Red Pinstripes: The Phillies go down to Georgia
Plus: They beat the Mets, Trey Mancini's big day, and wild-bad finishes in New York
Good morning,
Welcome to another edition of Red Pinstripes. Did you see the end of that Marlins-Mets game? I did and it was terrible.
But before we get to that, read about how the Phillies beat those very Mets this week and how they’re going down to Cobb County to do battle with the Braves again.
Plus, Trey Mancini made his triumphant return to Camden Yards Thursday and he wasn’t the only player making a big return from illness. Also, the extra-innings rule reared its ugly head again in New York Wednesday.
A wonderful week
It was a great week for the Phillies.
The great thing about baseball, but the hard thing to remember about baseball, is that it is a 162-game season. And so when the Phillies start with a 5-1 record with great contributions from their starting rotation, the bullpen, and a breakout offensive performance, it’s really hard to contain enthusiasm.
That’s not to say you should stoically nod your head and just move along. What the Phillies are doing is very exciting right now. I’m definitely excited and can’t wait to watch them every night.
It might be too early to draw sweeping conclusions, but this series against the Mets confirmed a lot of the things that the Phillies need to do right if they want to make the playoffs this year. And that’s the fun of April, we can get excited about what’s happened without worrying about what’s to come.
The good feelings start with the bullpen. Last year, if the Phillies were losing a game when they went to the bullpen, like they were when Joe Girardi removed Matt Moore in the 4th inning Monday, they probably would have lost that game. It would have been a boat race. (Kind of like Tuesday’s game.)
This year’s bullpen continues to prove it’s not last year’s though. Girardi was able to go to good middle relievers like Brandon Kintzler and Sam Coonrod to keep the game close until the Phillies could strike against the Mets bullpen.
We saw the opposite of that Tuesday when Vince Velasquez imploded in his second inning of work, letting the Mets turn a small lead into a big lead. But Velasquez isn’t going to be counted on for a lot of important innings out of the bullpen this year.
It was also a series where the starting rotation was not great, and it didn’t have to be great. Matt Moore pitched 3.1 innings. Chase Anderson made it 5 innings. And Aaron Nola made threw 4 1-run innings despite not having his best stuff.
The Velasquez trouble -- where he struck out the side in one inning then walked four in the next -- highlights why the Phillies need the starters to go deep. They can get by on the bullpen on one night, but they can’t do it every game or even for back-to-back games.
And finally, after a quiet series against the Braves, the hitting started to come through against the Mets.
Rhys Hoskins especially has been red hot, with seven extra-base hits so far, including six doubles and a home run. Hoskins hasn’t walked yet, his normal calling card, and instead has been ambushing pitchers when they throw him pitches in the zone. He’s also spraying the ball around the field, rather than just pulling it into left field.
And he’s not the only one. Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Alec Bohm and Didi Gregorius are all hitting the ball hard. And while Andrew McCutchen hasn’t hit, he’s at least drawing walks and setting up the rest of the lineup.
Beat the Braves, part II
Now the real work begins for the Phillies. They have to go on the road against a team they have already seen and win some games. The Braves finally won a game Wednesday when they swept both ends of a doubleheader against the Nationals.
Whereas both teams led with their pitching in Philadelphia, they both scored a lot more runs in their second series of the year. The Phillies scored 9 runs against the Braves and 17 against the Mets. The Braves scored three runs against the Phillies and 14 against the Braves.
As great as this first week of the season has been, it could all go away if the team has a poor showing in Georgia then New York. This team seems to have confidence that it did not have last year and I think they’re ready to step up to this challenge.
Probable Starters
Friday, 7:20 PM
Zack Wheeler (0.00 ERA, 10 strikeouts) at Charlie Morton (5.40 ERA, 5 strikeouts)
Saturday, 7:20 PM
Zach Eflin (1.29 ERA, 8 strikeouts) at Ian Anderson (1.80 ERA, 7 strikeouts)
Sunday, 7:08 PM, ESPN
Matt Moore (5.40 ERA, 4 strikeouts) at Drew Smyly (3.00 ERA, 8 strikeouts)
Phillies projected lineup
Andrew McCutchen, LF (109 wRC+)
Rhys Hoskins, 1B (227 wRC+)
Bryce Harper, RF (130 wRC+)
J.T. Realmuto, C (165 wRC+)
Alec Bohm, 3B (78 wRC+)
Didi Gregorius, SS (106 wRC+)
Jean Segura, 2B (35 wRC+)
Adam Haseley, CF (78 wRC+)
Braves projected lineup:
Ronald Acuna, Jr., RF (171 wRC+)
Ozzie Albies, 2B (-35 wRC+)
Freddie Freeman, 1B (50 wRC+)
Marcell Ozuna, LF (4 wRC+)
Travis d’Arnaud, C (60 wRC+)
Dansby Swanson, SS (13 wRC+)
Austin Riley, 3B (34 wRC+)
Christian Pache, CF (4 wRC+)
*wRC+ is a statistic used to compare players’ performances across ballparks, which have different hitting environments. It’s adjusted so that 100 is league average. If you have a wRC+ of 150, you’re performing 50% above league average. If you’re wRC+ is 50, you’re performing 50% below average. To learn more, read FanGraphs glossary entry here.
