http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phillies/20120709_Ruiz_to_catch_knuckleballer_Dickey_in_All-Star_Game.html

I’m not gonna go all doom and gloom and say LaRussa is trying to make an arse out of Chooch and I will side with the hes putting his best catcher with his hardest pitcher to catch theory.

Halladay making a rehab. If only he could make start here in the Valley, the Pigs would have gotten the trifecta of rehabing all stars.

I am not sure this team is better than it’s record. It is a record they have truly earned. I think they are undermanned, for one thing, and I have thought so since the beginning (see my previous grumbles about Amaro). How they plug the holes this year escapes me; there just seems to be too many holes.

For another, getting healthy means more than physically being able to plug #26 and #6 into the order. Howard is still not gonna be himself until next year, I don’t think. I would love to be wrong because that would plug the unpluggable hole if he were to be himself in 2012.

Finally, they play terrible baseball. The errors, the bad decisions, the lapses in attention, the casual attitude that beggars the imagination (Pridle’s lackadaisical toss into second yesterday is just the latest example). This is a team effort, top to bottom, in all phases of the game.

If they are going to be better, Doc (health) and Lee (whatever in the heck is wrong with him) have to be Cy Young pitchers in the second half. The team has to play exceptional baseball, not the crap they have been tossing out there for over 3 months. Pence MUST stop channeling Dom Brown in the field and he has to hit 70 points higher with runners in scoring position. And a couple of surgical trades have to be made to plug two of the holes (my choices would be an 8th inning guy and either a 3rd baseman or a left fielder, preferably the latter). If all of that happens, then maybe, just maybe, the 2nd wild card is available.

I ain’t betting my mortgage money on it though.

I truly think two solid arms in the bullpen would help a lot. They’ve played 85 games. In 49 of them, the Game Score for their starting pitcher is better than the Game Score of the other team’s starting pitcher (49-38 for the year). Game Score is a bad stat, but it’s not irrelevant. No matter how much of it was luck, though, at this point the damage is done. Pretty deep hole.

Or just Cloyd up to pitch out of the pen works for me, too. It’s bad that Schwimer has been great and the pen is still terrible.

Still think the Dave Bush thing was a mistake. Cause the rotation was bad and the pen was bad after they gave him away.

Halladay back helps the bullpen. I agree that there’s no move that makes 48-27 or something like it a lock. I think if they don’t add bullpen soon it means they’ve given up.

Again, the rest of the division isn’t very good. That’s something. Not enough, but it’s something.