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Everything was a little upside down last night in Houston. Former Astro Roy Oswalt pitched for the Phillies with former Astro Hunter Pence playing right field. Former Phil Brett Myers started for the Astros. Joe Blanton pitched in relief.

Oh, and the Phils looked awful. And lost. 5-1. They didn’t do much of anything with Myers, who dropped his ERA on the year to 4.52 by holding them to a run over eight innings. The Phils weren’t charged with an error in the game, but looked pretty bad in the field. During one three-batter stretch in the fourth, the Phils had a ball go off of Ibanez’s glove in left for a hit, Jimmy Rollins and Pete Orr knocked each other down trying to field a ground ball behind second and Oswalt couldn’t handle a relay from second on a would-be double-play. Again, no errors, but you want to make some of those plays if you’re only going to score one run.

Oswalt again didn’t pitch well for the Phils. In his last five starts he’s had two really good outings, but the other three times out he’s allowed 14 runs in 19 innings. Since the end of May, Oswalt has made 13 appearances with the Phils (12 starts) in which he has thrown to a 4.66 ERA and opponents have hit .314 against him.

The Phillies are 94-50 on the year after falling 5-1 to the Houston Astros last night. The Phils have lost two in a row, but won six of their last eight. Their magic number to clinch a playoff spot is one. They lead the NL East by 12 games over the second-place Braves. The Braves have 14 games left to play and lead the Cardinals by 4 1/2 games in the Wild Card hunt.

Oswalt got the start for the Phillies and went seven innings, allowing five runs on 11 hits and two walks. Three of the hits went for extra-bases, two doubles and a home run. He struck out five.

He set the Astros down in order in the bottom of the first, getting Jordan Schafer on a fly ball to left, Angel Sanchez on a fly ball to center and striking JD Martinez out swinging.

Carlos Lee singled to left to start the second with the Phils up 1-0, but Oswalt got Brian Bogusevic to ground into a double-play behind him. Jimmy Paredes popped to Rollins for the third out.

Oswalt got Jose Altuve on a fly ball to center for the first out of the third. Humberto Quintero grounded to short for the second before pitcher Brett Myers singled to right. Schafer followed that with a walk, but Oswalt got Sanchez on a fly ball to right to leave both runners stranded.

Martinez doubled to right to start the fourth. Lee grounded to third for the first out with Martinez holding second. Bogusevic was next and he hit a ball to left that went off of Ibanez’s glove for a single that moved Martinez up to third. With men on first and third, Paredes hit a ground ball up the middle that Rollins and Orr both tried to field at the same time just to the right of second base. They ran into each other and both fell to the ground. Paredes was safe with a single, Martinez scored to tie the game at 1-1 and Bogusevic took second. Altuve was next and hit a ball to first. Howard went to second to force Paredes for the second out. Oswalt covered first but the relay from Rollins went off of Oswalt’s glove and Altuve was safe. Bogusevic moved up to third on the play. Quintero was the next batter, with two men down and men on first and third, and he doubled into the right field corner. Bogusevic scored to put Houston up 2-1 and Altuve took third. Myers grounded to second for the third out.

Oswalt got the first two to start the fifth before Martinez singled to right. Lee was next and he hammered an 0-2 pitch out to left for a two-run homer that put the Astros on top 4-1. Oswalt struck out Bogusevic for the third out.

Quintero and Myers singled back-to-back with two outs in the sixth, putting men on first and second for Schafer. Schafer lined to short for the third out.

Martinez singled yet again with one out in the seventh. Lee was next and Oswalt hit him on the hand with a pitch. Martinez moved up to third on a wild pitch before Bogusevic hit a ground ball to second. Lee was forced at second for the second out and Martinez scored from third to make it 5-1. Paredes followed with a walk, putting men on first and second, but Oswalt got Altuve on a fly ball to center to leave both runners stranded.

Martinez made a great play for the first out of the seventh. Sanchez chopped a ball to third and Martinez leaped high to snare it and made a strong throw to first in time for the first out.

