Drew Smyly is the answer to the Phillies pitching problems.
Hahahaha no just kidding. He’s definitely not. HOWEVA (Stephen A. Smith voice), all joking aside his start today against the Pirates was promising. 6 innings of one run ball with 8 punchies? From a lefty starter? I’ve been craving that for a while now.
Heading into today’s game a southpaw had only started 4 of the teams 99 games. And one of those was a two inning start by Jose Alvarez in what was essentially a bullpen day. The other three were made by Cole Irvin back in May.
Smyly has not exactly had a stellar season so far. He started off with the Rangers but was released at the end of June after going 1-5 with a 8.42. He then signed a minor league contract with the Brewers but opted out after just three triple-A starts because the Brewers didn’t add him to the 25 man roster.
So ya, not a season to write home about thus far for Smyly. But as the optimist I try to be with this team, maybe he just needed the right fit to get back on track. I mean this is a guy that’s had success in the past.
For Smyly to work out in Philadelphia, he doesn’t need to mow down hitters like he did 5-6 years ago. All this team needs is a lefty starter that can go out every 5th day, give them 5-6 innings and a chance to win.
The Phillies made another addition to the pitching staff this week when they acquired Mike Morin from the Twins for cash considerations. Minnesota parted ways with the righty reliever after designating him for assignment on Tuesday.
This moved seemed very weird to me from the Twins perspective because Morin has been, dare I say, effective. This season for the Twins he appeared in 23 games posting a 3.18 ERA (8 ER in 22.2 IP). However half of those earned runs were surrendered in one appearance, his last as a Twin on July 4th. If you take away that one bad night then Morin had a 1.66 ERA in 21.2 innings as a Twin this year while allowing only 2 walks and holding opponents to a .207 BA against.
Now a team that’s looking to make a playoff run basically just gave away an effective relief pitcher for nothing? Strange. They must know something I don’t. My mind immediately goes to injury, but watching Morin in his Phillies debut on Saturday I didn’t see anything that would cause for concern.
Anyway, I’m happy to have Morin aboard and believe that he can help out the sinking ship that has been the Phillies bullpen.
Ok on to the weekly results.
Since my last post the Phillies went 5-5, making them 52-48 on the season.
The break down of their 5-5 is as follows:
1-2 vs. Nationals
2-2 vs. Dodgers
2-1 vs. Pirates
Ok so a lot of good and a lot of bad this week. If I wanted to I could focus on the 16-2 embarrassment that was Monday nights loss against the Dodgers, or on the fact that it seems like the Phils can’t beat the nationals.
But I’m a glass half full kinda guy. So instead I wanna focus on the walk-offs by Franco and Harper and the fact that this team split with the best team in baseball. That’s right I said the Dodgers are the best team right now I challenge you to prove me wrong. Then after wrestling some great competition, they go on the road without a day off and take two out of three from our cross state rival. This is not a team that has faired well on the road at all this year (22-27), so any road series win makes me feel some type of way. Especially when I see Rhys hitting clutch extra innings go ahead bombs.
Look ahead:
This week our Phightins will travel to Detroit for a two game set with the Tigers, before returning home to face the division leading Braves over the weekend.
Hopefully they can take care of business on the road against a cupcake opponent to get some momentum heading into an important weekend series. They may have to do so without closer Hector Neris who has a 3 game suspension looming.
Until next time, Go Phils.
Ring the Bell 