Philliesflow.com

The Phillies pounded Tampa Bay yesterday, winning 10-1 on a day in which they started Freddy Galvis in left field and Galvis played very well, handling left and delivering two hits, including a two-run homer.

The pitching was fantastic for the Phils as they held the Rays to three hits and two walks. Valdes, Stutes, Horst, Bastardo and Papelbon all pitched well for the Phillies.

It was a little hard to notice with all the Freddy Galvis starting in left field going on.

There are a whole bunch of reasons you don’t want to ever see Freddy Galvis starting in left field for the Phillies in a game that matters. One is that he has a career on-base percentage of .292 in the minors. Another is that he has a career on-base percentage of .254 in the majors. A third would be that he’s not an outfielder.

He went 2-for-4 with three RBI in the game, hitting a two-run homer in the fifth and delivering an RBI-single in the sixth. He’s hitting 300/319/586 with 12 extra-base hits in 73 plate appearances. He’s tied with Howard for the team lead in extra-base hits.

Just monster power for Galvis this spring. His isolated power is at .286, which is nutty. Only one player in the National League with 50 or more plate appearances ended 2012 with an isolated power of .286 or better — Giancarlo Stanton was at .318. Galvis’s isolated power in 2,179 plate appearances in the minor leagues is .075. In 200 plate appearances in the majors it’s .137.

Tiny number of at-bats, of course, and if they ask you if that’s likely to go down from here you want to say yes. Several Phils have delivered a higher isolated power than Galvis this spring, including Brown, Howard and Pete Orr.

Frandsen 1-for-4 with a double and three RBI. 283/306/517.

Brown had three hits, going 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles. 373/429/675.

Quintero 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI to raise his spring average to .296 (8-for-27 with a double). He’s been bad defensively, but he’s a very good defensive player and I will be surprised if he’s not the backup catcher.

Howard 2-for-4 with a pair of singles. 338/369/675.

Revere led off and was 0-for-3 with a walk to drop his average to .316. Rollins is hitting .286 and on-basing .429 after going 1-for-4 with a single.

Inciarte was 0-for-1 and is hitting 250/357/292.

Valdes started the game for the Phils was fantastic, striking out five while allowing a run on two hits over three innings. He struck out two in a 1-2-3 first and another two in a 1-2-3 second. He allowed a run on a single and a double in the third.

Valdes allowed four home runs over his first 7 1/3 innings pitched this spring, but has been much better since. After 17 1/3 innings he has now thrown to a 4.15 ERA with an 0.92 ratio. He’s allowed two earned runs over his last ten innings, which is a 1.80 ERA. Again, his ratio with the Phillies in 2012 was 0.74. He allowed 18 hits in 31 innings and opponents hit .168 against him. I think the Phillies would be making a big mistake if they didn’t carry him to start the season.

Stutes took over for the Phils in the fourth. He allowed a one-out walk, but got the next hitter to ground into a double-play.

7.36 ERA and a 1.73 ratio for Stutes. He has walked nine in 11 innings.

Horst followed Stutes and was good as well, allowing a single over two scoreless innings.

Like Valdes, Horst struggled early. He has been even better since. After five innings, Horst had a 14.40 ERA and had allowed four home runs. He hasn’t allowed an earned run in ten innings since and now has a 4.80 ERA and a 1.27 ratio for the spring.

Bastardo started the eighth and got the two men he faced before leaving the game.

4.32 ERA and a 1.20 ratio for Bastardo. Opponents have hit .212 against him.

Papelbon pitched the ninth. He struck out the first two batters he faced on six pitches before getting Mike Fontenot to line to third and end the game.

9.82 ERA and a 1.50 ratio for Papelbon. Like Valdes and Horst, he’s been a whole lot better recently after a miserable start. Papelbon allowed eight earned runs in his first 1 2/3 innings pitched — since then he’s thrown 5 2/3 scoreless frames.

Colby Shreve threw a scoreless inning in the game and Steven Inch faced one batter (who he retired to end the eighth).

Cole Hamels is expected to start this afternoon as the Phils face the Tigers.

This article from the Phillies web site suggests Horst and Valdes are front-runners for two of the remaining bullpen spots and Aumont has the edge over Stutes for the other.

This suggests that Pete Orr and Inciarte could be competing for the final spot on the bench. Orr is hitting 308/308/615 in 28 at-bats this spring (8-for-26 with a triple, two home runs and no walks).

This article talks about who the sixth starter for the Phillies is now that they’ve cut ties with Rodrigo Lopez and Aaron Cook. The answer is probably Tyler Cloyd. Who the sixth starter is seems to be important given the combination of Kendrick being the fourth starter and the lack of certainty around Halladay.

