Phillies pitching to blame

Great article by David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News. Basic synopsis – as poor as the Phils have hit over the past few weeks, it’s the pitching to blame. He compares the Phils hitting stats to the Dodgers and the Phils come out on top for the past month, when both teams have struggled offensively, but the Dodgers have won most of their games in that period while the Phils have struggled.

One other thing – everything has come crashing down over the past couple of weeks. Not just the hitting and pitching, but the defense has been really horrible the past couple of weeks and has cost the Phillies a couple of games. Many of the plays are the type of plays that are the result of a lack of focus; throwing to the wrong base; loafing after a base hit and giving up an extra base. These don’t show up in the box scores, but they cost games.

I’ve said this to my wife a number of times: there are three main areas of baseball, hitting, pitching, and defense; if you’re a plus team in two of those areas, and are even in the other – you’ll be a playoff team. The Phillies are a plus team on hitting and defense, but a negative to even in pitching. The other two areas keep them in most games, but when those two areas falter, the issues with the pitching become more glaring.