Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
The Phillies have some decisions to make about their starting rotation for tomorrow and Sunday against the Brewers.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Todd Zolecki
Phillies starter Kyle Kendrick is consoled by manager Charlie Manuel after lasting just 11/3 innings against the Marlins. (RON CORTES / Inquirer Staff Photographer)
Things suddenly look very unsettled in the Phillies rotation.
The Phillies need a starter for tomorrow night's series opener against the Milwaukee Brewers. They might need another starter Sunday, too.
Kyle Kendrick got rocked last night in a 10-8 loss to the Florida Marlins. He allowed seven runs in 1 1/3 innings, which made last night the worst start of his career. His previous worst start happened Aug. 11 against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium, where he allowed seven runs in 3 1/3 innings. Kendrick is 1-4 with an 11.35 ERA (29 earned runs in 23 innings) in his last six starts, beginning with that start in Los Angeles.
He has not pitched six innings once in that stretch.
He has allowed six or more runs four times.
If this were the beginning of the season, the Phillies could afford to be patient with Kendrick. But there are only 17 games left and they're 2 1/2 games behind the Mets in the National League East and three games behind the Brewers in the wild card.
They need to make up some ground quickly. Kendrick is not helping matters.
"We'll talk about our pitching. We'll try to figure out the best possible way for us to go," Charlie Manuel said about Kendrick's spot in the rotation.
The Phillies appear to have a few options at this point:
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Give the ball to Kendrick.
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Give the ball to lefthander J.A. Happ. He allowed five hits and three runs in 31/3 innings in relief of Kendrick. But he also had an 8.49 ERA in his last three starts for triple-A Lehigh Valley. The Brewers also hit .275 against lefthanders, compared to .247 against righthanders. "This is the stretch drive and he's kind of inexperienced with where you're going to put him," Manuel said. "I'm not saying he can't do the job because I've seen him pitch a good game, and he's going to be a good big-league pitcher."
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Adam Eaton? Manuel would not even say that's a possibility last night, and for good reason. Eaton was 4-8 with a 5.80 ERA before the Phillies optioned him to the minors in July. He went 0-4 with a 7.02 ERA in seven starts in the minors. If he had shown signs of anything positive in the minors, maybe they could go this way. But he actually pitched worse against minor-league hitting.
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Pitch Brett Myers on three days rest. He has pitched on short rest just once in his career: Oct. 3, 2004. He is 1-0 with a 5.40 ERA (three earned runs in five innings).
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Make it a bullpen day.
I expect to know more about tomorrow night's starter before today's series finale against the Marlins. The Phillies might not announce a decision on Sunday's starter until later this week.
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Bob Ford writes that with 17 games to play it's no time for Manuel to be patient with his players. Go with the hot hand.
*
In the Phillies Notebook: Jamie Moyer could pitch on short rest tomorrow night.
Comments (87)
RWR, I agree. Any way you slice it, it should never have come to this. And somebody should be held responsible. However, in this organization, where the performance bar is set so low (in the case of the manager, it appears to be "in the race in Sept"), I doubt there will be any real change whether they make the playoffs or not.— bobby
I would love to see them go after Ben Sheets, and bring back Moyer for one more year. With Sheets's injury history, his value will be down, and no one will be willing to offer him a long-term deal, unlike Lackey and Sabathia, who the Phillies will not be able to afford. If you can have Sheets, Hamels, Myers, Moyer and Blanton, that's pretty strong, and keep Happ, Carrasco and Kendrick in AAA so that whoever is pitching the best can come up and fill in for a few weeks when Ben Sheets has to miss a few starts (which he always has to). I mean, Sabathia would be awesome, but let's be real, he isn't coming here. This ownership will never pony up the dollars or the years he will be offered by the Yankees.— RollinsWasRight- It's amazing that none of you guys mention Lohse. The Phils had 2 quality contributors last year (Rowand as well), who they neither brought back nor paid for a replacement. With 4 million at the gate, there is no excuse for that.— Palestra Jon
- Jon, you obviously weren't here yesterday. Lohse was the hot topic. Don't get me started...— bobby
- Watching Kendricks go out to pitch was like watching the movie Gallipoli when they order the troops over the burn and you know they are going to get slaughtered and they know it too, but they send them oer anyway.— atleaglefan
- Yo guys, whats with these huge blogs ? Short and sweet and get to the point..Leave that long winded stuff to Bill Conlin... Pitching has not been the problen with this team, clutch hitting, slumps, situational hitting all year long.. On the whole our pitchings been above average..I never thought I'd say this, but Utley is starting to remind me of Bobby Abreau, hollow numbers, no clutch hitting .— pat h
- Sorry, path. This team just has a tendency to send me off on rants...— RollinsWasRight
- RWR... the problem with this team is the management. You just said that the Phils won't be able to afford Lackey or Sabathia. That is pure BS! If they wanted to 'afford' it, they could but they just won't spend the money and therefore this team never will get over the hump. We are all so jaded by this team that we don't even look at signing a great FA pitcher as a possibility. That's what being a Phillies fan is all about... FRUSTRATION!— James TL
- I understand the management's decision to run teh team as a business. I dont have any issue with them setting a budget and sticking to it, even if it means they can't afford certain players. My beef is the wasted money thrown away on players with no business beig in teh majors such as Eaton, Garcia, etc. The problem isn't how much they spend, its where they spend it and on whom— jeff gross
- James TL: Sorry. By "afford", I don't mean that they won't HAVE the money, they probably do, and we all realize that. I simply meant "it won't be in the budget". I don't know what else you want us, as fans, to do. Screaming and yelling for Sabathia won't do any good; they won't even try to pursue him anyway. Staying away from the ballpark won't do any good; #1, there are too many people who go down there for a night out, and don't really care about the baseball, and #2, even if you put a noticeable dent in their attendance, they threatetened to move once, and the option is still there if they start losing money again. I don't want to lose my team entirely.— RollinsWasRight
- jeff: I do agree with that, also. $110M should be enough to win, if the franchise is run correctly. The real problem is how hanstrung they are by their farm system, which is where they are really cheapest. If they had a decent farm system, they wouldn't have to waste $8.5M/yr on an Adam Eaton, they would have viable young candidates for lesser roster spots like the 5th starter's role. I would rather have a kid making $500K/yr with decent upside as my 5th starter, and spend the other $8M on the farm developing young talent, than continue to have to live with gaffs like Adam Eaton for $25M, Freddy Garcia for $10M, Jon Lieber for $21M, etc.— RollinsWasRight
- actually we do have a decent farm system when it comes to arms. If you think that Myers, Cole, Kendrick, Happ, Carlos, Carpenter, and others came from the farm system. The problem is they don't give the kids a chance. Look at what the A's did with Outman, put him in. I grant that they are out of teh race, but we should have given one of our kids a chance to be teh 5th pitcher this year, especially when it was obvious that Eaton was a discrace to the uniform— jeff gross
- We also have to consider, we don't know how much money they have to spend... not really. I know it is posh to demand they spend like the Yankees and the Red Sox, but the Phillies don't take in revenues like the Yankees and the Red Sox do. There is no Phillies Nation paying membership fees (in part because Philaldephians aren't so stupid as to pay a membership fee to be a baseball fan); they don't enjoy the level of merchandising that those teams do; there is no regional sports network in which they have a stake, in fact, they have one of the worst TV contracts in baseball. Comcast is screwing the Phillies. So, while we may be reasonably sure that they are able to afford more than $105M-$110M on ML payroll, do we know for a fact that they can afford to add another $20M to the payroll in one player? I don't know that.— RollinsWasRight
- jeff: why is it that at the trade deadline no one was interested in Phillies prospects except Carrasco, Cardenas (now an A), and Marson? And even those guys were "interesting", but not highly regarded. The farm is not very good. I know that in recent years we turned out Rolen, Burrell, Rollins, Myers, Utley, Howard, G. Floyd and Hamels, but all of those guys were drafted/developed under Mike Arbuckle's watch. He is not sitting next to the GM, and not running the day-to-day operations on the farm, and suddenly our best prospect is a projected #3 starter, which is a decent player, but says nothing good if that is the best the minor league system has to offer. Phillies fans have been overvaluing the minor league players all season, and that is why we were not able to make deadline deals everyone wanted to see. These guys do not have the value that you think they do.— RollinsWasRight
- I think there was interest in happ and carpenter as well before the TD but we told everyone we weren't interested. There was interest in Outman and the other P who was traded (obviously). I agree that we don't have an ace in teh minors, but who does? What we are truly missing is posistion players. Except for Marson, Golson, and possibly the SS who was in teh Olympics, we have no one up and coming who is any good.— jeff gross
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