It Stinks: Cubs 4, Phillies 1

by WholeCamels on May 19, 2010 10:00 PM EDT

Another strong pitching performance from a Phillies starter, another somewhat better performance from an opposing lefty starter, lots of hard hit balls right at the other guys (including off the pitcher's hand), and a 4-1 loss at home.

Jamie Moyer had another very strong outing, going seven innings and giving up two runs, both on singles that were deflected off the glove of Placido Polanco. Moyer struck out seven (!) and surrendered just four hits in a tough luck loss. Bullpen Gruesome Twosome Chad Durbin and J.C. Romero coughed up another two runs in the top of the ninth to all but put the game out of reach.

All four Cubs runs scored with two outs.

The Cubs Tom Gorzelanny was very effective but benefited from some good luck on some very hard hit balls by Phillies batters, including a line drive off the bat of Carlos Ruiz in the bottom of the seventh that struck Gorzelanny on the hand and knocked him out of the game (X-rays after the game were negative as to any fracture, thankfully). Still, you have to score runs, and the Phillies just weren't able to string together enough hits.

Carlos Marmol closed the game out for the Cubs, but not without some drama. After retiring Jimmy Rollins to start the inning, Marmol issued a walk to Raul Ibanez, and hit Carlos Ruiz with a pitch, before striking out pinch hitter Ross Gload and Shane Victorino.

The Phillies scored their sole run in the bottom of the eighth on an RBI groundout from Ryan Howard. Jayson Werth with a bad night, 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.

Meeeehhhhhhhzzzz....

via www.fangraphs.com

Tweet Comment 33 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Ok… Someone talk me off the ledge… I am starting to have real doubts about this team (the concerns I had prior to this winning streak are coming back, and I am beginning to think that the winning streaks are just mirages, and that maybe we are not as good as our record.

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 19, 2010 10:28 PM EDT via mobile reply actions

everything is OK

They lost two games, I’m not freaking out yet. Two slop-tossing lefties, a pitcher-type that is basically Kryptonite to this team.

Again, I’m not freaking out, it’s just annoying/frustrating.

http://www.thegoodphight.com

by WholeCamels on May 19, 2010 10:31 PM EDT up reply actions

I agree with Whole Camels on this last 2 games. And, it is a long season!

But, I am having 2nd thoughts about Werth. I was at the game last night and I wonder if he did not try to slide being “afraid” he would get hurt? I hope I am wrong but it was quite a downer for us sitting at the game. And the next inning the Pirates had the same situation and slid and broke up the ball from Ruiz.

by DeanH on May 19, 2010 10:37 PM EDT up reply actions

I watched the video… I don’t think it was a fear of getting hurt— I think he did not see a scenario where he was going to be safe— the ball seemed to get there well before he did… Should he have tried and hoped, maybe… Do I think it is a sign of fearfullness, no.

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 19, 2010 10:42 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

fair enough. I was hoping that was the case! As I said before, I was at the game, did not see replay! The fans around me were upset at him however!

by DeanH on May 19, 2010 10:56 PM EDT up reply actions

he was meat on that throw. There was no point in sliding. He was waved into an out by the third base coach, which was a calculated risk based on the pitcher coming to bat.

by Bilzo on May 20, 2010 12:20 AM EDT up reply actions

Even if it were a “fear of getting hurt” which we have no way of knowing anyways, I don’t see what is so wrong about a player choosing not to inflict bodily harm on himself.

by FuquaManuel on May 19, 2010 11:03 PM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, right. As long as it’s not an irrational fear. I’m afraid of Werth getting hurt too!

by taco pal on May 19, 2010 11:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Misplaced anger imho, Perlozzo shouldn’t have sent him.

by Wet Luzinski on May 19, 2010 11:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Agreed… This is at least the second time in the past 6 weeks that I have wanted to strangle Perlozzo (the other one involved Ryan Howard and a play where he told Howard to go, then changed his mind, and Howard wound up out). Both of these incidents made me want to positively scream. I don’t know if Perlazzo is making worse decisions than he did in prior seasons, if it is bad luck (he has made those same decisions before and they have worked, so he thought it would work again when in reality he got lucky prior times), or what, but I am starting to lose patience with him— he should never have sent Werth there.