Blanton, Joe Blanton, pitched the eighth, making his first appearance for the Phils since May 14. Quintero led off with a single to left. Righty Jason Michaels hit for Myers and popped to third for the first out. Blanton struck Schafer out swinging for the second out and got Sanchez to ground to Rollins for the third.

Blanton dropped his ERA on the year to 5.35 with the scoreless inning.

The Phillies lineup against righty Brett Myers went (1) Rollins (2) Victorino (3) Pence (4) Howard (5) Ibanez (6) Ruiz (7) Orr (8) Martinez. Rollins returns to the starting lineup for the Phils with Polanco on the bench and Martinez at third. Orr plays second with Utley still sidelined.

Pence doubled to right with two outs in the first, but Howard struck out swinging 3-2 to leave him at second.

Ibanez doubled to left to start the second. Ruiz grounded to short for the first out before Orr singled into center, scoring Ibanez to put the Phils up 1-0. Orr stole second and moved up to third when Martinez grounded to first for the second out. Oswalt grounded to first as well, leaving Orr at third.

Pence singled with two outs in the third and stole second, but Howard flew to left to leave him stranded.

Ruiz singled to right with one out in the fourth. Orr flew to center for the second out and Martinez grounded back to the mound.

Down 2-1, the Phils went in order in the fifth.

They were down 4-1 when they hit in the sixth. Ibanez walked with two outs, but Ruiz flew to center behind him.

They went in order again in the seventh.

Down 5-1, Rollins singled to start the eighth. Victorino flew to left for the first out, Pence grounded to second with Rollins moving up to second for the second. Howard grounded out to Altuve to end the frame.

Righty Mark Melancon took over for Myers in the ninth. Ibanez led off with a walk. Ruiz flew to right for the first out and Orr flew to center for the second. Polanco hit for Martinez and walked, putting men on first and second. Gload hit for Blanton and grounded to second.

Interesting non-use of Bowker there against the righty. Manuel must have felt Polanco was the better bet to get on base, or maybe he’d be better off waiting to use Bowker if the Phils got men on base. Polanco is on-basing .313 against righties for the season.

Rollins was 1-for-4 with a single in his return.

Victorino 0-for-4. 176/256/311 over his last 82 plate appearances. Really looks like a good candidate for a day off.

Pence 2-for-4 with a double. He’s hitting .408 (13-for-32 with four doubles, a triple and a home run) over his last eight games.

Howard 0-for-4 and struck out twice. He’s 3-for-his-last-16 with eight strikeouts.

Ibanez 1-for-2 with a double and two walks. 360/418/600 in his last 55 plate appearances.

Ruiz 1-for-4. 389/457/472 over his last 82 plate appearances.

Martinez was 0-for-3. He’s 2-for-his-last-19 with four walks. He has started nine of the 12 games the Phils have played in September, going 5-for-29 with a double and a home run (172/314/310).

Hamels (14-7, 2.60) faces lefty JA Happ (5-15, 5.77) tonight. Happ is having a miserable year — righties (273/362/473) and lefties (295/356/457) are both hitting him hard. Hamels been very good against righties this season, holding them to a 196/244/298 line for the season, but has allowed more home runs in his recent outings. From May 13 to July 27, Hamels made 15 starts in which he faced 411 batters and hit four home runs. Over his last two starts he has allowed four home runs to the 60 batters he has faced.

Last week I mentioned that while the Phillies got worse at preventing runs overall last year, using opponent batting statistics they still got better against left-handed batters.

A couple more things about that.

First, a big part of their success against left-handed hitting had to do with some right-handed pitchers that 1) were great against lefties in 2009 and 2) aren’t going to be on the team in 2010. Lefties hit .172 and on-based .262 against Condrey, who faced about as many left-handed batters in ’09 as Scott Eyre (65 for Condrey and 67 for Eyre). Lefties hit 229/283/313 against Tyler Walker. Brett Myers saw most of his action as a starter but also made eight appearances in relief — overall for the year, lefties hit 233/314/360 against him.

Here’s what that trio did combined against left-handed batting in 2009:

They were really good against lefties. Of those 289 batters faced, about 59% were faced by Myers and he saw about 90% of his action as a starter. So we don’t want to overstate the impact on the bullpen. Still, it’s true that the Phillies had good numbers overall against lefties last year and a big part of that was because of the work of some now departed right-handed pitchers.

