Jays Sweep Pathetic Phillies, 8-7

Posted by Tim Malcolm, Thu, June 18, 2009 05:25 PM

JayssweepLast season the Phillies met the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in a three-game home series. When the dust settled, the Angels pitched circles around the Phillies, leaving them snakebit amid a three-game sweep. It came in the middle of a harrowing Interleague schedule, and not long after the Phils had reached their previous high-watermark of the season.

Fast forward a calendar year: The Blue Jays walked into Citizens Bank Park and played hard, smart and patient baseball. Their pitching – while not dominant – benefited from advanced scouting. Toronto was geared up for a set against the defending world champions, and made absolutely sure they’d leave victorious. They certainly did, sweeping the Phillies with an 8-7 win.

The series played the encyclopedia of all the negative aspects of the 2009 Phillies. In game three, starting pitching allowed too many quick runs, the uncertain and labored arms of the bullpen imploded and the offense showed their inability to strike against breaking ball slingers.

Joe Blanton lasted 5.1 innings, allowing four runs and nine hits, two of them home runs. Behind him was a sterling effort by Chan Ho Park (three strikeouts) that still led to trouble, punctuated by JC Romero’s wildness. The Phillies at least scored to back this pitching, as Jimmy Rollins struck a two-run home run to seize the lead, 5-3, into the sixth. Jimmy Rollins nailed a home run, one of his three hits in a good day for the shortstop. John Mayberry Jr., called to the big league’s as an emergency replacement for the injured Raul Ibanez, hit his second home run of the season, one of two hits. Jayson Werth also homered.

After the Jays tied the game, thanks to some outstanding baserunning by Scott Rolen, Clay Condrey allowed two quick runs. The Phils still bounced back, scoring via a Greg Dobbs home run and Shane Victorino RBI single, in the eighth. But the sweep seemed inevitable, and Ryan Madson gave up a leadoff home run to Rod Barajas to seal the deal. Barajas has gone 8-for-16 against his former team since leaving Philadelphia.

Even on a day when the offense made noise, it seemed to be shallow. A few home runs – great, but where are the rallies? They aren’t coming when Ryan Howard strikes out three times in his now predictable fashion. They aren’t coming when the team continues to try swatting balls out of the park via flies. It’s getting old.

Then again, this whole thing happened a year ago, and we can’t complain about that result.

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19 Responses to “Jays Sweep Pathetic Phillies, 8-7”

  1. Greg V. Says:

    And we see the B-Jays again in week just to add a cherry on top!

  2. Greg V. Says:

    Does anyone else think that it’s worth the gamble to sign Pedro Martinez or Paul Byrd?

  3. Stuart Says:

    Anyone else liking what they see with Mayberry? A couple homeruns in his first couple games. And they were split apart, not like he got in the rhythm of hitting big league pitching. Im starting to like seeing this guy. So thats one plus out of this whole thing. And I would not gamble on Pedro or anyone like that. Go for someone who is young and pitching now and good. Not someone that we have no idea how he is going to come back.

  4. mg52 Says:

    The strikeouts by Howard are making us all cringe. It does seem that he and some of the other hitters ignore not only the scouting reports on the pitchers, but the scouting reports on themselves. One of my good friends introduced this idea, and it describes the team’s plight. I would not be surprised to hear that the Jays had actually written down and rehearsed how they wanted to approach the defending champions in this series. The Phils? They came out with the same home run swings, the same mental errors, the same withering in the clutch, the same tired relievers, the same inconsistent starters. We must remain optimistic because they are better than this. It may just take everyday study of video, scouting reports and analysis for them to return to that of which they are capable.

  5. John Fire Says:

    After seeing Howard strike out three times in the same game again and watching this team piss away a couple nice comebacks… I just have to take a quick step back (and I encourage you all to do the same) and remember that we won the World Series last year, we’re still in first place by 2.5 games, it’s only June and this time last year we were all going bonkers over missed opportunities too.

    We were bound to get swept at some point this season. Howard was bound to have another 3K game. The good news is we have 98 games left and they’ll probably be making a few moves shortly to right the ship. Every team is going to go through ups and downs. This is one of those downturns, but hey, it’s only been a few games – 1-5 in the last six if I recall. They’ll turn it around like they always do.

    At least, that’s all the stuff I tell myself to feel better.

  6. Grrrumpy Miner Says:

    Is that TRUE? Ibanez on the DL?

  7. kreiderr Says:

    Funny…a few days ago we were all begging for Ryan Madson to be our closer…how’s that working out so far?

  8. mg52 Says:

    We begged for it because what we had been seeing was intolerable. Lidge was even worse than this – it almost seemed a foregone conclusion that he would not command the fastball, that the hitters would lay off the slider and he would give up runs – and the knee damage that probably was impeding him has since confined him to the DL. Madson should have a few more chances at being the relief ace, but the Phils should not hesitate to move him if this kind of inconsistency continues – because it is indeed not much of an improvement from the ineffectiveness that preceded his move to the closer’s role.

  9. psujoe Says:

    Why is Cost calling for a high fastball to a fastball hitter 0-2. Come on. Howard is a liability against Lefties which is another reason it’s ridiculous that we came into the season with crap for right handed bats off the bench.

