Huge game by KK

[Cedrique]

Without Lee and Halladay they have way too few games where the starter goes 7 or more. This was a good time for Kendrick to go deep into the game.

 

[WestCoastPhan]

heard on the radio tonight that the phillies bullpen is #1 in ERA in all of baseball since June 3.

 

[NDIrishGuy]

heard on the radio tonight that the phillies bullpen is #1 in ERA in all of baseball since June 3.

It would be nice for that trend to continue, but I'm gonna stick with small sample size for now. The positives are the Phils' pen has the 4th highest K/9 rate in MLB (9.29). The negative being they have the 7th worst BB/9 rate (4.01). The super scary part - they have the 4th worst ground pall percentage (39.5%) and give up a HR on 10.6% of the flyballs hit (9th worst).

TL;DR - Phils pen misses a lot of bats which is good, but are wild. They also don't keep the ball on the ground and a higher than normal about of flyballs leave the yard against them.

 

[Cedrique]

It would be nice for that trend to continue, but I'm gonna stick with small sample size for now. The positives are the Phils' pen has the 4th highest K/9 rate in MLB (9.29). The negative being they have the 7th worst BB/9 rate (4.01). The super scary part - they have the 4th worst ground pall percentage (39.5%) and give up a HR on 10.6% of the flyballs hit (9th worst).

TL;DR - Phils pen misses a lot of bats which is good, but are wild. They also don't keep the ball on the ground and a higher than normal about of flyballs leave the yard against them.

Are those HR and flyball stats year to date? If so, that is pointless. You'd be including BJ Rosenberg and his 3 HRs in 6 innings, Philippe Aumont, Brad Lincoln, Luis Garcia and every other scrub that pitched a couple innings and gave up a homer. Giles gave up a home run in 1.1 innings pitched so far but the kid is 23 years old and just got promoted to the big leagues. If you look at the guys they have now and hope to use going forward the bullpen isn't nearly as scary as it used to be.

 

[NDIrishGuy]

Are those HR and flyball stats year to date? If so, that is pointless. You'd be including BJ Rosenberg and his 3 HRs in 6 innings, Philippe Aumont, Brad Lincoln, Luis Garcia and every other scrub that pitched a couple innings and gave up a homer. Giles gave up a home run in 1.1 innings pitched so far but the kid is 23 years old and just got promoted to the big leagues. If you look at the guys they have now and hope to use going forward the bullpen isn't nearly as scary as it used to be.

If you just look at the last 30 days (84.0 innings - so a really small sample size), the K rate is 9.96/9IP (unbelievably good), the walk rate is 4.39/9IP (still terrible), but the home run rate has come down to 6.8% with the ground ball rate still bad at 40.0%. They aren't the weak link on the team at this point (offense has that locked up) and in fact for the past month they have been better than the starters. However the walk rate is still a big concern. Over the past month, the bullpen is ranked 12th in FIP (fielding independent pitching). The only place the Phils can actually say they were above average for that time frame sadly.

Over the last 30 days the starters have been bad (not historically so, just bad). 6.64K/9IP, 3.24BB/9IP; 43.7% ground ball and 10.4% HR/FB. None of those are the worst in baseball over the stretch but as a conglomerate they are bottom ten in MLB as a starting staff.

 

[Cedrique]

Yeah, the offense is brutal. No way a team at CBP should be 12th out of 15th in HRS. They should be building a team around walks and 3 run homers.

 

[northeastphillyguy]

The Phillies have issued just 42 walks in 145 innings during the month of June. The Team ERA during June is down to 3.46. The improved ERA is tied in to the lower walk rate. This is something that Oakland works on every day. Maybe the new stats guy is teaching our coaching staff some important facts! Less people on base is equal to less runs scored!

 

[Cedrique]

Yeah, hopefully they can also teach the offense that more people on base is equal to more runs. Howard seems to be doing a good job this series though. He hit a homerun early in the series and they have been pitching him carefully and he has been smart in just taking the walks when they are there.

 

[Retroram52]

I agree the offense is killing us but maybe Bob McClure and Rod Nichols are working clandestinely with the stat guy to obtain all of those great numbers NDIrish and Northeast have been posting. Something is changing in that bullpen.

 

[Cedrique]

I agree the offense is killing us but maybe Bob McClure and Rod Nichols are working clandestinely with the stat guy to obtain all of those great numbers NDIrish and Northeast have been posting. Something is changing in that bullpen.

Hopefully you're right about that. They certainly haven't been successful bringing in relievers off other teams and in free agency the last few years. Ideally, Papelbon keeps pitching well and some desperate team trades something for him or at least takes his salary. Then they can maybe move Giles and/or Diekman into the closers role.

 

[navamind]

Yeah, the offense is brutal. No way a team at CBP should be 12th out of 15th in HRS. They should be building a team around walks and 3 run homers.

"Aren't walks bad?"

- Amaro

 

[Retroram52]

Geez navamind. When you posted what that you-know-what said, I lost all positive vibes to a good day against the Braves. Talk about an instant limp biscuit!