The starters may have been fantastic at preventing walks for the Phils in 2011, but the relievers were a different story. The bullpen walked a whole lot of folks last year.
For each of the NL teams, here’s the percentage of batters faced by relievers that walked in 2011:
| Team | Batters Faced | Walks | % BB |
| COL MIL STL ARI NYM PIT FLA ATL WSN HOU SFG LAD SDP PHI CHC CIN TOT |
2133 1888 1969 1888 2101 2298 2167 2177 2193 2094 1958 1878 2031 1751 2164 2120 32810 |
149 139 170 166 199 220 208 209 211 205 197 193 210 183 227 227 3113 |
7.0% 7.4% 8.6% 8.8% 9.5% 9.6% 9.6% 9.6% 9.6% 9.8% 10.1% 10.3% 10.3% 10.5% 10.5% 10.7% 9.5% |
By percentage of batters faced that were walked, the Phillies relievers were 14th in the NL in 2011.
Phillie starters faced the most batters in the NL by a wide margin in 2011, so it makes sense that the relievers faced the fewest. The Dodgers were the team that faced the second-fewest and they faced 127 more. Despite facing the fewest number of hitters, by a lot, there were four NL teams that walked fewer batters overall than the Phillie relievers did.
Here are the numbers by innings pitched rather than batters faced:
| Team | IP | Walks | BB/9 |
| COL MIL STL ARI ATL FLA WSN PIT SFG NYM SDP HOU LAD PHI CHC CIN TOT |
508 2/3 449 2/3 463 439 1/3 522 1/3 5151/3 520 2/3 526 470 1/3 474 483 2/3 471 439 412 1/3 502 2/3 499 7697 |
149 139 170 166 209 208 211 220 197 199 210 205 193 183 227 227 3113 |
2.64 2.78 3.30 3.40 3.60 3.63 3.65 3.76 3.77 3.78 3.91 3.92 3.96 3.99 4.06 4.09 3.64 |
The Phils were 14th in the NL in walks per nine innings pitched per relievers. Again, this underscores the amazing job the starters did at preventing walks given that overall the team walked fewer total batters than any NL team had since 1995.
The Phils played the Pirates yesterday, winning 5-4 when Lou Montanez hit a walkoff homer off of Michael Dubee in the bottom of the tenth to improve to 3-3.
Cole Hamels got the start for the Phils and was fantastic. He went 3 2/3 scoreless innings before allowing back-to-back singles. He should have been out of the inning, but the next batter, Nate McLouth, reached on an error by Wiggington at second to keep the inning alive. Bush followed Hamels and went 1 1/3 scoreless innings before running into trouble in the sixth. In the sixth, the Pirates scored three runs charged to Bush on three singles and a double, puffing Bush’s Spring Training ERA to 8.31. Bastardo, Aumont and Schwimer all threw scoreless frames for the Phils. Lefty David Purcey went in an inning as well and allowed a run on a solo homer by Starling Marte.
Wigginton started at second and made an error, but went 1-for-1 with an RBI-double and two walks. Pence was 2-for-3. Victorino went 1-for-3 with a two-run homer. Still no hits for Nix, who’s now 0-for-11 after an 0-for-2 with two walks. Montanez won it in the tenth — he’s 3-for-6 so far with two doubles and a home run. He has four RBI — Hector Luna still leads the team with five.
Wigginton has seen a lot of time at second over his career. He didn’t play there in 2011, but he started 35 games at second for the Orioles in 2010 with an UZR/150 of -14.3.
The Phillies play Detroit this afternoon.
Domonic Brown has a sprained right thumb. The linked article suggests he will sit for at least a few more days.
This says that Contreras will throw batting practice today, but is not scheduled for any game action in the next week. It also says that Dontrelle Willis has a sore left forearm and will rest a couple of days.
March 9th, 2012 on 12:28 pm
Wow. You mean that Amaro really DID need to improve the pen? The starters were amazing by any measure. I bet the Phllies would like a few less walks from this year’s bullpen, huh.
I bet they’d like to get Hamels signed too.
March 9th, 2012 on 1:03 pm
I definitely worry about the bullpen this year. They were pretty much middle-of-the-pack last year, but there wasn’t a whole lot of spotlight on them since they didn’t have to pitch very much.
It seems unlikely to me that Papelbon is going to be better in 2012 than Madson was in 2011. Stutes, Herndon and Bastardo were the other three guys in the pen who threw a lot of innings in 2011. All three of them see like good candidates to be worse in 2012 than they were in 2011. Chad Qualls is nice to have, but I worry he might have a lot of ground to make up for. Willis hasn’t panned out well so far, but I guess we should give him more than two Spring Training outings before we declare that a bust.
The guys in the minors might be able to help in the pen this year. Let’s hope so at least.
March 9th, 2012 on 8:55 pm
The Papelbon over Madsen move is still a little curious, isn’t it, given some other needs. It isn’t a bad move, just a little curious in the grand scheme of things.
March 10th, 2012 on 9:38 am
BTW, I’m kind of wondering if we should be seeing anything more than being cautious in the fact that #26 has not yet made an appearance.
March 12th, 2012 on 1:53 pm
I sure would feel a lot better if we start to see Utley 1) play and 2) play well with regularity soon. One thing the 2011 Phillies demonstrated for sure was that they don’t have much hope at replacing his production when he misses significant time.
March 12th, 2012 on 2:40 pm
Looks like they are trying to see if they can use the guy blocked behind Rollins at second. (Galvis, is it?)
March 12th, 2012 on 3:11 pm
Yeah, Galvis it is. Seeing as how he has never played an inning at second base professionally prior to the past few days, I don’t know how well that will work. We shall see.
No matter what, the Chase Utley of 2009 is long gone. I think if he has an OPS in the 780 range that would be good from now on.
March 12th, 2012 on 5:06 pm
I think it’s really important that Utley get on the field, though, just cause the other choices are really, really bad. Assuming the Phils roll again this year, being healthy for the playoffs is the most important thing.
I still think I’d devote the time Galvis has to learning to do new things to hitting rather than playing another position. Hopefully he has time to do both.
Worley was rather impressive this afternoon.
March 12th, 2012 on 7:06 pm
I have a hunch that Galvis will be pretty motivated to make time do both hitting and learning a new position in the infield. He has to know that, barring injury to Rollins, there is no place for him at the major league level at short.
We sure could use a good infielder who could play either third or second. Especially if he can HIT.
Wistfully, I have to agree that Greg’s take on chase is probably right on. It’s sad, isn’t it. What once looked like a Hall of Fame career has been diminished. Really sad.
March 12th, 2012 on 8:26 pm
Was nice to see Brown’s triple, though. Really nice.