    You can never play Monday morning GM, but this team would look phenominal with Lowe and Derosa which was very achievable and two moves I advocated. Of course we be log jammed because I advocated for Derosa with the expectation that Utley and Feliz would need big time rest.

  10. Morris Buttermaker Says:

    Just got back from the game. What a horrible experience. Lackluster game, horrible weather and lackluster fans. I’ll tell you the energy from the fans is totally lacking. There is no cheering unless a home run is hit, and even then most people do not get out of their seats. But there is no sustained “Let’s go Phillies!” Everyone just kind of sits there. Nobody boos either. People looked at me like I was insane at the end of the game and I booed the pathetic effort of the past week. I don’t know if I am still just comparing it to last September and October. But it was pathetic today.

  11. mikeB Says:

    There is additional disappointment in losing to Toronto because of the two ex-Phillies, Scott Rolen and Rod Barrahas. The Phillies are making Barrahas look like Babe Ruth. Could not hit his way out of a paper sack when he played for the Phillies but now he is batting .500 against us with home runs since he has departed? Is there not any advance scouting done on opposing ball players so that the Phillies pitchers have some idea as to how to pitch to them?

  12. Woodman Says:

    Thanks Chase. That did cheer me up. Great!

  13. BS Says:

    On the bright side, at least the Mets lost 2 out of 3 vs. Baltimore. As bad as we were this series, we only lost a game from our lead.

  14. Morris Buttermaker Says:

    I actually was considering driving down to Baltimore if the Phillies game ended early enough. I should have just given away the Phillies tickets and went to Baltimore. That was a much better game.

    Here is your sign that today’s game was horrible. There is a good chance that at some point during the game, you said, “Damn, they should have kept Chan Ho in.”

  15. Sports Objective » Yankees lose 2 of 3 to Nats; Willis to DL, injuries, musings Says:

    [...] similar injury has sidelined Raul Ibanez of the slumping Phillies, adding fuel to the [...]

  16. whack8888 Says:

    haha for chan ho – seriously though, this is not all that big a deal. Did anybody really think interleague play against the AL East was going to be fun? The thing is, everyone in the NL east is going to have a rough time the next couple of series, and the Phillies werent too bad in the last 6. Yesterday’s game was really bad, and the middle one against Boston was also bad, but other than that there have just been some close losses, which are bad anyway, but it is not like they were blown away all 5 out of 6 losses.

    I like the Mets excuses, so I am going to start using them – the Phillies are also going through a lot of injuries, even non DL ones especially in the bull pen. When Lidge gets back, hopefully healthy, games like today probably wont happen anymore.

  17. Dan Says:

    (From Phillies Fan Dan, Not the Mets fan)

    One thing that’s cracking me up, is that the Yankees are losing to the Nationals so much. That is actually really amusing. Hopefully when Lidge gets back he can be lights out again. I’m actually interested to see what happens when we play the Jays again on the road. Might be able to get our revenge then since we are so much better on the road. The pitching is starting to get annoying, we score runs, they give em right back the very next inning. It’s brutal.

  18. Brian of CO Says:

    Well at least there were a few glimmers of light yesterday. 1st and foremost, the Metts lost again to a much inferior Orioles team (last place in AL East, and the Yankees lost TWICE to the WORST team in MLB. Not like I care if the Yankees lose, but at least the Jays like it or not came into the series with similar record as the Phils, unlike the two NY teams playing the worst teams.

  19. Doug D. Says:

    It’s a looooonnnnnnggggg season. We’re not even at the half-way point and already we’ve had to deal with (1) JC’s suspension, (2) Jimmy’s slump, (3) Ruiz, Lidge, Eyre and Ibanez on the DL, (4) a rotation suffering from the collective hangover of long previous season coupled with a short off-season. And yet, we’re still 3 games in front of the Mets. LOL…Despite losing again yesterday, it was great to see 3 homers hit off of breaking balls. Mayberry, Jayson and Jimmy all jacked out hangers, while Hobbs turned on a middle-in fastball on his tater. Just like Gary Matthews has said, low fastballs and high curves, not the other way around. It looks like Jimmy and Jayson are coming out of their funks at just the right time, what with Raul going down for at least 15 days. I think Jimmy was starting to hear some boos…Rhyno will continue to have problems with lefties until he learns to take them the other way. For some cosmic reason, lefties’ pitches have more movement that righties. I think it has something to do with the rotation of the Earth, but that’s just a theory. Anyway, lefties get Howard out by pitching him breaking stuff wide of the zone. Once again, he needs to remember the concept of letting the ball travel more in the zone and going oppo boppo. That’s the key to his success against southpaws. By doing so, he’ll have more time recognize the type of pitch and whether it will be a strike.

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Charlie Manuel - $3 million
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Chase Utley - $15 million
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Jimmy Rollins - $7.5 million
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Cole Hamels - $6.65 million
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Placido Polanco - $5.25 million
Joe Blanton - $5.475 million
Ryan Madson - $4.5 million
J.C. Romero - $4 million
Shane Victorino - $3.125 million
Chad Durbin - $1.635 million
Greg Dobbs - $1.35 million
Ross Gload - $1 million
Brian Schnieder - $1 million
Juan Castro - $750,000
Clay Condrey - $650,000
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Francisco Rosario - $395,000
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