Whack Stats

Fair warning: this one is for the stat nerds!

After counting all the major league games I went to over the years, I decided to go deeper. When you attend multiple games over a relatively short span, you see the same players several times. I wondered how well those players did in those games. Most of them did as well as one might expect over a much larger sample size, but the randomness of only a few dozen at-bats bore some quirky, funny results as well. Case in point: Wes Chamberlain.

Chamberlain was a minor, but important piece of those Philly teams of the early 90s. He was a backup right fielder who was mainly put in the starting lineup against left-handed pitchers, though he always tended to put on a show when I turned up at the ballpark. Of 18 at-bats I saw, Chamberlain batted a prodigious .500 with three home runs and 10 RBI. Of course, this data is skewed because my dad and I happened to be there for the best game of Chamberlain’s career. On July 31, 1991, he went 4-for-4 with two three-run homers, which I talked about in my book. He’s just one of two players I’ve seen homer twice in a game (Chris Davis being the other). Younger fans won’t even know who Chamberlain is, but he made sure I’d never forget him.

I’ve seen the 2008-era Phillies more than any other incarnation of the team, which isn’t surprising. The leaders of the pack here are Chase Utley (57 AB) and Shane Victorino (43 AB), who each hit above .300 and swatted a pair of home runs. Victorino was also the only other player besides Chamberlain to reach double-digit RBI with 10. I’ve got to give the “feast or famine” prize to Raul Ibanez. He had just five hits in 25 at-bats, but three of them were for extra bases, and he drove in nine runs. The biggest of those hits was a grand slam in the division-clinching game in 2011 that I was lucky enough to see with my friend, Bill P., the biggest Phillies fan I know.

At the other end of the spectrum, the “worst player” award goes to Phillies former third baseman Maikel Franco. He hit just .111 (5-for-45), with his one saving grace being a grand slam that Dad and I saw in 2015.

As for pitching, there’s a lot less data, as starters only pitch every fifth day. The top prize here undoubtedly goes to the late Roy Halladay. I saw Doc pitch three masterful games, all in 2011. He won all three, posting an ERA of 1.88. He struck out 22 in 24 innings and walked just three batters. Halladay sadly passed away three years ago, but man, did he ever leave his mark in both Toronto and Philadelphia.

Cole Hamels is the only pitcher I’ve seen more than three times, and he is an easy runner-up to Doc, going 2-1 with a 3.12 ERA. He struck out 28 in 26 innings and walked nine. He is now the only player from that 2008 championship team still playing in the big leagues, and I hope he pitches his way right into the Hall of Fame.

After looking at all of the numbers, I decided to make a Top Performers team. I swear I picked them at random, but when I was finished, I realized I had exactly 10 players. With some minor adjustments, I was actually able to make a full starting lineup! You’ll note the inclusion of three Orioles players of whom I saw a fair amount from 2012-2015:

Now just a few random thoughts about games I’ve attended over the years:

- I never saw home runs by Darren Daulton, Dave Hollins, John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, Scott Rolen, Bobby Abreu, Pat Burrell or Jimmy Rollins.

- I never saw Randy Wolf, Jamie Moyer or Brett Myers pitch.

- I’ve never seen the Phillies score 10 or more runs at a game. They’ve scored 9 four times.

- The only time I’ve seen ANY teams score in double digits at a game was a Phillies 13-2 loss to the Blue Jays in 2016 and an 11-3 win by the Orioles over the Yankees in 2013. Considering how much I hate the Yankees, that was one of the sweetest games I’ve ever attended. On two other occasions, I left the game before the 10th run was scored.

- The only walk-off home run I’ve seen at a game was by Freddy Galvis against Aroldis Chapman in 2013.

- Most combined runs at a game: 16 (a 9-7 Phillies home-opening win over the Mets in 2000).

For those non-baseball fans reading this blog, the next few posts will be more to your liking. They're filled with funny and interesting memories of mine. They will obviously still be baseball-focused, but less numbers. :-)

April 30, 2011: Phillies vs. New York Mets

In 2011, I became more of an involved Phillies fan than ever before.

I wrote about them on an almost-daily basis for a startup sports website that unfortunately never got off the ground. Colleen received a major promotion at work that allowed me the financial freedom to attend six Phillies games that season, including trips to Pittsburgh and Washington (my first time ever seeing them on the road).

By now, I had a small group of people on my Phillies game invite list, but I still planned a game with my dad before anyone else.

I entered Citizens Bank Park that Saturday afternoon with more confidence about a Phillies win than at any previous game since 1993, and for once, I wasn’t looking for a Phillies blowout. The reason? His name was Roy “Doc” Halladay.