NL East standings
Playoff odds
PECOTA: 45.5% chance to make playoffs, 22.7% chance to win the division, 86.5-75.5 projected record
FanGraphs: 26.8% chance to make playoffs, 8.8% chance to win division, 89.7-89.3 projected record
Phillies news and links
The Phillies bullpen has been very good this year, with one notable exception: Vince Velasquez. Matt Gelb breaks down the ins and outs of the Phillies’ most over-analyzed pitcher.
What's stuck out in the first cycle through Phillies' starting rotation (NBC Sports Philadelphia)
Few teams go five-deep in the rotation. You’re looking for competence and consistency out of that No. 5 spot in the rotation and this first start qualified as a little more than that. If the Phillies can get 28+ starts and an ERA around 4.00-4.20 from Moore and Anderson, they’ll take it. It would go a long way if they could get closer to 18 outs than 15. Moore did not make it out of the fourth inning of his first start after retiring the first seven hitters he faced.
The thing about Moore and Anderson performing well is that it will give the Phillies options later this summer. It means the Phillies might only need to add one starter at the trade deadline. Maybe they can put more of their chips into the center field basket. A lot of this year hinges on Moore and Anderson just being competent enough to keep the Phillies in games these first few months.
MLB news and highlights
The best story in baseball right now:
It’s worth noting (and Mancini made sure before the game to point this out) that Mancini’s return wasn’t the only big return from illness in that game. Red Sox starting pitcher Eduardo Rodríguez contracted COVID-19 last year and had myocarditis, an enlarged heart. That kept him off the field all of 2020.
Mets walk off vs. Marlins with controversial HBP (ESPN)
This was absolutely disgraceful. The Mets had the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game and a slumping Michael Conforto was at the plate. He worked the count full and then, on a slider from Marlins pitcher Anthony Bass, leaned slightly into the pitch. The umpire initially started to call the strike three, but then ruled Conforto should take first base, ending the game. Replay cannot be used to look at that.
A couple of notable things out of this incident: first, obviously replay needs to be able to correct a call like that, or else why is there replay? The call was wrong on two counts. First, Conforto leaned into the pitch. And second, it would have been a strike if it didn’t hit him.
Second, Mets broadcasters Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez did a great job here. They immediately recognized what happened, and unlike a lot of homer broadcasters, they said what happened was wrong and should be overturned. They’re the best broadcast team in the business and that’s just one of the many reasons why.
Finally, I kind of like Michael Conforto unleashing his inner Ric Flair and going full heel in his postgame comments.
This was a wild game that reinforced everything I hate about the extra-innings rule.
Multiple suspicious baseballs from Dodgers’ Trevor Bauer sent to MLB for inspection (The Athletic)
Here’s the thing about Trevor Bauer: it doesn’t seem like anybody really likes that guy. Especially people in baseball. It shouldn’t be any surprise that Bauer would be targeted by opposing teams after MLB announced it would try to crack down on pitchers using foreign substances to doctor the baseball.
The umpires in Bauer’s start against the Oakland Athletics on Thursday collected multiple balls he threw during the game, according to major-league sources. The balls had visible markings and were sticky, and were sent to the league offices for further inspection, the sources said.
Yet, even if the balls Bauer threw are found to have contained foreign substances, it remains to be seen whether the league can prove he was responsible for their application, or whether any punishment imposed by commissioner Rob Manfred would stand.
Bauer also once publicly went after pitchers who doctored the ball. Then he seemed to join them last year, one of the few great years of his career.
In 2018, Bauer wondered aloud on Twitter about how pitchers might increase their spin rates, making vague reference to the Astros. He then seemed to underscore his point, as Sarris noted, by adding spin rate to his fastball for one inning later that season. In 2020, when Bauer won the National League Cy Young Award in a shortened 60-game season, his four-seam fastball had the highest spin rate of any in baseball, and spin rates on his secondary pitches spiked as well.