Silent Bats

You knew it was coming. You knew the Phillies hot bats, averaging 7.7 runs a game in their first 10 games couldn't last the whole year. The Phillies hot offensive streak had to come to an end, we all knew that. Still it didn't make watching their hot streak come to a crashing halt any easier. It was very difficult to watch the Phillies drop 2 out of 3 to the Marlins, and it was especially difficult to see them score 1 run over 2 games. That's not to say the whole series was bad, on Friday Roy Halladay pitched 8 strong innings and only gave up 2 as the Phillies won 8-6. The Phillies bullpen looked shaky but held on to secure Roy Halladay's 3rd win of the year. On Saturday things started to go down hill. The Phillies sent Moyer to the mound who, as simply as I can put it, blew up in the first giving up 5 runs to the Marlins. The Phillies offense didn't fare much better who were only saved from the embarassment of a shutout by a 2 out home run by Jayson Werth in the 9th. Other than that, the Phillies offense did absolutely nothing and made Ricky Nolasco look like a cy young winner. It was not total disaster for Moyer who pitched 5 scorless innings to follow his nightmare first, but once again Jamie was unable to avoid that one really bad inning and that hurt him. On Sunday the Phillies lost again by a final score of 2-0. The Phillies managed 0 runs, I know it's hard to believe. One positive that can be taken from this game is the magnificent performance of Cole Hamels. Hamels pitched 8 and only gave up 2, a very strong performance and confidence builder for Cole. Hamels must be very confused, he doesnt pitch very strongly in his first 2 starts but gets the win in both, and when he has his best performance he gets the loss, but thats baseball. I expect Cole to build on this start and use it as a spring board for future starts. As for the Phillies offense I really have nothing bad to say. Pretty much this weekend, they sucked. But in a baseball season your offense is going to have its ups and downs. The one critique I have of the Phillies offense is that when one person is cold it seems to affect the whole lineup and everyone goes cold. What the Phillies need todo is coordinate and have only one or two people go cold at a time, not the whole offense. Or the Phillies could stay hot all year, that works too. Never the less, I expect the Phillies offense to rebound strongly and perform strongly against the Braves. I expect a strong performance from Kyle tonight who has a lot to prove, both to his team mates and coaches and to himself. And as for Jayson Heyward, its time to stop with the comparisons to Hank Aaron. Seriously people were still in the first month of the season and this guy is already headed to Cooperstown. Just wait until you face Halladay Jason, then we will see if your ready for Cooperstown.