The Phillies struck fear in the hearts and minds of every other batting lineup in the National League prior to the season when they magically brought back Cliff Lee after losing him in 2009 – second sweetest Christmas gift ever behind the signed Cal Ripken ball Colleen gave me. The deck was now stacked in the Phillies’ favor with a rotation that included Lee, Halladay, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt.

But Halladay was an ace among aces. Not only did he run away with the Cy Young Award in 2010, his first year with Philadelphia, he tossed a perfect game in May and threw just the second postseason no-hitter in major league history that October against the Cincinnati Reds. He displayed a full arsenal of pitches that he could throw with absolute precision in any count. I had never seen a pitcher who looked in complete control every time he toed the rubber. Halladay was one of those rare hurlers who became even more unhittable with runners on base.

The New York Mets lineup looked befuddled against Doc over the first three innings. He retired nine of the first 10 men he faced on just 23 pitches, 21 of which were strikes. The Mets got to Halladay in the fourth, leading off with three straight singles to take a 1-0 lead, but he stopped the bleeding there. He bounced back quickly, collecting five of his eight strikeouts in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.

The Philly offense finally rewarded Halladay’s strong outing in the bottom of the seventh with a pair of runs. Home plate became a harder destination to reach for the Phillies by 2011 – 4.4 runs per game, compared with 5.1 in 2009 – but scoring wasn’t as pressing of an issue when their starters were going seven or eight innings every night.

Even guys like Halladay tire toward the end of a game, and Doc made things interesting in the ninth before tying down the 2-1 victory. He threw six straight balls to start the inning, and Carlos Beltran nearly took him deep on a fly ball for the first out. After Halladay struck Jason Bay out, the game ended on an unlikely flash of the leather by well-below-average first baseman Ryan Howard. He made a diving stop on a sizzling ground ball by Ike Davis, and then flipped to his pitcher for the 27^th out. Similar to 1993, it seemed like no matter how they got it done, the Phillies were going to win.

It was Halladay’s second complete game of the young season, and he also owned five of the team’s 18 wins in April. My dad and I agreed Halladay’s gem was one of the best games we had ever seen together.

Prior to 2011, my dad and I were convinced we were bad luck for the Phillies. Of the nine games we went to between 1994 and 2010, our boys had won just three of them, and one of those was with backup players. The Phillies lost the three additional games I went to with friends over the same period.

Now that the Phightins boasted one of the best pitching rotations in baseball history, my luck suddenly changed. They won all six games that I saw from the stands in 2011, and three of those wins were the team’s only victory in that particular series. The icing on the cake came in September at Citizens Bank Park. I was there with my friend, Bill Paulino*, to witness the Phillies clinch their fifth straight NL East title. They would go on to post the best regular-season record (102-60) in team history.

That magical rotation made it all possible. Halladay, Lee and Hamels all finished in the top 6 in Cy Young voting after the season. More importantly, they helped me truly discover the beautiful art of pitching and to appreciate the 2-1 pitchers duels like my dad.

 

*Bill and I became friends through our love of the Phillies. How we met was stuff of legends. It was May 29, 2010, and we were gathered with mutual friends at a sports bar in New Castle, Delaware. We were there to watch the Philadelphia Flyers play in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals, but we wound up watching Halladay throw a perfect game against the Florida Marlins.

Manuel, Phillies ready to lift lid on season

The burning anticipation hung like a thick fog over the entire Diamond Club at Citizens Bank Park.

It was just 24 hours until the first pitch of Opening Day for the Philadelphia Phillies, but the team's television broadcasters and manager Charlie Manuel all said the same thing.

"We were ready two weeks ago."

A special event was held at the stadium's exclusive club for all the radio stations that broadcast Phillies games, including Gettysburg's own Fox Sports 1320, of which I was an honorary employee for two hours.

After a filling lunch of Italian hoagies, cheesesteaks and Tastycakes, the group was treated to a Q & A session, first with GM Ruben Amaro, Jr., and then Manuel and pitching coach Rich Dubee. These unique media members were the last who got to grill Amaro and Manuel about all the issues facing the team before the start of the regular season.

Amaro was his usual cryptic self, speaking in generalizations about the state of the team, and he looked quite flustered by the last few questions/comments from the crowd. One suggested that maybe Jimmy Rollins would stop swinging at the first pitch with the wise hitting presence of Jim Thome in the dugout. Amaro quickly snapped back, "You're not upset when Jimmy gets a hit on the first pitch."

Perhaps to distract us from the ongoing negotiations to sign Cole Hamels long-term and the unknown timetables for the return of Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, Amaro went in depth about the disgusting nature of Howard's recent infection around his surgically repaired Achilles tendon.