Kyle Kendrick led the way yesterday as four Phillie pitchers held the Yankees to an unearned run on two hits and a walk and the Phils topped New York 4-1.

Domonic Brown hit his sixth home run, a solo shot in the fourth inning. 1-for-3 on the day. 397/465/714. He has 25 hits in official spring games, which is the most for any player across both leagues.

Howard was 1-for-4 with his fifth homer, a solo blast in the seventh. 317/338/633. He’s walked just three times in 65 plate appearances, but now’s probably not the time to quibble.

Nix 2-for-4 with a double. 238/273/333, but with better results if you count the games that don’t count.

Utley 2-for-4 without a double. 227/358/341. You might not think of Utley as a guy who hits .258, but he has hit .258 over his last 816 plate appearances since the end of 2010. So you might want to think about starting.

Rollins started at short and went 1-for-2 with a pair of walks. 3-for-12 with a double and five walks in limited official action.

Jermaine Mitchell started in center and went 0-for-4. 7-for-21 with two walks and five extra-base hits. 333/391/714. No longer leads the team in OPS.

Lerud got the start behind the plate and went 1-for-3 with a double and a walk. I’d still guess he’s going to have trouble getting past Quintero for the backup catcher job. Lerud is 3-for-14 with a double, a home run and three walks (214/353/500). Quintero hasn’t been good defensively, he’s made two errors and been charged with a passed ball, and is 5-for-18 with two walks and five singles at the plate (278/333/278). At least in the official games, it seems that Lerud has outplayed Quintero. I don’t think it’s going to matter, though.

Kendrick started the game for the Phillies and allowed an unearned run over six innings on two hits, a double and a single, and no walks. The run scored in the fourth. Brett Gardner led off with a bunt single and took second on a throwing error by Kendrick. He would score on a one-out double by Ichiro.

Kendrick has a 5.14 ERA and a 1.14 ratio. If you throw to a 1.14 ratio for long enough, your ERA is going to go down from 5.14.

Adams struck out Travis Hafner in a 1-2-3 seventh. He has allowed two hits and no walks in five scoreless innings in official spring action.

Papelbon got three fly balls in a 1-2-3 eighth. Seems to have settled down quite a bit since ugly, ugly results early. 15.43 ERA and a 2.14 ratio for the spring.

Durbin pitched a scoreless ninth. He allowed a one-out walk, but got the next two hitters to end the game. 4.00 ERA and a 1.33 ratio.

The Phils are off today and face the Red Sox tomorrow night.

I’ll really do my best to limit your exposure to lyrics from Anne Murray songs on the blog. Promise.

The Phillies sure could use a little good news and here it is: Jon Heyman says they are finalizing a deal to acquire Wilton Lopez.

The 29-year-old righty has been fantastic for the last three years with the Astros, throwing to a 2.64 ERA with a 1.13 ratio over 204 1/3 innings in 205 relief appearances. In two of those years, 2010 and 2012, he threw to a ratio of 1.06 or better (1.27 in 2011). In 2010 and 2012 combined, he walked 13 hitters in 133 1/3 innings while striking out 104.

Lopez would be an ideal fit to bring much needed stability to the eighth inning for the Phils.

No word at this point what the Phils would give up to get Lopez. This article suggests it may be a minor league prospect. This blog post speculates that “a Sebastian Valle for Lopez deal would make sense for both sides.”

This article says: “The Astors will receive minor league players in the deal. The prospects involved are said to be close to major league ready.”

Make your own joke day at Philliesflow as we give you the chance to insert your own joke here about the Phillies and how many prospects they have that are close to major league ready.

Yesterday the Phillies signed 33-year-old catcher Humberto Quintero to a minor league deal. Quintero seems likely to get a chance with the Phillies early in the season in the wake of the Ruiz suspension.

Quintero really, really can’t hit. 234/267/323 in 1,281 plate appearances in the majors over his ten year career. The righty has a career 233/268/319 line against righties and a not much better 238/262/336 line against lefties. He has a career .319 on-base percentage in his 2,984 plate appearances in the minors.

What he can do is play defense. In 2010, he played just 653 2/3 innings for the Astros, but managed to post a Baseball-Reference calculated dWAR of 1.2, which was tied for 21st-best in the NL.

In 2011 he played just 642 innings defensively and again posted a dWAR of 1.2, which was 13th-best in the league.

Update: This suggests that the Braves have reached an agreement with BJ Upton, which would make it less likely that Upton would be playing for the Phillies in 2013.

Update 2: This says five years, $75 million for Upton to the Braves.