Phillies are homers

Most of us know the Phillies struggles with homeruns.  The Phillies have given up 69 homeruns thus far.  That leads the league.  Not just the National League, but all of baseball.  Baltimore is second with 67 HRs given up.  It doesn't help that the Phillies have the #1 and #2 pitchers in HRs given up.

#1 Brett Myers: 15
#2 Jamie Moyer: 13

Also:

#16 Joe Blanton: 9
#16 Cole Hamels: 9

Not all homer happy pitchers are the same.

Myers: .265 .332 .529 .861 opponent's line against

20 of the 28 runs Brett has given up has been on the HR.  Most of those homers have been solo shots.  Only 8 runs have been scored against him that weren't HRs.  Of course, Zach Greinke has only given up 7 runs total all year.

Moyer: .342 .398 .603 1.001

This is the most troubling by far.  Unbeknownst to most, the guys at the league lead in HRs given up tend to have pretty good overall numbers.  These tend to be the high strikeout but if you guess them right the ball goes a long way type of guys.  Moyer leads the league in OPS against, just a shade over Scott Olsen's .999.  Only 5 pitchers have OPSA over .900 and they are Scott Kazmir (who I believe is injured), Adam Eaton (yeah, you knew it, I knew it), Ricky Nolasco, Moyer and Olsen.

If I were to ask you who had the lower OPSA between Blanton and Hamels, you would have guessed Blanton, because why the hell would I ask such a stupid question unless it had a stupid answer.

Blanton: .308 .371 .508 .879
Hamels: .299 .333 .551 .884

What I find interesting is that I think this shows how overvalued SLG is with respect to OPS.  Most of us know that it should be more like (1.4(OBP))+ (SLG), but if you look at the difference between Myers and Moyer and Hamels and Blanton, you see why there is such a difference in ERA.  Hamels has the higher OPSA, but has a significantly lower OBPA than Blanton.  Thus, when the bombs go off, nobody is on base to hear them, or something like that.

Here's my advice for these four guys:

Brett: Keep the ball down.  Easier said than done, but you do much better when the ball is closer to the knees than elbows.

Joe: Throw more strikes.  They hit your stuff pretty easily no matter what, so, let the defense do it's job and don't walk anybody.

Cole: Throw more balls.  They can't hit your stuff, but if they guess right on a ball over the plate, it is gone.

Jamie: Retire.  Seriously.  We love you for helping us win it last year, but dude, you are closer to 50 than 40.  You have nothing left.  You missed the white horse, don't ruin our chances this year.