Tuesday night game between the Phillies and Braves was all Phillies in till the bull pen got involved. Let's just make things nice and short, they didn't do their jobs very well.
Pitching for the Phillies was the young Kyle Kendrick who in his last two starts didn't look like he knew how to pitch coming into the game had an ERA of 17.42. So this game was very important for him to pitch well against this strong Braves lineup. Also the pitcher he was going against was the hard thrower Tommy Hanson who's ERA is a 2.81. Well we starts things off in the bottom of the 9th inning where the Phillies were up 3-0. Kendrick had pitched a great 8 innings of work giving up 4 hits and 2 walks, and got 14 ground ball outs. He just shut down the Braves offenses. In the 9th inning manager Charlie Manuel takes out Kendrick because he had 106 pitches thrown, so he figured let the bull pen get some work in. Well if he would have known what was coming he would have probably stuck with Kendrick. They bring in closer Ryan Madson to wrap this game up with a 3-0 lead, he gets the first 2 outs, then gives up a single to Chipper Jones, no big deal. Next batter is Troy Glaus who was 0-3 in the game so far, he hadn't done much to this point until Madson gave him a big fat cheese ball right down the middle of the plate and Glaus made him pay for his mistake by taken him deep and making this a one run ball game. Okay its 3-2 Phillies 2 outs, next up to bat is the young stud rookie Jason Heyward who was also 0-3 in the game to this point. So like his good friend Glaus hitting in front of him he's saying to himself I want some action and BAM he takes Madson's 94 mph fastball deep to tie the game and all this coming with 2 out yet. I know Heyward is a rookie but this guy has a lot of pop in his bat and told people before the season started, he's not like any other rookie that is going through the change of the game; he knows how to play in big leagues for a 20 year old kid. So there should have been no reason for Madson to throw a fastball right down the middle of the plate when you just gave up a bomb to the batter before him and its sad to stay a rookie hitter beat a pitcher who has been in this game for what 7 years now? That's when you know you have a problem, but to Madsons created it's also the catcher Carlos Ruiz fault for allowing Madson to throw that pitch to a guy like Heyward who is going be the next best hitter in the NL someday. Alright so now that all the 9th inning drama is over we move to the bottom of the 10th inning and the Phillies bring in Jose Contreras who hasn't been too bad for the Phils in the pen. He would face Nate McLouth who was 0-2 in the game; his batting average is only like .124 coming into play. Contreras miss's with his pitch and gives up a game winning home run in the 10th inning and the Braves would come back in the 9th and 10th innings to win it by a score of 4-3.
So as we can see the Phillies bull pen is very very weak and just not that good and I saw this becoming a problem before the season even started. Kyle Kendrick pitched one hell of a game on Tuesday and was very good in this one looking for win number one in the 2010 season. Instead he would earn a no discussion pitching 8 scoreless innings. This whole game had to do with management once again, if I see my pitcher is dealing weather his pitch count is high or not I would have let Kendrick finish the game off because you know your bull pen isn't what it used to be like it was back in 2008. Clearly this Phillies bull pen needs some work, whether it's having Lidge and J.C. back I don't know, but I think in the offseason the Phillies could have picked up some better guys then what they did pick up. Madson's ERA is now a 7.71, Contreras's ERA is a 2.45, David Herndon's ERA is a 7.71, Danys Baez's ERA is a 7.71, Nelson Figueroa and Antonio Bastardo both have ERA's of 2.45 and Chad Durbin's ERA is 0.00. So there really are not a whole lot of pitchers you can choice from to pitch in the later innings because you don't know what they're going to bring to the table. The Phillies have lost three straight games, for a team that started off very hot has now cooled off and this road trip is only going to get worst when they play the D-Backs who aren't that bad and when they go against the best pitching rotation in the NL the Giants it's only going to get harder.
The Phillies will play game two of this three game series tomorrow night at 7:05 on ESPN part of Wednesday Night Baseball. On the hill for the Phillies it will be their ace Roy Halladay (ERA 1.13, 3 wins, 0 losses, and 21 strikeouts) who will try to help the Phillies break their losing streak and put them one game up in the NL East. For the Braves they send out Tim Hudson (ERA 2.84, 1 win, 0 losses, and 2 strikeouts) who will try to help the Braves move in front in the NL East for the first time since 2005. This Phillies - Braves rivalry is still much alive!!
I'm Seth Lempert for Beyond Baseball,
Goodnight everyone.
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