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Good pitching and bad pitching were on display yesterday as the Phils squared off with the Pirates. The Phillies came out on the right side, though, winning 5-0 as John Lannan, Mike Adams, Adam Morgan and Raul Valdes held the Pirates to one hit and four walks over nine shutout innings. The Pirates, on the other hand, walked three different Phillies (Quintero, Revere and Utley) with the bases loaded in the second inning.

The Phillies had nine hits in the game, all singles.

Michael Young was 2-for-4 with two RBI, Betancourt 2-for-3 with a walk and Revere 2-for-3 with a walk and a stolen base.

Betancourt is hitting .412. Revere has a 346/393/385 line with three stolen bases. Young is 5-for-his-last-13 with a double and a homer after starting the spring 1-for-9.

Might seem like Revere isn’t hitting for a lot of power, but that’s just the way it’s going to be. His isolated power of .039 so far this spring is pretty similar to his career mark of .045.

Brown 1-for-3, Mayberry 1-for-4. Ruf 0-for-2 with a walk, dropping his spring average to .130. He has one extra-base hit, a double.

Mayberry started 1-for-10 and is 6-for-his-last-16 (.375) with a double and a home run.

Lannan started the game for the Phillies and was fantastic, going three shutout innings in which he allowed just one hit, a first-inning double to Travis Snider, and walking two.

Lannan drops his spring ERA to 1.80, but he has a 1.60 ratio to go with it. He’s walked three in five innings and opponents are hitting .278 against him.

Adam Morgan also three shutout innings in the game for the Phils. He walked two and struck out two without allowing a hit.

Morgan has a 1.93 ERA and has struck out six in 4 2/3 innings, but again with a high ratio of 1.50. Three of the fours runs he’s been charged with are unearned.

Mike Adams threw a 1-2-3 fourth. He’s now thrown two scoreless innings in which he’s allowed one hit without walking a batter.

Valdes was great in the game, too. After being awful in his first two appearances, Valdes faced six batters and retired all six, dropping his ERA to 6.00. He’s struck out seven in six innings, but allowed three home runs. Yesterday was the only one of Valdes’s three outings in which he did not give up a home run.

The Phillies will play the Dominican Republic team this afternoon.

Jonathan Papelbon was scheduled to pitch today, but has a cold and will not do so.

BJ Rosenberg has some tenderness in his elbow, which kept him from pitching on Sunday.

Delmon Young will have his ankle looked at by a doctor in California today.

This article takes a guess at the opening day roster for the Phillies, giving two of the three unknown bullpen slots to Horst and Valdes and leaving the other one open. It also has Ruf off the roster and Inciarte on.

I think if the Phillies are truly thinking about giving Inciarte a spot on the roster we’ll see him getting a whole lot more at-bats soon. So far he has seven. It definitely seems possible.

The Phillies won again this afternoon, scoring ten runs to beat the Yankees 10-5.

The Phils have won three of their last four and scored 20 runs in the last two games, winning 10-5 on back-to-back days. They got a bunch of help from the Yankees in today’s game as New York made four errors that led to six unearned runs.

Ten hits in the game for the Phillies. Nine singles and a double by Rollins. Rollins was 1-for-2 with two walks, a double and a pair of RBI. Galvis also saw some time at short, going 1-for-2 with an RBI and raising his spring average to .357.

Galvis is also the unlikely team leader in strikeouts with five.

Cody Asche was the only Phil with more than one hit, going 2-for-2 with a pair of singles to up his spring average to .333 (3-for-9 with a double and a walk).

Mayberry was 1-for-3 with a walk and drove in three runs, which ties him with Howard for the team lead in RBI at five. Howard 0-for-3. Brown 0-for-1 and walked three times, which raises his on-base percentage to .600 after 20 plate appearances.

Ruf was the DH and went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts and a walk, upping his average to .188.

Halladay started the game and went 2 1/3 innings, allowing a run on three hits and a walk. He kept the Yankees off the board in the first two innings. In the bottom of the first, New York loaded the bases on two singles and a walk, but Halladay struck out Melky Mesa to leave them loaded. Halladay threw a 1-2-3 second and faced two men in the third, allowing a one-out double to Francisco Cervelli. Cesar Jimenez took over for Halladay and struck two guys out, but also allowed a pair of hits, including a single that scored Cervelli with the run charged to Halladay.