God knows why the GM would have his hands anywhere near the injured foot of one of his players, but the event's MC, Phillies play-by-play radio broadcaster Scott Franzke, made light of the situation by asking the audience, "Everyone ready for lunch?"

The mood was more relaxed when Dubee and Manuel took the stage, but even Manuel seemed a bit testy about the questions he's also been asked for the past six weeks.

Fans and reporters do have a valid cause for concern, especially considering we've all grown accustomed to the Phillies winning the NL East every year.

If you want to point the finger at what could snap that five-year streak, look no further than the offense. Lack of hitting has been the culprit for most of the Phillies' losses over the past two years, and the absence of more trophies on the shelf next to 2008. The only offensive additions the team made in the offseason were to its bench, so as a hitters' manager, Manuel will continue to field some tough questions as the season gets going.

Howard and Utley will be mere shadows of themselves after they return - I would say May for Utley and July for Howard - and a third of Philly's games will come against Atlanta and the much-improved clubs in Miami and Washington (Manuel's money is still on the Braves as their toughest competition in the division). The Phillies will still make the playoffs, but if they want the high seed a division title brings, Rollins will have to stay healthy the whole year, Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence will both have to hit above .300 and John Mayberry, Jr. will need to have a breakout year with 25-30 home runs.

Amidst all the negative predictions, Amaro and Manuel were positively gushing about Joe Savery, who was the 12th and final pitcher to be named to the Phillies' Opening Day roster. The team's first-round draft pick in 2007, Savery converted to hitting last year after serious control problems, but he magically rediscovered his hurling talents and made the team after a solid Spring Training (1-1, 3.48 ERA). With Jose Contreras opening the season on the Disabled List, Savery will get to prove himself out of the Phillies bullpen.

Pitching is the area that the Phightins' aren't worried about, so much so that color announcer Gary "Sarge" Matthews claimed during a Spring Training broadcast that he could take over for Dubee. His fellow broadcasters let the audience know that they will never let him live that one down.

With fiery closer Jonathan Papelbon now putting the finishing touches on the masterpieces of the three aces, we can excuse Sarge's impertinence. We've gotten used to it over the past five years.

I was selected to ask Manuel one final question before he and the rest of the team left for Pittsburgh, and I decided to go easy on him. I wanted to know which pitcher gets the most upset at him when he walks to the mound to take them out.

"I'd say Halladay, (Cliff) Lee and Vance Worley," he replied.

Phillies radio color man and former pitcher Larry Andersen immediately followed by asking Manuel in jest if he ever got scared taking Halladay - who will start Game 1 against the Pirates this afternoon - out of a game in the ninth inning.

Charlie gave the slightest of smiles and said, "If I ever got scared, I'd turn around, go into my office, take off my uniform and go home. You can't ever be scared to do that."

That answer reminded us all why Manuel is the winningest manager in Phillies history, and with him at the helm, there's no reason to look upon the 2012 season with anything but excitement.

Don't be surprised

Here I come again with my negative anxiety, so let me just be clear that the Phillies, their monster starting rotation and a pocket full of Pence should take care of the Cardinals in the Division Series, in three or four games.

Now that the should is out of the way, I simply want this post to be a reality check for all those fans who saw their team cruise through a 102-win season, and expect to see that parade through Center City. It's now October and a sample size of 42 years (since MLB did away with a single division in each league) tells us that every team that reaches the postseason has an equal chance of winning it all.

For the Phillies, the opening round might present a bigger challenge than any possible matchups further in. The Cardinals are a scary bunch.

Their offense produced better than any in the National League and got the best of Philly pitching more than once. St. Louis' 6-3 advantage in the regular-season series is also a cause for concern.

But what scares me most of all? The Phillies absolutely cannot hit Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia, the projected starters for Games 2 and 3.

Since last season, the pair of hurlers have combined for 5-0 record and an unbelievable ERA of 0.88 in eight starts against the Phils. There wasn't a single poor or even mediocre outing in that stretch. I'm sorry to say that's the reason I was kind of hoping the Braves would win on Wednesday. We've proven on more than one occasion that we can beat Atlanta, in both blowouts and squeakers.

Cardinal manager Tony LaRussa must have also seen the numbers, explaining why he set up his rotation the way he did. However, it could work out in Philadelphia's favor.

Carpenter will pitch on Sunday on just three day's rest. I don't have any stats on his effectiveness in that situation because he's never done it before in his major league career. It's quite a gamble, but it's the smart move for the Cardinals. My guess is, an unflappable veteran like Carpenter will still throw his game.

If that's the case, the Phillies absolutely need to win Game 1 tonight. You know Doc will deliver his best, and though Kyle Lohse has enjoyed a solid year, he doesn't silence the Philly bats like Carpenter and Garcia. Losing to one of them won't be so bad if the Phillies are already up a game.

