Spring Training 2013 ends for Phillies, Who's on First?

If the Phillies would have won at least one of their ‘On Deck’ series games at home in Philadelphia it would have made me feel better overall about their Spring Training season. They didn’t win against the Toronto Blue Jays and that again sends signals that this team just isn’t ready to go out there and be the conquering heroes of the NL East.
Looking back at Spring Training now that it is over we see a few players had a good Spring and a few didn’t. Kind of 50/50 almost like the Phillies season record last year, not great but not bad.

Here is a look at the Phillies players on offense and who turned in the best numbers: (not including yesterday's game)

Infielders (2B-SS-3B):

	Pos	Age	G	AB	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA ▾
Frandsen, Kevin NRI	2B	31	24	61	10	17	6	2	10	0	0	1	11	.279
Rollins, Jimmy NRI	SS	34	13	37	8	10	3	0	2	1	1	7	7	.270
Young, Michael NRI	3B	36	26	78	10	21	5	1	16	0	0	5	9	.269
Utley, Chase NRI	2B	34	24	71	11	19	3	5	17	2	0	9	11	.268
Galvis, Freddy NRI	SS	23	30	80	10	21	7	3	11	0	0	2	22	.263
Orr, Pete NRI	2B	34	21	34	5	8	0	2	4	2	0	0	12	.235

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 3/31/2013.

Outfielders:

	Pos	Age	G	AB	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA ▾
Brown, Domonic NRI	RF	25	30	90	24	32	4	7	17	7	16	.356
Revere, Ben NRI	CF	25	27	89	18	29	5	0	7	6	10	.326
Inciarte, Ender NRI	CF	22	27	33	5	9	1	0	1	3	7	.273
Mitchell, Jermaine NRI	LF	28	20	26	6	7	2	0	3	2	10	.269
Ruf, Darin NRI	LF	26	19	57	9	14	6	2	9	3	12	.246
Mayberry, John NRI	1B	29	31	78	6	15	3	2	7	7	16	.192
Gillies, Tyson NRI	CF	24	5	9	0	1	1	0	0	0	5	.111

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/31/2013.

and the Starting pitching staff: (Right handers)

	Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB
Kendrick, Kyle NRI	28	1	3	.250	6.88	5	5	0	17.0	20	14	13	3	3
Halladay, Roy NRI	36	2	1	.667	6.06	6	6	0	16.1	21	11	11	3	9

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/31/2013.

Starting pitching staff: (Left handers)

	Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB
Lannan, John NRI	28	1	2	.333	7.71	6	5	0	21.0	29	18	18	3	5
Lee, Cliff NRI	34	0	1	.000	4.79	6	6	0	20.2	25	16	11	4	4
Hamels, Cole NRI	29	3	0	1.000	0.95	5	5	0	19.0	11	3	2	0	4

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 3/31/2013.

For the 75th anniversary of the Abbott and Costello classic, "Who's on First?" Here are some familiar faces to ask that very question from ESPN:

Zolecki: Doc struggled like no other star caliber pitcher he's seen in Spring

Doc will show us his game stuff soon, are all the naysayers wrong?

MLB's Todd Zolecki use to be the beat writer for the local Philly paper before he went on to cover the Phillies for the MLB a few years ago. He has covered a lot of Spring Training seasons so far. Today in his blog, Todd reported that there is something terribly wrong with Doc Halladay.

Zolecki reports that if Halladay finishes the season with 30-32 starts, expect Halladay's ERA to be higher than it was at the end of 2012, which was 4.49, expect him to be around that same number this year.

Tonight though it's baseball back in town! Game time is 7:05 PM


Starters 

Phils:  Cliff Lee

Blue Jays: Mark Buehrle

Phillies bring Spring Training home to CBP

Cole Hamels talks about being the Opening Day starter vs Braves in Atlanta April 1st


It's the 'On Deck' series, just two more exhibition games until the regular season starts up on April 1st.

It'll be the Toronto Blue Jays vs the Phillies for two games, one tonight at 7:05 PM and one on Saturday afternoon at 1:05 PM, down at Citizens Bank Park in South Philly.

The Phils have turned their Spring record into a winning one, with a 16-15 record so far. The Blue Jays, who have bulked up the team tremendously in the off-season have a 14-17 Spring record.

Welcome back boys! #Phils play exhibition game against Blue Jays at 7:05 tomorrow @ CBP! twitter.com/Phillies/statu…

— Phillies (@Phillies) March 28, 2013

Mitch Williams tells us the biggest concern for the Phillies before the season starts

Mitch Williams has been following the Phillies for years now, what does he think the Phillies need for this season before it even starts?

Watch here in this interview thanks to Comcast Philly Sports.

Citizens Bank Park entering it’s 10th season

It’s hard to believe, but the 2013 season will be the 10th season for the Phillies stadium that opened in 2004. I remember looking over at the new construction site in 2003 from the Veterans Stadium mezzanine where there used to be that massive bowl of a stadium and thinking, “There’s the future of baseball in Philly.”

