Hello ladies and gents,
I’m excited to bring to you my first post for the Ring the Bell blog where I will discuss all things Philadelphia Phillies. My name is Bill Greenfield and I am currently a baseball player overseas in Europe. Baseball has basically been my life since I was just a young buck growing up in the suburbs of the great city of Philadelphia.
2019 is a wild time my friends. Thanks to technology and social media, information seems to travel as fast as the speed of light. It’s a world where any idiot can have a podcast or a blog and shove their opinion down everybody else’s throat. Well guess what. Now I’m one of those idiots.
I’m not really sure if anyone will actually end up reading this blog. To be honest I’m not sure that I care. If anyone does read this and enjoy it then it would be cool to know there are others out there that share my passion, and if not that’s cool too at least I’ll plug up some free time. Either way I’m doing this because I just can’t get enough Phillies baseball.
With that said let’s get into the first half recap.
This is how the standings are sitting at the all star break. As you can see the phightin phils are sitting in 3rd place in the NL east and are barely holding onto the second wildcard spot.
The Phillies first half can basically be split in two parts. Up until May 30 the Phils were sittin pretty atop the NL east with a 33-22 record. Since then…it’s been a different story. The phightens have limped towards the all star break going 14-21 since then (conversely the braves are 24-11 since May 30th).
Some might say that the recent struggle was because of Andrew McCutchen’s injury, however due to how awesome Jay Bruce has been, the Phillies offensive output has actually increased since Cutch’s injury (4.85 runs per game before June 3rd, 5.03 runs since).
Nope instead we can attitude the less than stellar output to the pitching staff. During the 33-22 start the Phils staff allowed only 4.05 runs per game. Since they have surrendered 6.57 rpg. Yikes. By comparison the Orioles allow the most runs per game in the majors this year at 6.07.
To be fair to the Phillies arms and coaching staff, they have had to deal with a plethora or injuries. They currently have 6 pitchers on the now named “injury list” and may be sending a 7th that way depending on what happens with Arrieta’s elbow. Honestly Arrieta should probably spend some time on the IL considering he has a 6.63 era over his last 7 starts.
GM Matt Klentak and fellow execs made it a point go beef up the lineup this offseason adding Cutch, Segura, Realmuto and of course Harper. They only addition they made to the pitching staff was David Robertson, who only pitched in 7 games before landing on the IL on April 15th with some elbow soreness.
You take an already thin pitching staff and give it 6 injuries and the result will usually not be pretty. That’s what’s happening to this team right now.
Want some good news though? There’s still 20 days until the trade deadline. If the Phillies are serious about making a run this year they need to add another pitcher, preferably a bullpen arm (crossing my fingers for Will Smith or Shane Greene). There are options out there so make it happen Matty.
Some more good news? Despite the resent struggles if the season ended today the Phils would be in the playoffs. And if you look at who’s behind them the only team that really scares me is the Brewers. Soooo even though things haven’t been all peachy lately there’s still a solid chance at a playoff berth. Just gotta avoid split ups like losing 5 of our last 6 to the Marlins (reallyyyyy wish I was joking about that).
Phils kick off the 2nd half with home series against the Nationals and Dodgers. Gonna be a tough first week but hopefully the squad can start off hot at home.
Until next time, go Phils.
Ring the Bell 