4.15 ERA and a 1.15 ratio for Halladay after two starts and 4 1/3 innings. He’s struck out five.

Jimenez has allowed three hits over 1 2/3 innings, but hasn’t yet been charged with a run.

Aumont pitched the fourth, allowing a two-out single, but keeping the Yankees off the board. Aumont has now allowed one hit in two scoreless innings while striking out two over two appearances.

Then came Papelbon and Valdes. Neither of them pitched well and each of them were coming off a rough outing to start the spring.

Papelbon allowed a walk and a single to the first two hitters he faced before yielding a two-run double off the top of the wall in left. He allowed two runs on two hits and a walk in the frame, which dropped his ERA to 43.20. His ratio is 6.00 — seven hits, including two home runs, and three walks over 1 2/3 innings.

Valdes allowed a run on a solo homer to start the sixth before striking out the next three hitters to end the frame. He was back for the seventh and gave up another solo shot, this one coming with two outs. He’s now allowed three solo home runs in four innings over two appearances.

Rodrigo Lopez pitched the final two innings and was good again, allowing two singles and a walk while keeping New York off the board. That’s five scoreless innings for Lopez now with a 0.00 ERA, an 0.80 ratio and four strikeouts.

Cliff Lee is expected to pitch tomorrow when the Phils face the Blue Jays. Lee was very good in his first start, allowing a walk in two scoreless innings.

Unusual choice. The Phils got crushed yesterday in a game most memorable for Jonathan Papelbon’s outing. Papelbon was charged with six runs over two-thirds of an inning and surrendered monster three-run home run to Miguel Cabrera.

The Tigers won the game 10-1. The Phillies have lost two of three so far and played to a tie in the other.

The Phils didn’t have an extra-base hit in the game. Howard was the offensive MVP of the contest, going 2-for-2 with a sac fly to plate the team’s lone run. Josh Fields, Galvis and Betancourt had the other three singles. Darin Ruf went 0-for-2 with a strikeout and is 0-for-8 so far. Inciarte walked in his only chance and has a 1.000 on-base percentage and an OPS of 2.000 after four plate appearances (1-for-1 with three walks). He’s been on base four more times than Ruf and has one at-bat.

There’s no way they could carry Inciarte to start the season, I hear you cry? Oh, there’s a way. 324 plate appearances for Michael Martinez over the last two years. Freddy Galvis, John Mayberry, Ty Wigginton and Placido Polanco all started on opening day in 2012 and the Phillies gave Juan Pierre 439 plate appearances for the season. Wilson Valdez got 663 plate appearances for the Phils in 2010 and 2011 combined.

So there’s a way. Just while we’re talking about it, Yuniesky Betancourt is 3-for-6 in the early going.

Things started out well enough on the pitching side. Lee and Cloyd threw the first four innings with each tossing a pair of scoreless frames.

Aumont was the other Phillie pitcher who was good in the game. He started the seventh with the Phils down 8-1 and set the Tigers down in order.

Papelbon getting hammered was the big surprise for the day. He started the fifth and faced nine hitters, getting two outs and allowing six runs on two walks, three singles and a pair of home runs. The three-run homer that Cabrera hit was the second Papelbon had allowed in the frame and came with one out and men on first and second. It went unusually far. Alfredo Simon bailed Papelbon out, facing one batter and getting a ground out to end the frame.

Stutes made his spring debut in the sixth and allowed a pair of runs. He walked the leadoff man, got the next two, but then allowed a walk and a two-run triple.

Valdes gave up a run on back-to-back doubles in the eighth, then returned for the ninth and allowed another run on a solo homer.

In yesterday’s game, left-handed pitchers threw seven of the nine innings for Detroit. In those seven innings, the Phillies scored a run on four singles and three walks. This article points out the problems the Phils might have with lefties this year. They didn’t have a lot of success against righties in yesterday’s game, either. Detroit righties threw two scoreless innings in which they allowed one single and struck out two.

Kendrick is expected to pitch this afternoon when the Phils face the Yankees.

This post suggested there were four positions last year where the Phillies, who were 15th in the NL in walk rate 2012, had a much worse walk rate than they had had in 2007 (in ’07 they had the best walk rate in the league).