The second thing about lefties in the pen comes with a small sample size warning, but in his limited action against lefties in 2009, Romero was just terrible. The 32 left-handed batters that he faced hit 308/438/538 against him. He came into the season having allowed about one home run to every 93 left-handed hitters he faced and allowed two to the 32 lefties he faced in ’09. Scott Eyre was the king of getting lefties out in relief for the Phils in ’09 — they hit a paltry 210/269/355 against him. The tiny number of lefties that Romero faced in 2009 makes it hard to worry too much about what they did against him. He’s been fantastic against left-handed hitters over his career, holding them to a fantastic 215/310/293 line. Let’s hope that proves to be the much better measuring stick than what he did in limited action last season.

Chan Ho Park has agreed to a one-year deal with the Yankees worth $1.2 million. Contreras will get $1.5 million from the Phillies this year and Baez $5.25 million over the next two years.

This says the Phillies have maintained contact with Pedro Martinez and considers the possibility that the Phils will add a back of the rotation starter. Moyer looks like a sure thing to me to join Halladay, Hamels, Blanton and Happ in the rotation if he’s healthy.

As I wrote earlier this week, Carlos Ruiz had a nice season with the bat in 2009 that put him on the list of the best hitting catchers in baseball. Prior to ’09, though, Ruiz hadn’t excelled offensively with the Phils. Despite the lack of offensive production, Ruiz had a reputation as a solid defender and as a guy who helped to get the most out of the Phillies pitchers.

Did Phillies pitchers really fare better when pitching to Ruiz than they did when pitching to other catchers on the team did? Well, some did and some didn’t. In today’s post I’ll look at the six Phillies who started the most games for the team in 2009 and compare their results when pitching to Ruiz and when pitching to somebody else.

The best cases for Ruiz among the ’09 starters from the Phils were for Happ and Hamels. The table below shows how Happ fared when pitching to Ruiz in ’09 compared to how he fared when pitching to other Phillies catchers:

So that table suggests that Ruiz was catching for 63.5% of the batters that Happ faced and other Phillies catchers was catching for the other 36.5% of hitters. With Ruiz catching, opponents hit 226/292/369 against Happ and with another Phillies catcher behind the plate they hit 276/343/456 against him.

Opposing teams scored about .079 runs per plate appearance against Happ for the year. .069 runs per PA against him with Ruiz behind the plate and .096 runs per PA against him with someone else behind the plate. .096 is about 1.39 times as much as .069.

Happ didn’t face the same batters with Ruiz behind the plate as with the other guys catching, so maybe it was a fluke and maybe it wasn’t. Either way, Happ clearly had better results in 2009 when pitching to Ruiz.

So did Hamels.

The numbers for Hamels pitching to Ruiz improved a lot as well, even more than they did for Happ. The difference between what batters did with Ruiz catching and others catching is so dramatic it makes you wonder how much of a role the catcher he was throwing to played a role in the disappointing year for Hamels. Opponents hit 330/368/570 against Hamels when he was pitching to Bako, for example. Given how high the percentage of the batters that Hamels faced with Ruiz catching, though, I would guess that even if you were to pull out the ugly numbers with Bako behind the plate for Hamels his numbers were still a lot worse than they had been in 2008.

Anyhow, if you were trying to argue that the Phillies pitchers get better results with Ruiz behind the plate, the ’09 outcomes for Happ and Hamels would be a great place to start.

Things a little less sunny after that, though. Moyer and Myers had worse results throwing to Ruiz in 2009. Lee didn’t throw to him much, but his results were worse throwing to Ruiz as well compared to the other catchers for the Phils. Blanton was kind of in-between. Here’s Blanton:

Blanton’s numbers for 2009 were very similar whether Ruiz was catching or wasn’t catching. The opponent OPS was a little better when someone other than Ruiz was behind the plate, but he allowed fewer runs per plate appearance with Ruiz behind the dish.

Moyer, Myers and Lee had worse results with Ruiz catching.

Moyer was much worse.