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 19, 2010 11:25 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

i wrote in my post above “calculated risk”, but I’d like to clarify that I didn’t agree with it either, and that’s because there was only one out when he sent him. With two outs fine. If he doesn’t send him you get Roy at the plate, bases loaded one out. Unless he GIDPs, you get Vic up with bases juiced and two outs, so a hit is two runs. Bad move to wave Werth into an out there.

by Bilzo on May 20, 2010 12:22 AM EDT up reply actions

Bingo— with 2 outs and the pitcher coming, I have no problem throwing the dice because while I may think that the chances of scoring the run are marginal, so are the chances of an average pitcher being able to hit— can’t complain about going there because the chances are probably right around a push. What aggravated me was doing it with only one out— I would have had Halladay take all
the way and hoped that Victorino could belt one hard enough to score some runs— And
they did not get that chance (on a night when scoring opportunities did not grow on trees), and that bugged me…

When I do good no one remembers… When I do bad no one forgets should be the mantra for managers, base coaches, and most relief pitchers… I want them to be the least memorable parts of the evening because try did their job so well that it looked seamless.

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 20, 2010 1:07 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

In 2008, the Phillies had a few streaks where they lost 6+ in a row. It happens.

"Tortorella’s got it all wrong ... Gaborik shouldn’t be messing with our skilled player." -Peter Luuko

by doubleh on May 20, 2010 2:13 AM EDT up reply actions

So the hope is that we will soon face a better class of lefty??? Or that the slop tossing ones rarely play for contending teams, so if we can string together enough wins against the types of pitchers we can hit, we should only see right handed and good lefthanded pitching in the playoffs.

BTW: how are we with knuckleballers??? I saw that Subday night projected starter Josh Beckett is on the DL, so we will be facing Wakefield… Should I just pencil in another loss for Doc on sunday night?

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 19, 2010 10:40 PM EDT via mobile reply actions

I’m not worried. It’s only two losses, it just feels like more because it came from the Pirates and Cubs, and because the offense didn’t do much.

The Cubs got a little luckier than us tonight and they took advantage by coming up with some clutch defensive plays (the Ruiz/Gorzelanny liner and Castro’s play deep in the hole in the 8th was impressive).

Gorzelanny’s been pitching decently all year, so this isn’t so defeating to me. Plus, as it’s been mentioned, there were some line drives right at people so I don’t feel so bad about that.

Let’s try not to panic if the Cubs play well tomorrow— Dempster is a good pitcher and this Cubs team is probably way more talented than their record.

That said, a win would be nice, especially going into the Red Sox series.

GO PHILS.

by Romero on May 19, 2010 10:53 PM EDT reply actions

I guess… I am just begining to see a Jekyll and Hyde quality with this team— they are either awesome or dead offensively, and seem to lose games that they should win, and win games they should lose. I’m just frustrated tonight— I had really high hopes for our team’s first game back together… Oh well, tomorrow is another day, and another game… Hopefully a better result.

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 19, 2010 11:29 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

yeah…there don’t seem to be a whole lot of 4-5 run games. They score 1 or 2 runs or >8 it seems. (this is probably erroneous, but I’m not crunching score frequency at 12:24 AM

by Bilzo on May 20, 2010 12:24 AM EDT up reply actions

ok i lied….
(you’d expect a bell curve, or maybe a tailing curve, since there’s a minimum of 0, and a realistic maximum of about 20, but the outliers could really run to infinity on the tail, but only to 0 on the front)
Runs/# Events
0 / 1
1 / 5
2 / 4
3 / 4
4 / 3
5 / 3
6 / 1
7 / 4
8 / 4
9 / 3
10 / 2
11 / 2
12 / 1
13 / 0
14 / 1

by Bilzo on May 20, 2010 12:32 AM EDT up reply actions

or brokendown into other groups:
0 – 3 (subpar): 14
4 – 7 (normal): 11
8+ (high) : 13

My grouping rationale: score 3 or fewer runs and you’ll usually lose. This contains four possible results (0,1,2,3) so I lumped the next four into “normal”, and if you score 8+ per game you should win.