At first base and left field they were a whole lot worse. At third and catcher they were worse.

Two recent posts suggests that the declining walk rate for the team doesn’t have a lot to do with longtime Phillies Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley. Those guys have actually seen their walk rates increase in recent years.

No so much with Carlos Ruiz.

Ruiz comes off the best year of his career. In 2012, Ruiz hit 325/394/540, posting career highs in batting average, doubles, home runs and RBI. Coming into the season he had slugged .393 for his career with an isolated power of .128. In 2012, his isolated power was .215.

What he didn’t do in 2012 was walk. Coming in 2012, Ruiz had walked in 11.7% of his 1,657 plate appearances since the start of 2008. In 2012, he walked 29 times in 421 plate appearances, which is about 6.9%.

Ruiz got about 62% of the plate appearances at catcher for the Phils in ’12. The guys other than him walked in about 6.4% of their plate appearances for the season and the Phils ended the year having walked in about 6.86% of their chances for the year.

Led by Ruiz’s high walk rate, the Phillies walked a lot at the position from ’09 through ’11. In ’12, Ruiz’s walk rate dropped and so did the advantage the Phillies had a the position.

Here’s the total walks by catcher for the Phillies over the last four years and the NL rank for that mark:

It’s hard to know what Ruiz might do this year after returning from his suspension. His walk rate was down in 2012, though, against both righties and lefties. Here are his numbers against both kinds of pitching for 2012 and for his career before 2012:

If Ruiz walks in 6.0% of his chances against righties, there aren’t going to be enough lefties out there to save him. The good news is that his walk rate against righties has been a lot better than that in recent years — 9.6% in ’11 and over 12% in both 2010 and 2009 (12.2% in ’10 and 12.9% in ’09).

Let’s hope he bounces back, cause Ruiz looks like he’s just about the only hope for the Phils when it comes to drawing walks from the catcher position. Here’s a look at the other five guys who seem to have the best chance to see time at catcher — my guess is that Kratz and Quintero will see the vast majority of PA at the position that don’t go to Ruiz:

During 2012, NL catchers walked in about 8.9% of their plate appearances overall.

Michael Bourn looks like he’s headed to Cleveland on a four-year, $48 million deal.

Ryan Howard places third on this list of the 15 worst contracts in baseball with an honorable mention going to Papelbon.

The last post looked at the Baseball-Reference’s bWAR for the four elite pitchers on the Phillie pitching staff, Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Papelbon, have produced over the last five seasons. Those four haven’t all been on the Phillies over the past five years (the Phils only had all four of them in 2012) but here’s a look at the bWAR the four of them have contributed to Phillie teams over the past five seasons and how their contributions as a group compares to what the rest of the Phillie staff has done:

The most alarming thing about that table is 2012 — the only year in which the Phillies had all four of Halladay, Hamels, Lee and Papelbon. Last season, all of the other pitchers on the team other than those four combined to do close to nothing. The 16 other pitchers put up a combined bWAR of 0.1.

Over the last five years, the bWAR provided by Phillie pitchers other than that quartet has ranged from 0.1 to 12.2 and averaged 6.9. It’s obviously hugely important that all four of that group were not with the Phillies in any year other than 2012, as the absent members of the group gave others chances to pitch and accumulate WAR. In 2008, for example, Hamels was the only guy in the group with the team.

Over the past two years, the group of Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Papelbon have thrown an average of 45.6% of the innings for the Phillies. Over the past five years, that group’s percentage of total bWAR for the Phillies has been about 1.86 times the percentage of total innings they have pitched. If they threw 45.6% of the team’s innings in 2013 and the percentage of the team’s total bWAR they provided was 1.86 times greater than that, they would account for about 84.8% of the team’s total bWAR for pitchers.

This says that Angel Pagan and the Giants have agreed to a four-year deal.

Nate Schierholtz was not offered a contract and became a free agent.

This article mentions Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, Ichiro Suzuki, Cody Ross, Alfonso Soriano, Michael Cuddyer and Dexter Fowler as players that the Phillies could target to acquire.

In the article linked above, Amaro seems to suggest that Mayberry could play center if the team was strong enough in right and left. That would be a disaster. It would look a lot like last year’s disaster.