Think back to the 2003 season when Larry Bowa was the manager of the Phillies, and he managed the Phils to a 86-76 record to bring out the Vet’s glory and for the next year welcome the team into the new stadium. The only starter still on the Phillies is Jimmy Rollins from the 2003 team, and Chase Utley had just been called up for 43 games with the team both players were 24 years old in 2003.

The last 9 full seasons at Citizen’s Bank Park were very good as far as Phillies seasons go. We’ve practically owned the NL East for a long time, and even went to the World Series twice, winning it all in 2008. That doesn't happen all that much, it's been only the second time the Phillies have won the World Series in the history of the franchise, the other coming in 1980.


Citizens Bank, the company, paid $2.3M per season for naming rights for the stadium and signed a 25 year deal starting with the 2004 season and it runs to 2029. One thing that has remained consistent with the Phillies home is that it hasn’t changed names like so many other venues have when the group that bought the naming rights for a stadium had merged or been acquired in other means.


Just how good have the Phillies been since moving to CBP? Let’s look at the Phils record of the past nine seasons:

Rk	Year	Tm	Lg	W	L	W-L%	Finish	Playoffs
1	2012	Philadelphia Phillies	NL East	81	81	.500	3rd of 5
2	2011	Philadelphia Phillies	NL East	102	60	.630	1st of 5	Lost LDS (3-2)
3	2010	Philadelphia Phillies	NL East	97	65	.599	1st of 5	Lost NLCS (4-2)
4	2009	Philadelphia Phillies	NL East	93	69	.574	1st of 5	Lost WS (4-2)
5	2008	Philadelphia Phillies	NL East	92	70	.568	1st of 5	Won WS (4-1)
6	2007	Philadelphia Phillies	NL East	89	73	.549	1st of 5	Lost LDS (3-0)
7	2006	Philadelphia Phillies	NL East	85	77	.525	2nd of 5
8	2005	Philadelphia Phillies	NL East	88	74	.543	2nd of 5
9	2004	Philadelphia Phillies	NL East	86	76	.531	2nd of 5

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/27/2013.

Sending Ruf back to minors just plain dumb

Ruf should have made this Phillies team out of Spring Training

The Phillies haven't been making all that great of moves lately and perhaps that lack of insight is showing in the ballclub. One of the most exciting players to come out of the Philllies minors should have been travelling with this team to Atlanta to open the season with this team, but somehow the most obvious decision was reversed.

That player that should have opened the season with the team of course would be Darin Ruf. Ruf proved to the Phillies that he was more than ready to play baseball in the big leagues but somehow the easiest decision that should have been made by the Phillies brass was flubbed.

Here is a player that has blazed a trail and set it on fire, he only broke Ryan Howard's minor league home run record last year, earned the nickname 'Babe Ruf', and then turned around and went into winter ball just a few months ago and smacked a whole bunch of home runs to prove his is no fluke.

How about 2 game ending walk-off home runs in the past week or so down in Florida that Ruf hit to give the Phillies 2 wins? You think this guy can play some baseball? What more does a player have to do in the Phillies farm system?

You have to believe that the Phillies are trying to 'do the right thing' by Ruf with sending him down to the minors but there is just no real justification in it, it's just plain dumb. The reason was so he can play more outfield, hell, he could do that right down at Citizen's Bank Park, and it wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to this team in the past year or two.

The way this team has mismanaged it's younger players is pretty poor, imagine the Phillies with a guy like Mike Trout in their system, he wouldn't the the light of day in the majors until he was nearing 30 years old.

#PhilliesTalk Podcast: Our 2013 MLB Picks Show

It's one of the shows that I look forward to doing every year, our MLB Picks show for 2013 is ready and maybe you'll be surprised by a couple of the teams that we think will do well.

Join Rich and co-host Jim for a show that we've been producing here on the internet for the 7th season, Phillies Talk.

The show can be heard right here at FightinPhillies.com and also, it is on iTunes, TuneIn.com, Stitcher Radio, as well as Android podcasts.

It is also my pleasure in announcing a new 24/7 internet radio station for BaseballPodcasts.net, a site that houses a lot of great baseball shows that you can listen to all the time here at the radio page, http://radio.baseballpodcasts.net 

The 24/7 stream is also on WinAmp, in the Shoutcast online radio stations, just search for baseball and you'll find the station.

Victorino's hit sinks Phils vs Red Sox

I don't think I like Shane Victorino as much as I did before he slammed a 3 run bases loaded triple against Michael Stutes, (is there any middle relief on the Phillies), and it contributed to a 6-1 Phils loss last night vs. the Red Sox.


Here's a video on the signing of Shane Victorino in case you missed it from back in December.


BTW, Shane hasn't been doing all that well in Spring Training this year, you wouldn't know it by last night's performance but here is his numbers so far on the Spring Training 2013 season:

Year	Tm	Age	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA
2013	BOS	32	8	26	21	4	3	1	1	0	0	1	0	4	6	.143

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/22/2013.