Sunday chat: Series victory in Oswalt's sights

Roy Oswalt, who is 5-0 with a 1.85 ERA over his last seven starts, leads the Phillies into their series finale with Jonathon Niese (9-7, 3.85) and the Mets. AccuWeather calls for a 60 percent chance of rain for the first pitch at 1:10.

Phillies recall SS Bocock: Mandy Housenick of the Morning Call breaks news via Twitter that the Phillies have purchased the contract of shortstop Brian Bocock, suggesting that Jimmy Rollins may not be close to returning. If so, the Phils will need to make a corresponding 40-man roster move. Bocock, who was in Phillies uniform earlier in the season but never got into a game, hit .226/.313/.303 with the IronPigs. He's up strictly for emergency defense and will give Charlie Manuel some flexibility to pinch hit for Wilson Valdez if need be. I cannot recall a Phillies team with this many September call-ups.

Lack of lefty relief discussed: "Cholly lifted Kendrick at an appropriate time today. Got his five innings from him. One Achilles Heel is the lack of a single effective left-handed reliever out of the pen. Romero is 'erratic' at best and I would be stunned if Bastardo makes the postseason roster. It was the one area where Amaro came up a bit short where there were some low-cost options that were available." - MG

"The frustrating part for me is that Romero has to be able to come in and get an out in that spot, and he has proven over and over again he can't." - Jim

Beerleaguer: Give Mike Pelfrey credit; he's having a breakout season and he continues to pitch the Phillies tough. Sixty-nine of his 109 pitches were for strikes. He's blossomed into a formidable foe and represents one of the Mets few bright spots. I echo many of the sentiments about Kyle Kendrick and the bullpen. I thought the Phillies made the right call staying with Kendrick and think he did just enough to validate their decision. Meanwhile, the Phillies wait for Antonio Bastardo to show them anything while they dance around J.C. Romero's inconsistency. I, too, worry that the situation will come to a head at the worst possible time.

How it stands: The Phillies fell back into tie with Atlanta for the division lead. Tim Hudson (15-7, 2.41) faces Kyle Lohse (2-7, 7.13) under the lights at 8 p.m., so lots of sports on tap today, with the Eagles season set to take flight beginning at 4:15. It's raining in Philadelphia, so stay inside and enjoy some sports.

Another solid outing for Carrasco: Former Phillie Carlos Carrasco, part of the 2009 Cliff Lee deal, gave up five hits over 7 1-3 scoreless innings for the Indians on Saturday night against the Twins. Carrasco has a 2.18 ERA in his three starts this season. I said it once and I'll say it again: Carrasco was a very savvy buy-low add-in by the Indians, more-so than Jason Donald, Lou Marson or Jason Knapp.

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Comments

[NEPP]

****Nepp: 50 years ago was 1960. Mantle played from '51-'68 so only half, Williams last season was '60, Bonds, unfortunately, was a juicer.....So I guess you just want to talk about Pujols???****

Yeah, I know. The basic point is that while Mays and Mantle both played with Williams, they were starting their careers while he was finishing his so they weren't quite contemporaries...just like Griffey Jr is more a player of the 1990s while Pujols is a 2000 & on player but both obviously played for a solid decade together.

Bonds, pre-juice, was still a great all time hitter.

I dont see Gwynn, Boggs or Rose being in the conversation as none of them were really all around hitters (no power to speak of) but rather more of contact hitters. I'd put Ichiro on their list for that type of hitter.

[CJ]

NEPP: When did Bonds start juicing?

[NEPP]

No idea CJ...but I dont think anyone has ever accused him of juicing for much of his career (pre 98) and he was a great hitter during that time. His numbers didnt really go all wacky until Age 33/34. Its hard to have a conversation on all time great hitters while ignoring Bonds.

[donc]

I havent been to Citi yet. On tv the place seems like a mausoleum. It kind of reminds me of Turner in that regard. It's probably because of the empty seats. Man there is no juice in either of those stadiums. It is surprising that the Braves have such a good home record playing in front of 15,000 anesthetized fans. Those two stadiums just completely lack any charm, at least on TV anyway. They are polar opposites of CBP.

[Old Phan]

Bonds was the best hitter of his time, juice or no juice. It wasn't like he went from good to great, he went from the best to the bestest (or something like that)

[CJ]

NEPP: Bonds joined SF in 1993... you know, the land of BALCO... and immediately set a career high in HR with 46. I'm just sayin'.