Then again, our guys could sweep, or they could get swept. That's the randomness of the playoffs. As always, I go in cautiously optimistic, and I can't wait for another awesome year of October baseball.

Lee makes it three

There’s been a lot of World Series talk over the last few days, and Cliff Lee’s presence on the Phillies has been a big reason for those conversations.

Lee entered Tuesday’s series opener against the Boston Red Sox riding back-to-back shutouts and a 23-inning scoreless streak. He proved just how in the zone he is right now, as the most dangerous offense in baseball couldn’t break through.

Lee didn’t allow a hit through the first five innings, and he threw his third consecutive shutout – something a Phillies pitcher hasn’t done in 61 years. He also continued his impressive showing at the plate, driving in one of Philadelphia’s runs in its 5-0 victory.

It’s hard to imagine any pitcher enjoying a better month. Lee went 5-0 in June, allowing just one run in 42 innings. Like Charlie Manuel always boasts about the Phillies’ offense, Lee seems to be catching fire with the warmer weather. July is an ever hotter month, so Lee could carry on this brilliant run for a while.

If the left-hander records another four outs without allowing a run in his next start, he’ll move into second place on the Phillies’ all-time scoreless innings list behind Grover Cleveland Alexander, who set the bar quite high at 41 2/3 innings 100 years ago.

It’s incredible to think of just how remarkable this run for Lee is. All it takes is a single with a runner at second or a solo home run to break the streak, and he hasn’t allowed hitters to get that far. The best pitchers in the game will often allow a solo shot in an otherwise stellar outing, but over Lee’s last three outings, not a single batter has made solid enough contact.

At this point, it’s perfectly fine if the scoreless streak ends during his next start, which he’ll likely make on Sunday against the Blue Jays. It’s possible Jose Bautista could yank a mistake into the seats (hopefully with no one on base) like he has all season long. It still would not take away from what Lee has done over the past month. He’s a big part of the Phillies’ winning machine that continues to run smoothly, despite a shaky offense and depleted bullpen.

For the second time this season, Roy Halladay and Lee have tossed back-to-back complete games, and they (as well as an off-day) could not have come at a better time. Ryan Madson was just placed on the DL, the third Phillies closer to be shut down this year. The aces in the starting rotation keep on showing why such a hit won’t affect Philadelphia as much as other teams.

And with the Phillies reaching 50 wins before anyone else and before the halfway point of the season, the starters may even help them get to 100 – the World Series included in that figure, of course.

Well deserved

Much like his stature, Roy Halladay's performance on the mound in 2010 was heads and shoulders above his peers. It stood out to the point that the announcement of his selection as this year's National League Cy Young Award recipient on Tuesday seemed more like a formality than a surprise.

Honestly, if this vote went any other way, I would have been shocked. Throughout the postseason I even heard broadcasters saying repeatedly he was the likely winner.

For those few still scratching their heads, Doc led the league in these categories: wins (21), innings pitched (250 2/3), complete games (9), shutouts (4), walks per nine innings (1.1) and strikeout/walk ratio (7.88). He also posted career bests in ERA (2.44) and strikeouts (219).

It's hard to believe Halladay's perfect game at the end of May became somewhat overshadowed by several similar achievements from other hurlers, but in the so-called Year of the Pitcher, he was still the best. In fact, he became the first pitcher in 87 years to walk just 30 batters in 250 or more innings of work.

The BBWAA proved the prognosticators right, giving Halladay all 32 first-place votes for his second Cy Young. Though such a landslide was not unprecedented, the choice hasn't felt this crystal clear since the heyday of Pedro Martinez.

You can't just leave this decision to numbers, though. Halladay provided the Phillies with more intangible support. Before this season, the team built its success around its high-powered offense, but in 2010, pitching maintained the pulse. Halladay was the leader of a pitching staff that carried the Phillies through the middle two months of the season when the offense endured its longest lull in years. When nothing was going right, it was up to the veteran to ascend that hill and pitch his heart out for those 1-0 and 2-1 victories.

And this guy thrived off pressure. Consider that his overall opponents' batting average during the season was .245, but with runners in scoring position, that dropped to .173. With a guy pitching around the plate as much as Halladay does, hits are going to happen, but once guys get on base, they'll likely run back to the dugout from that same base when the inning ends. Other pitchers, even some of Halladay's closest Cy Young competition, tend to lose focus when they allow a few baserunners, but he amazingly becomes even more locked in. That's not something you can teach.

Halladay is humble almost to a fault, and he would've gladly traded in this great honor for a World Series title. While that should be the most important goal of any player in the game, Halladay may not have realized that if he didn't give the Phillies this incredible season, they probably wouldn't have made the playoffs.