The slugging percentage is the thing that sticks out for the Moyer table. By batters faced, Moyer pitched to Ruiz about half of the time. He faced 699 batters on the season. The 334 batters he faced with someone besides Ruiz catching combined to hit seven home runs. The 365 batters he faced with Ruiz catching hit 20 home runs.

Myers also threw to Ruiz and other catchers about equally and had better results pitching to other guys:

Like Moyer, opponents posted a much higher slugging percentage against Myers when Ruiz was behind the plate.

Ruiz caught in just three of the 12 games that Cliff Lee started during the regular season. The numbers below include just his results throwing to Phillies catchers last year (not Cleveland catchers).

Not sure what you want to make of that, if anything. Ruiz and Lee had a whole lot of success working together in the post-season.

Finally, here’s what the table looks like for all Phillies pitchers combined (not just the six mentioned above):

With Ruiz behind the plate, opposing batters scored .109 runs per plate appearance compared to .120 runs per PA with someone else behind the plate. That’s about 91.1% of the runs allowed per plate appearance with Ruiz behind the plate as with someone else.

The Phillies also allowed fewer runs per plate appearance overall with Ruiz behind the plate in 2008 and in 2007. In 2008 they allowed about 95.5% of the runs per plate appearance with Ruiz behind the plate as with other catchers and in 2007 they allowed about 97.0%.

The Phillies signed pitcher Oscar Villarreal to a minor league deal and will invite him to Spring Training. The 28-year-old righty did not pitch in 2009 after having Tommy John surgery in April. He has thrown 336 career innings, all in the NL, pitching to a 3.86 ERA with a 1.37 ratio. The linked article says he will not be ready for Opening Day.

The Phillies also signed switch-”hitting” outfielder Freddy Guzman to a minor league deal. Guzman is 29 and has a career on-base percentage of .255 and a career slugging percentage of .274. The linked article says the deal does not include a Spring Training invite, so it’s not clear what his role will be. Just throwing things out here, but my guess would be that his role is to have someone athletic-looking to fill a uniform if everyone on the 40-man roster is killed in some kind of tragic blimp accident. In the good news department he stole 116 bases over the past two seasons in the minors so he may be able to help your Triple-A roto team. In his defense, his career line of 211/255/274 has come in just 102 plate appearances and he’s hit a more respectable 270/344/360 over more than 3,000 at-bats in the minors.

Trying to guess who the Phillies might have playing third base next year is kinda fun, but what kind of year the Phils have in 2010 is going to have a lot more to do with what they can do to improve their pitching this off-season.

In 2009 the Phillies used 22 pitchers. They combined to throw 1,455 2/3 innings and allow 709 runs.

Ten of the 22 pitchers that the Phillies used had a percentage of the team’s 1,455 2/3 innings that they threw that was higher than their percentage of the team’s 709 runs that they allowed.

They are in the chart below. For each of the ten there are columns for the percentage of the team’s innings that they pitched, the percentage of the team’s runs that they allowed, the percentage of the runs allowed over the percentage of the innings pitched and the rank of that column compared to the other players in this group. The list is ordered by the number of innings that the player threw for the Phils in 2009.

So, for example, Joe Blanton threw about 13.4% of the Phillies innings this season and allowed about 12.6% of the runs. 12.6 over 13.4 is 0.94, which is tenth best among the ten players who allowed a percentage of runs that was lower than the percentage of innings they pitched.

Please note that the rounding of the two percentage columns makes the math look wrong. For example, Eyre’s row shows 2.1 and 0.8, but .8 over 2.1 equals about 0.38 and not 0.41 — that’s cause the numbers are really 2.061 and 0.846 and not 2.1 and .8.

When you look at the difference between the percentage of the runs allowed and percentage of innings pitched it’s important to take into account the number of innings pitched. Eyre had the most dramatic difference between the two numbers, but Blanton was a lot more important to the team despite the worse difference since he threw more than six times as many innings as Eyre.