Some speculation suggests he started juicing after the 98 season when he saw how much attention McGwire and Sosa received. Through the 98 season, he had 411 HR.

The point is that no one knows when Bonds started cheating. What we know is that he did.

[Sophist]

CJ, it's all speculation but if you chart Bonds' offensive output by some of the standard total measures (like wOBA) something funny happens at age 34.

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=1109&position=OF&page=8&type=full

Who knows what he was doing from 1990-2000, or if PED even enhanced his game. It's all speculation, but from 2001-2004 his offensive output took, from a pretty steady level for a decade, a big jump. The stats line up pretty well with the accounts/timelines in places like Game of Shadows.

[Noah]

Echoing Old Phan:

Bonds in 1992: .311/.455/.624
Bonds in 1993: .336/.458/.677
Bonds in 2001: .328/.515/.863
Bonds in 2002: .370/.582/.799

[Sophist]

It's actually age 36 in the graphs. Not sure why 34 is what immediately came to mind. 34 was a down year for him.

[CJ]

Albert Pujols is the best hitter of our generation. Bonds needed the juice to be better.

[NEPP]

What Sophist said. Up until that Age 35 season, Bonds career chart looks utterly normal.

His move to SF also coincided with his Age 28 season (right in line with a typical peak for a player) so its hard to say he started juicing then. You cant throw out his entire career because you dont know when he started.

You cant judge any player of the last 20 years if thats the case then. Who's to say that Pujols isn't or is juicing then? Just because it hasn't broken doesnt mean he doesnt too. Hell, every other LaRussa slugger seems to have juiced so why not? Its impossible to go down that path. Bonds was the best hitter of his generation along with Frank Thomas. The rest is a huge clusterfvck because of the unknown.

[NEPP]

****34 was a down year for him. ****

When he was injured alot...makes sense that he would like start juicing to recover from that and stay productive.

[CJ]

NEPP: You don't know when he started juicing. I don't know when he started juicing. We all know that at some point he started juicing... and yes... I feel that invalidates his career in terms of calling him an all-time great.

You're suggesting we invalidate everyone's career because we know some cheated. That's stupid. If someone was fortunate enough not to get caught, so be it. It's certainly reasonable to judge those who we know cheated.

[CJ]

And if you only judge Bonds on his career before some speculate he started cheating (after the 1999 season), then Pujols has still been a better hitter.

[Random Commenter]

Is it feasible to play 14 "enhanced" seasons, though? I was under the impression that the ceiling was around 5 once you started. Other than the breakout 1993 season, there isn't much evidence to support an "on again, off again" approach, either. However, in his 2000 season, at age 35, there is a noticeable (and permanent) uptick in his slugging numbers.

[Sophist]

Pujols' 2003-2010 is pretty comparable to Bonds' 1991-1999. Pujols was better younger. His age 21-24 seasons were better than Bonds' by a good margin. If you just look at age 21-30 Pujols is probably better by a bit (not talking about baserunning, defense here).

Highly doubt Pujols will match Bonds' from 31-42, though.

[CJ]

And how about this...

Let's compare Bonds' first 14 seasons (before he likely started juicing) vs. The Big Hurt's first 14 seasons:

Bonds: 423 2B, 65 3B, 445 HR, 1299 RBI, 288/409/559, 968 OPS, 163 OPS+

Thomas: 428 2B, 11 3B, 418 HR, 1390 RBI, 310/428/568, 996 OPS, 162 OPS+

That's just 1851 games for Thomas vs. 2000 games for Bonds.

Who was the greater hitter of their generation? I could make a pretty compelling case for The Big Hurt. Bonds only seems to get an edge because he decided to juice instead of going through the natural decline that Frank Thomas experienced.

[sifl]

BTW, to Jerry on the last page who cited "latin-techno" as a negative at Citi Field: are you a bigot, or have the Mets recently discovered the talents of Ricardo Villalobos?

[CJ]

Sophist: Albert doesn't need to match Bonds until age 42... just until age 34 at the most. The rest shouldn't count.

[CJ]

Yo, new thread.

[PhillyJoe]

Curt: if they couldn't pony up the 5.6million to buy out bonilla what makes you think they could afford to set up the annuity? Also, they owed Bonilla 8% interest on the 5.6 million, (which is why he now gets 29 million spread over 20 years) so its not like they could stick 1 million in an annuity and pay him 5.6 million 10 years later...

Long story short, the Mets REALLY are that stupid....