gordon is dealing, striking out the side last night. Opponents are batting a mere .167 against him and he has the second-best groundball ratio on the team (1.01). Most impressive: Flash has 10 strikes and no walks.

--- Flash is keeping surprising company in terms of advanced stats. Rheal Cormier isn't far behind. Comier is tied with Gordon in the prevented run category (2), a formula that measures of the number of runs a pitcher saved compared to average. He also leads the team in ratio (0.82).

--- In addition, Ryan Franklin has pitched better from the pen than many people expected. Early signs show a carbon copy of Ugueth Urbina’s contribution in 2005. Franklin leads the team in home runs per game (2.34), but for the most part, is getting the job done the way Urbina mostly did last year.

Comments

[pawnking]

The Phils bullpen pitchers are either very very good, or very very bad. One would think that trading for adequate middle relief would be something which can be accomplished this year.

[Carson Book]

David Bell has always had a good mitt with good range. His major problem defensively is his arm strength and accuracy. Yes, he did hit a homerun last night, but I doubt if he plays regularly that he'd post anything higher than a .230 batting average with very, very, very low OPS. But hey, do we have better options right now?...not really.

[gr]

i move that bell still be platooned to maximize his effectiveness, the way lieberthal is being platooned with fasano. you have two other scrubs who are above average mitt guys, why not try and ride the hot bat or at the very least, get the other two a chance to swing the bat and warm up their ability to pinch hit? there is no reason to play david bell everyday. he's not consistent, he doesn't have an excess of power, he's not THAT much better defensively than the other two guys and his splits at the plate are lopsided. if he's not a platoon player and this isn't a platoon situation, i don't know who or what is.

[RickSchuBlues]

Seriously, I don't get all this Burrell-bashing...oh, wait...

Hey, I'll agree here. Burrell's an above-average left-fielder with a terrific arm and ability to make nice catches going back, coming in, and laterally.

Bell, though, I won't agree on. He can make some very nice reaction plays, but his range is terrible. Maybe it's just having been spoiled by Rolen for so long, but there are so many balls that get by him that someone with even average agility would flag. I don't think his level of defense can suffice as an argument for letting him continue as a regular.

[Tom Goodman]

Bell's biggest weakness in the field is balls hit right at him that bound chest high.

Burrell is a continual surprise in left. Not great but never bad. And he has a great arm.

Charlie Manuel has burried Abraham Nunez who must wonder why in the world he ever signed here. A terrible mistake. At a minimum he should have Nunez spelling Bell when some righthanders are facing the Phils but CM's insistence on loyalty to veterans prevents him from seeing the virtue of at least giving Nunez a chance to show what he can do. And sticking a guy in as a pinch hitter in a tense and often desperate situation hardly qualifies as giving someone a chance to show what he can do!!!!

For all the comments about how well Manuel handles men, he doesn't really handle his bench and role players well at all.

[RickSchuBlues]

Agreed 100%, Tom. Manuel is doing a horrendous job implementing his role players (other than everyone's hero Fasano), rendering them strictly bench players. This is a better team with Nunez in there. No question. The worst thing a team can have in a lineup is too many players with similar characteristics, especially aligning them back-to-back (i.e. Bell/Lieberthal). Nunez isn't an all-star, but he's a markedly different player than Bell, a contact hitter with better speed.

The trouble with the Phillies offense is that isn't nearly *dynamic* enough. You see the result, scoring via the homerun or usually nothing else. This was the basis of my argument that a guy like Chris Roberson (remember him?) would work well in the lineup, because he's a guy who can do a lot of things offensively. Even the best power guys fail to hit homeruns in three-quarters of the games. A team scores more consistently with players who get on base and get around the bases, and maybe occasionally can hit one over the fence. There are too many players on the Phillies who lack that multi-dimensional offensive ability. They are only as good as they are thanks to what Utley, Rollins, Abreu, and Rowand bring to the table; Howard and Burrell to a lesser extent; and obviously, the bottom third to virtually no extent. Nunez isn't in a category with the other six at the top, but he is a considerable improvement over David Bell. There really can be no excuse for Bell continuing to anchor the lineup as he does.

[Steve T.]

I will also help to try to dispell any myth that "David Bell can't hit, but he's solid in the field." He does make what appear to be splendid plays on balls he has to go after, but he routinely screws up the routine. So routinely, in fact, that he has been among the league leaders in errors at 3rd for the past two seasons with 21 and 24 respectively. As someone also said above, it's his throws that are sometimes really bad.
Burrell continues to impress in the field, yes.
And some of the walks last night were great to see from the young guns.
Once again, Abreu "wins" the game for them. He will do this many more times a year than he will "lose" the game for them, as he did in the field the night before. st

[J. Weitzel]

Tonight's a nice opportunity to play a sub against this unknown left-hander. Abreu and Utley have not had a day off. Nunez and Victorino need some work. I would give one of these guys a start.

[Carson Book]

No subs tonight...just scrubs. The Phillies are once again a huge disappointment!

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