| August 24: Padres 14, Phillies 3 WP: Maddux (10-9) LP: Moyer (11-10) |
| August 25: Padres 4, Phillies 3 WP: Bell (6-4) LP: Myers (2-5) S: Hoffman (33) |
| August 23: Phillies 14, Padres 2 WP: Kendrick (7-3) LP: Stauffer (0-1) S: Ennis (1) |
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At the risk of coming off as geeky as Marcus Hayes believes us to be, watching the Phillies might be a little reminiscent of the second Lord of the Rings movie. The Phillies are trying to stay in the playoff hunt without their most powerful warriors: their best starter, their best regular, and their second-best reliever, with a lot of other key support guys missing or hobbled and their most dangerous slugger mired in a terrible slump. The rotation is like the Rohan army in the film: they're all either too old or too young. And they take all these problems into the most important stretch of the season to date, even if the Padres and Mets aren't quite as scary as the forces of Mordor.
But I'm not here to bury the Phillies. They face three beatable pitchers this weekend, they've played better at Citizens Bank Park in its fourth season than they generally did in the first three, and reinforcements are on the way. (Utley's kind of like that crew of sharp-shooting elves who show up two-thirds of the way through that movie; Adam Eaton is... I dunno, Gollum?)
But I'm not here to bury the Phillies. They face three beatable pitchers this weekend, they've played better at Citizens Bank Park in its fourth season than they generally did in the first three, and reinforcements are on the way. (Utley's kind of like that crew of sharp-shooting elves who show up two-thirds of the way through that movie; Adam Eaton is... I dunno, Gollum?)
Friday's series opener features 300-game winner Greg Maddux--perhaps the greatest geek in baseball history--against one of his few contemporaries who's both older and softer-tossing: Jamie Moyer, coming off perhaps his worst start of the year in Pittsburgh last weekend. Maddux will be making his 57th career start against the Phils; he's 27-17 with a 3.37 ERA. Perhaps more relevant is that the four-time Cy Young winner is just 2-5, 4.56 in 13 starts away from Petco Park this season. Moyer is 5-2, 4.00 at CBP this year. Considerably less pedigreed pitchers face off Saturday and Sunday, as Clay Hensley opposes Kyle Lohse and Wil Ledezma--filling in for injured Padres co-ace Chris Young--takes on Kyle Kendrick. Perhaps Hensley and Ledezma will prove good for what ails Phillies' bats; the team is hitting a collective .250 in August and has scored just 20 runs in its last five games, four of which they've lost.
If not, I guess there's always the Return of the Bats to look forward to.