So this team has a saddle curve, and not a bell curve, which is kinda odd, and I really hope attributable to nothing more than small sample size.

by Bilzo on May 20, 2010 12:35 AM EDT up reply actions

That is what I have seen (based on memory alone), and why I am driven so nuts by this team— while the pitching is simply all over the place in terms of runs allowed (but probably more bell shaped than anything), the offense is the little girl with the curl in the center of her forehead— when they are good, they are very good, and when they are bad, they are awful.

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 20, 2010 1:15 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

3 should be a win – the average total number of runs per game over the last decade is 4.7 something, so most games have 5 or fewer total runs; thus, scoring 3 means that most games will have the opponent score 2 or fewer.

Honor is no substitute for victory.

by The Dark on May 20, 2010 10:36 AM EDT up reply actions

ok..

then I’ll re-group (but I disagree that the Phils have had a winning record in the past couple years when scoring 3 runs in a game…maybe can check that later…not while @ work)
0-2: 10 (3 scenarios)
3-6: 11 (4 scenarios)
7+: 17 (lots of scenarios)

by Bilzo on May 20, 2010 12:34 PM EDT up reply actions

baseball is a jekyll and hyde type game throughout the season, teams run hot and cold streaks constantly, let’s just hope they turn it around going into interleague play where they tend to struggle

by PhilsForever on May 19, 2010 11:47 PM EDT reply actions

Kind of tough to be lumping Romero in with Durbin for that debacle. J.C. faced three hitters, got two K’s and a not-particularly-hard-hit ground ball.

by taco pal on May 19, 2010 11:54 PM EDT reply actions

I’m not. Yes, it is true that runs were scored on his watch. But it is also true that when he came in, he was asked to get 2 outs without giving up so much as a base hit— a pretty tough order… And as to the things that he could control (not walking anyone, striking two out, inducing a ground ball instead of a fly ball that could have went out of the park), he did not do badly— were the results what I wanted: no (I never want to see the other team score). Do I pin more than a tiny bit of blame on Romero, no… Not any more than I blame the last two losses on starting pitching. I blame tonight’s loss on a lack of offense, some bad luck from the BABIP fairies, and to a small extent Durbin (as much as I would like to blame him more and would really want to clobber him if we had lost 4-2 and particularly 4-3 we would have lost had the defense held barring some reason to believe that a different defensive result would have yielded a different offensive one. Durbin was outright ugly on the ninth— romero’s only part in this was an inability to pull a rabbit out of the hat— something that a lot of pitchers would lot be able to do.

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 20, 2010 12:13 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to the author of the post.

by taco pal on May 20, 2010 12:13 AM EDT up reply actions

I was agreeing with you… While There are few situations where I want to see Romero, he gets into enough trouble all by himself without sharing the blame for a debacle that he actually did not perform badly in.

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 20, 2010 12:18 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

i thought durbs got a bit squoze. Not enough to directly walk or hit those guys, but maybe it got into his head.

by Bilzo on May 20, 2010 12:24 AM EDT up reply actions

I’ll admit that I have trouble being entirely objective about JC Romero

http://www.thegoodphight.com

by WholeCamels on May 20, 2010 7:37 AM EDT up reply actions

Yuck I got home in time to watch jc romero who looked decent give up the two runs. Durbin sounds like he had a rough go when he came out to pitch another inning. And then I got to see Carlos “where the wild pitches are” Marmol take a couple of days off Pinella’s life which was pretty entertaining. Jeez, Marmol actually gives that eyeroller of a baseball saying, ‘’effectively wild’’, wheels.

by j reed on May 20, 2010 12:22 AM EDT reply actions

Agreed… I had to listen to the end of the game
on a.m. radio, and it sounded like Marmol is only successful because the batters have positively no clue where he is throwing to (or if
it is even going to be remotely close to the plate, and thus lose focus, as they are almost as concerned with not getting hit as they are with getting a hit.

Philadelphia: Phinally home to more than just a Hollywood Boxing Champ
- Drunken Bleachers

Re-sign Jayson Werth!!!!

"I never want to look back and wonder 'What if I had tried harder'"

- Chase Utley

by dannijd on May 20, 2010 1:11 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

Plus, Marmol’s stuff is particularly electric. But YES, I think it helps him that no one ever really knows where his pitches are going, which is why Shane probably struck out on ball four.

by Romero on May 20, 2010 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions