Inside the Phillies: Phillies have best pitching staff in baseball

The debate is over for now.

Maybe it can be renewed when the San Francisco Giants come to town later this month or when the Phillies and Atlanta Braves meet again in September.

Right now, however, no one can argue the notion that the Phillies have the best pitching staff in baseball.

The Phillies did not just prove it during their three-game series with the Braves, which ended with a 14-1 rout by the home team Sunday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park. They proved it throughout the entire first half of the season.

"When you think of us, especially this half, our pitching definitely jumps out at you," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said after his team pushed its all-star break lead in the National League East to 31/2 games over the Braves.

Forget the obvious numbers - team ERA, starters ERA, and bullpen ERA - and look at the one statistic that separates the good pitchers from the great ones while also impacting how a manager handles his entire staff.

Look at innings pitched.

As Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels boarded a flight for Phoenix, where they will represent the National League in Tuesday's All-Star Game, the three Phillies pitchers ranked first, second, and third in the league in innings. The fact that they are a combined 31-13 with a 2.53 ERA is terrific. The fact that the team is 40-17 in their starts largely explains why the Phillies tied a franchise record with 57 wins at the all-star break.

The fact that Halladay, Lee, and Hamels have covered at least seven innings in 44 of their 57 starts has made life much easier for Manuel and pitching coach Rich Dubee.

"The value in that is it allows our bullpen to get proper rest," Manuel said. "If you notice, our guys in the bullpen pretty much keep their roles that way. We don't have to go out of sync and do something as far as pitching somebody too long in a game or too often. They get their proper rest, and we can keep them organized that way."

With first place in the National League East hanging in the balance, the Phillies had the good fortune and good sense to be able to line up Halladay, Lee, and Hamels for the series with Atlanta. The Braves countered with Brandon Beachy on Friday, Tommy Hanson on Saturday, and Derek Lowe in Sunday's series finale.

The Phillies won this battle because their starters were slightly better, thanks to Hamels' eight-inning, three-hit, one-run performance in the rubber game of the series.

A cynic might suggest that you can't compare the Phillies and Braves based on this series because Atlanta did not get to pitch its ace, Jair Jurrjens, or the veteran Tim Hudson. As great as Jurrjens has been this season, he has covered seven innings or more only eight times in 16 starts. Hanson has gone seven or more in only seven of 17 starts and Hudson has gone seven or more in just seven of 18 starts.

Lowe, who surrendered 10 hits and four runs in six innings on Sunday, has covered seven or more innings only twice in 20 starts.

Before the start of the series, Manuel complimented the Braves bullpen and also wishfully wondered if the electric young arms of Craig Kimbrel and Jonny Venters might wear down as the season goes on. The Braves rank first with a 2.64 bullpen ERA, but they are also fourth with 2822/3 innings logged.

Venters has thrown 541/3 innings, more than any reliever in baseball. He's on pace for more than 95 innings. Kimbrel is seventh in the league with 45 innings pitched and has never thrown more than 761/3 innings in a season.

By contrast, the Phillies relievers have logged a league-low 232 innings.

You could argue that Manuel and Dubee are asking a lot, maybe even too much, from Halladay, Lee, and Hamels. Halladay and Lee have been down this road before. Halladay has pitched 239 regular-season innings or more every year since 2008, and Lee, counting the postseason, logged 272 innings in 2009. Hamels handled a similar workload in 2008 when he pitched the Phillies to a World Series title and seems determined to do so again.

"Being able to go out and pitch seven, eight, nine innings, if you want to be good in this game, that's what you have to do," Hamels said. "I've been able to do that numerous times and I've been able to get into that groove. That's where I'm able to get comfortable, and I like the feeling. That's something where I want to stay."

Hamels' elevation to the same elite status as Halladay and Lee is the biggest reason that the Phillies can say they have the best pitching staff in baseball, even with Roy Oswalt on the disabled list.

"It's great, but at the same time it's one half," Hamels said. "It's not the full season. When things are going well, you try to take all the positives you can, but I'm going to work hard and try to get better."