There were 12 pitchers for the Phils this year who allowed a percentage of the team’s runs that was higher than the percentage of the teams’ innings that pitcher threw. Here are the 12, using the same categories as above (the ranking continues from where the top list left off):

Again, the number of innings that the pitcher threw is critical. Andrew Carpenter was miserable compared to the rest of the group, but he only threw 5 2/3 innings. Guys who threw more innings, like Lidge and Moyer especially, obviously hurt the Phils more.

Article here about what some Phillies prospects have been doing in the AFL and winter leagues. If you don’t know who Sebastian Valle is it might be time to find out.

It sure seems like there’s a big opportunity for Mayberry these days. He’s hitting 314/390/521 in Mexico with seven home runs in 121 at-bats. It wasn’t a great year from him at Triple-A, but it’s nice to see him taking more walks in 2009 than he did in ’08 or ’07 — take a look at his minor league numbers.

The Playoff Start Log is updated and I think it says a lot about what went wrong for the Phillies in the World Series. In 2008 the Phils won it all, getting five quality starts in five World Series games. After Lee allowed one run in nine innings in game one of the NLDS against the Rockies this year, the Phils had made seven quality starts in a row in playoff games. In the last four games of the World Series this year the Phillies didn’t have a quality start and their starters threw to a 7.59 ERA. They allowed 18 earned runs in 21 1/3 innings.

That probably has a lot to do with how much better the Yankees are at scoring runs than the Rockies or Rays. Still, you aren’t going to win a lot of games when your starters throw to a 7.59 ERA.

The Yankees won the World Series this year. The Phillies didn’t. The Yankees had Andy Pettitte and the Phillies had Joe Blanton. The pair didn’t play in the same league in 2009, but they had pretty similar numbers during the regular season:

If the two players had a similar year in the regular season, they didn’t in the post-season. The Yankees put a whole lot of their playoff eggs in the Pettitte basket, but Blanton was not a big part of the Phillies rotation in the playoffs. You didn’t have to watch the Phillies play too many playoff games this year before that became apparent. He was pitching in relief in the sixth inning of game two of the NLDS with the Phils down 4-0.

The Phils and Yankees both played 15 post-season games in 2009. Pettitte threw almost twice as many innings as Blanton. He threw 30 2/3 while Blanton threw 15 2/3. Blanton made two starts and two appearances in relief while Pettitte’s post-season legend grew. Pettitte made five post-season starts in ’09 and went 4-0 with a 3.52 ERA and a 1.21 ratio.

Why would the Phillies do such a thing? Well, it wasn’t because Blanton hadn’t been good in the post-season. He helped them win the World Series in 2008 as he started three playoff games. The Phils won all three as Blanton went 2-0 with a 3.18 ERA and a 1.29 ratio.

The why, apparently, turned out to be that the Phils thought their chances were better with Pedro Martinez. The Phils signed the free agent Martinez in mid-July to a contract that would have the Phillies paying him about a million dollars. Martinez made nine starts for the Phils in 2009 and pitched better than a lot of people were expecting, going 5-1 with a 3.63 ERA and a 1.25 ratio. There were some warning signs, too, though. Opponents slugged .472 against him and he allowed eight home runs in 44 2/3 innings. That home run rate would have had him allowing about 36 over 200 innings. Milwaukee’s Braden Looper was the only pitcher in either league that allowed 36 or more home runs this season. Two of his early starts with the Phils were cut short by rain, but he threw less than five innings per start in his nine outings with the Phils.

He didn’t exactly end the regular season on a high note. He made a fantastic start against the Mets on September 13 in which he threw 130 pitches in eight shutout innings. His next start was against the Braves on September 19 and he allowed three runs over three innings before leaving the game with a neck problem. He made just one more start before the end of the year and he wasn’t very good. On September 30, he faced Houston and allowed three runs on six hits and a walk over four innings.

It didn’t scare off the Phillies. They let him start a game in the NLCS and two games in the World Series. They lost all three games. In the first he pitched great but had to be pulled before he had thrown 90 pitches. In each of the next two the Phils left him in the game too long. He started the game in which they were eliminated from the World Series and was awful.

So Blanton was a solid pitcher this year, the Phils gave at least some of his playoff starts to Pedro, who not a lot of other teams seemed to want, and then they lost every post-season game that Pedro started. That sounds pretty bad and I think it was. It’s a little more complicated than that, though.

