Three games since the last post, highlighted by a mysterious exit from Halladay in Sunday’s game.
Yesterday the Phillies beat Baltimore 5-3. Galvis hit a two-run homer and Brown had two more hits, but the big news was that Halladay left the game after one long inning with a stomach virus.
Galvis hit his homer in the fifth off of righty Jason Hammel. 1-for-4 on the game with two strikeouts. He’s hitting 278/304/537 on the spring with a team-high 17 strikeouts in 57 plate appearances. Galvis just doesn’t strike out that much. Or at least he hasn’t over his career to this point. 29.8% of PA this spring, abut 14.5% of his PA in the majors and about 14.1% of his minor league PA. Of course, he doesn’t usually slug .537 either.
Michael Young was 2-for-3 with a double, upping his line to 294/333/412. .294 is .294, but that’s kind of a soft .294. Galvis’s isolated power of .259 is more than twice Young’s .118, for example.
Brown 2-for-4 with two singles. 375/453/625.
Utley 1-for-4. He’s hitting 200/347/325, which puts his isolated power of .125 in Young’s range.
Howard 1-for-4. 308/333/615. 13 strikeouts in 57 plate appearances is 22.8%. 27.8% for his career and 33.9% in 2012.
Inciarte appeared in the game without getting an at-bat. He’s hitting 263/391/316 in 19 at-bats. Mitchell was 0-for-1 and is at 438/500/938 in 16 at-bats.
Halladay was the big story of the game. He allowed a walk and a two-out single in the top of the first before getting Taylor Teagarden to fly to left to leave the runners stranded. It took him 25 pitches to get through the inning. He then left with a stomach virus and is still sick this morning.
The scoreless frame drops his spring ERA to 6.75 after five starts and 12 innings. He has a 1.67 ratio — opponents have hit .277 against him and he’s walked seven in 12 innings. Roy Halladay doesn’t walk seven in 12 innings when he’s pitching well. You can look it up.
Miner took over for Halladay after Halladay left and allowed a run on four hits and a walk over two innings. Miner has a 9.00 ERA and a 2.00 ratio in ten innings this spring. Opponents have hit .348 against him.
Horst threw two scoreless frames in the game in which he allowed one singles and struck out two. ERA drops to 6.97 and ratio to 1.35. Four home runs in 10 1/3 innings is the big problem, but the home run pace against him has slowed considerably.
Aumont pitched the sixth. He walked the first two batters he faced, then struck out the next two and got a ground ball to short to keep Baltimore off the board. Drops his ERA to 2.25 and his ratio to 1.00 in four official innings. Walks are the problem, though, and you want to avoid walking the first two guys you face in the inning whenever possible.
Jordan Whatcott, Colby Shreve and Ryan O’ Sullivan all pitched an inning for the Phils in the game as well.
Saturday the Phils beat the Yankees 7-0 behind great pitching and a monster day by Brown.
Valdes started the game and went three innings. Durbin also tossed three scoreless frames in the game. Adams, Stutes and Diekman all pitched a scoreless inning.
Brown made two diving catches in left field and hit a three-run homer off of Hiroki Kuroda. Betancourt was 3-for-4 with a double. Jermaine Mitchell was 2-for-4 with a double and a triple. Revere and Michael Young both went 0-for-4.
On Friday the Phillies lost 3-1 to the Rays.
Lannan started the game for the Phillies and was fantastic, throwing five scoreless frames to drop his spring ERA to 3.21. Horst and Bastardo both threw scoreless innings in the game and De Fratus allowed a run in two innings. Stephen Vogt hit a two-run walkoff homer off of Jay Johnson with two outs in the bottom of the tenth to get the Rays the win.
The Phillies had four hits in the game, singles by Revere, Ruiz, Brown and Frandsen.
The Phils sent Diekman and De Fratus to Triple-A and reassigned Josh Fields and Cesar Jimenez to minor league camp. That makes it less likely De Fratus will start the year in the pen.
Aaron Cook is expected to start this afternoon’s game against Atlanta.


March 18th, 2013 on 12:44 pm
Giving the benefit of the doubt, let’s say Roy is really sick and whatever is going on is not a cover story for his back blowing up again. No reason to think it is.
It’s this nagging sense that he is finished, that even his great pride and commitment cannot overcome the loss of his physical ability.
You’re right. Roy Halliday does not walk seven in 12. I looked it up. At least, he didn’t used to.
March 18th, 2013 on 12:47 pm
On the other hand, Utley, Howard, Revere, Young, and Brown are looking a whole lot better than most expected. And the pen looks good. That’s a fair amount of good news.
I’d like to see Cliff Lee’s next start be a whole lot stronger. That would be good news too.
March 18th, 2013 on 1:51 pm
I don’t feel like Utley has been that great. Healthy is good, but I don’t think he’s played real well. Healthy is still good, though.
Halladay is really the guy I would most like to see turn it around before the season starts. Not feeling real sure that’s going to happen, though. I’m with you on the nagging feeling. But let’s hope for the best.
I think Lee is going to be fine. Let’s hope so at least.
March 18th, 2013 on 9:53 pm
Cliff looked good today. And was it 80 pitches? Is good.
Brown. Once more with feeling. Kind of hard to see him not awarded left field. Or right. One or the other.
Doc still sick, apparently. Pap needed an IV hookup.
March 19th, 2013 on 9:29 am
You know who didn’t look good yesterday? Pretty much everyone playing in the game against the Braves (possible exceptions — Brown and Betancourt).
That was one ugly game.
I agree the Lee outing was encouraging. If Halladay and Papelbon are going to be sick, better now than a month from now.