Comments on: Game two leaves Phils hoping the starting rotation isn’t departing on them quite yet

By: egrissom

egrissom — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:38:35 +0000

He definitely hasn’t had a good start to the series. I agree it will get better from here.

I still am afraid of everyone in the bullpen besides Madson. They were really good last night (if the second-best bullpen in the game). Again, one hit after the second inning would have helped. I agree that Stutes had a little bit of tough luck in game one of the series, but he has been struggling for a while now. Still worried about him, though.

I’m committed not to worrying unless the Cards win another game. Still, would have been nice to have that one last night with the early lead for Lee.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:41:35 +0000

I agree that Polanco isn’t a particularly good player any more (although still better than me), but he is pretty clearly not even as good as he could/should be right now. I didn’t mean to imply that he was an All-Star if healthy, but he’s better than this.

Very glad to see the bullpen pitching the way it has to this point, with the exception of Stutes. Even Stutes seemed to be victimized by a bunch of dinks and dunks just out of the reach of the guys.

I didn’t think that they would win every game this post season, but to lose a game when they are ahead 4-0 with Lee on the mound was not expected either. I’m worried going into St. Louis tomorrow for sure.

By: egrissom

egrissom — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:02:30 +0000

I still think he’s better out there than Valdez. The Polanco-is-hurt thing drives me absolutely nuts. I believe he is hurt. But over his last 1,800 regular season plate appearance he has hit 287/335/377. The last time he on-based .340 or better for a season was 2008. He’s been hurt for three years??! Maybe he has, but whether he has or not I think it’s a big mistake to thinks he’s going to get healthy and start putting up monster numbers any day now.

The Phils aren’t good enough to win it all without an excellent starting rotation. Just two games, but so far they haven’t had one in the playoffs. I still think they will win the series, but the starting pitchers need to pitch great and were notably not great last night.

Really glad to see Lidge have a nice outing last night. I still think not having Herndon could hurt them before it’s over.

The Phils had one hit after the second inning last night. Not really a great time for the bats to snooze, either.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:45:25 +0000

So far, I’m OK with everything except Polanco. He looks lost at the plate right now. I think it is pretty obvious that he is hurt, and hurting the team. I just don’t know who else you would put in there at this point. Is a healthy Valdez better? We’ll probably never know.

Lee should be fine if he gets another chance. Here’s hoping he’s pitching in game 2 of the NLCS.