The Phillies scored a total of five runs in the three games Martinez started. Pedro didn’t pitch as well as his numbers would indicate, but his numbers were great overall for the playoffs. In the three playoff starts with the Phils, Pedro threw to a 3.71 ERA with an 0.88 ERA. Blanton, meanwhile, did not pitch well in his post-season chances. He made two starts and two relief appearances overall for the post-season, throwing to a 5.17 ERA and a 1.21 ratio.

Still, the decision to go with Martinez instead of Blanton in the post-season was critical for the Phillies. And it didn’t work.

Cliff Lee will be back with the Phils in 2010 after the Phillies picked up his $9 million option.

Brett Myers will not be back.

Feliz may or may not be back, but it’s a little less likely now that the Phillies have declined his $5.5 million option.

I think the Phils went 3-for-3 in that flurry. I think it was the right decision not to pick up Feliz’s option, but I was surprised to see them do it. Beltre, Figgins and DeRosa seem to be the names that most people are talking about as improvements at third. If he’s healthy, I think Troy Glaus would be a huge help for the Phillies offensively as well. You might notice some defensive dropoff, though. The list of free agent third basemen that would help the Phils more than Feliz isn’t that long, so hopefully they have something in mind.

Ibanez (sports hernia) and Eyre (loose bodies in his elbow) were scheduled for surgeries yesterday and Lidge will have surgery on Wednesday to remove loose bodies from his right elbow.

Park, Feliz, Bako, Stairs, Martinez, Myers and Cairo have all filed to become free agents.

Four switch-hitters seem likely to get a lot of at-bats for the Yankees in the World Series. Here’s a look at what Jorge Posada, Mark Teixeira, Melky Cabrera and Nick Swisher have done against left and right-handed pitching in 2009 and over their careers as switch-hitters:

Posada was much better against righties than lefties in 2009, but has been better against left-handed pitching over his career. It was the fourth straight year for Posada that he posted a better OPS against right-handed pitching than left, though. The difference was most dramatic in 2006, when he hit just 263/348/380 in 158 plate appearances against lefties and 284/385/540 against righties. It’s enough to convince me that you’re better off with a lefty against him if you can. He good against lefties, too, and has had monster years against left-handed pitching. In 2002, for example, he hit 326/420/556 against them while hitting just 247/351/436 against righties. I’d still go with lefty these days.

Your chances aren’t real good against Teixeira no matter who’s pitching. He’s put up an OPS of over .900 against both right and left-handed pitching for each of the past three seasons. In 2006 he was a lot better against lefties than righties, but in 2005 he was better against righties. I don’t think it matters a whole lot.

It’s really, really in the Phillies’ best interests to get Melky Cabrera and Jose Molina out as often as possible in this series. The .680 career OPS against left-handed pitching is a pretty compelling argument that a lefty is the way to do it. Cabrera was a little better against lefties in 2009, but it still looks like the way to go. I don’t think you’re going to see the Phils make a whole lot of moves to get the pitcher they want on Cabrera either way.

Swisher gets on base more against lefties and hits for more power against righties. That has been the story for his career and it was for 2009 as well. I’d go with a righty if I could, but I don’t think it matters much and I don’t think the Phils will go to a lot of trouble to try to get Swisher facing a righty, either.

Bottom line for me is I don’t think it matters a whole lot whether it’s a righty or a lefty pitching to Cabrera or Teixeira. Teixeira is just a real good hitter either way and Cabrera is just not. I think you’re a little better off with a lefty against Posada and a little better off with a righty against Swisher.

Miguel Cairo is off the roster for the World Series and Brett Myers has taken his spot. I think that’s a very good decision. Cairo and Bruntlett both was too much.

This suggests that left-handed batter Eric Hinske and right-handed pitcher Brian Bruney have been added to the Yankees roster, taking the places of Francisco Cervelli and Freddy Guzman. Cervelli was the third catcher and his removal leaves the Yankees with two and more questions about who will catch Burnett’s starts. Lidge struck Hinkse out to end the World Series in 2008.