This suggests that the Phillies have “long coveted” Peter Bourjos, but that a deal with the Angels is unlikely. It also suggests the Phillies might be interested in a trade for Josh Willingham if he were available.

The whole thing is starting to take on the feel of a slow-moving disaster. Not over yet, though.

A post earlier this week looked at the total bWAR of hitters and pitchers for the top teams in the NL over the last five years. In 2012, it appears the Phillies will have four elite pitchers on their pitching staff. What should we expect the Phillies to get from the group of Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Papelbon in 2013?

Here’s a look at the Baseball-Reference calculated WAR for each of the four over the past five seasons:

So, looking at those four players, over the last five seasons the combined bWAR they have contributed has ranged from 10.7 to 24.5 with an average of 17.7.

Sadly, by a wide margin, the worst year of any of the five is the most recent.

Also sadly, that group has been outrageously healthy over the last five seasons. Halladay’s 2012 season is one exception, but he still made 25 starts and threw 156 1/3 innings. Lee has thrown more than 200 innings in each of the last five years. Hamels has made at least 31 starts every year of the last five. Papelbon has thrown at least 60 innings in relief in each year.

So it’s likely they are going to spend less time on the field in the future than they have over the last five years, giving them less opportunities to accumulate bWAR.

The good news is that the average mark for the last five years, 17.7, would be a huge improvement over what they did in 2012.

The previous post suggested that the total combined bWAR for the team’s pitchers and hitters should be around 36 to give the team a solid shot to be among the four best by bWAR in the NL. If you assume a return to the five-year average for the group of Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Papelbon, that gives the Phils 17.7. Over the last two seasons, the best combined bWAR for all of the Phillie position players is 15.0. That’s 32.7. That sounds like it should be good news — it means that all pitchers on the team other than Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Papelbon, including the missing 40% of the rotation, would only need to post a cumulative bWAR of 3.3 to get the Phils to 36.

But.

In 2012, the Phillie pitchers other than that quartet combined to throw to a bWAR of 0.1. Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Papelbon were at 10.7. The other 20 pitchers who appeared for the Phillies combined for a 0.1 — that includes negative bWAR performances from 11 guys (Blanton, Schwimer, Bastardo, Contreras, Qualls, Sanches, Stutes, Diekman, Savery, Lindblom and Rosenberg).

The obvious other big issue here is Halladay, whose 2012 bWAR dropped to 0.7 coming off of back-to-back seasons in which he was amazing, posting a bWAR better than eight in both years. If you saw any sign in 2012 that Halladay was about to return to 2010-2011 form, I sure missed it. And for now, at least, the Phillies are built around the rather reasonable notion that Roy Halladay is going to be the elite pitcher he has been in recent years.

So let’s hope for the best. But if you suggest that Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Papelbon are going to combine to post a bWAR of 17.7 or better in 2013, I’m taking the under. They all have to stay healthy for one thing. And even if they do, they have close to no chance unless Halladay is way, way better than he was in 2012. Also, the entire pitching staff for the Phillies has thrown to a combined bWAR of 17.7 or better twice in the last 29 years — in each of the seasons in which they did, Hallday posted a bWAR better than eight. In one of them, 2011, Lee also posted a bWAR better than eight.

Bottom line is that the group of four has set the bar almost impossibly high for themselves in terms of whether or not they can ever return to previous, especially 2011, form. In 2011, those four pitchers combined to produce a bWAR of 24.5. Over the past ten seasons, only four NL teams other than the ’11 Phils have put up a combined bWAR for their pitchers of 24.5 or better for their entire staff (the ’12 Reds (26.4), ’09 Giants (24.6), ’08 Cubs (26.9) and ’03 Snakes (27.6)).

In this article from last night, Jim Salisbury suggests the deal for Wilton Lopez is not a sure thing.

This says that BJ Upton and the Braves have agreed to a five-year, $75 million deal. I truly do not know what Upton is going to do over the next five years. But if it’s similar to what he’s done over the last four years, I think it will be good news for the Phils that it’s the Braves and not them paying him $15 millionish a year. He does have huge upside, though. So we’ll see.

Update1: This says the Wilton Lopez deal fell apart.

Update2: This says Denard Span has been traded to the Nats for pitcher Alex Meyer.

Updates one and two are both bad news for the Phillies. Span would have filled the center field hole very nicely.