Phillies Bullpen Continues to Bleed in Loss to Detroit
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The Phillies bullpen which has clobbered in recent days, and which has been inconsistent at best for the entire spring training, continued that trend on Friday as the Phils fell to the Detroit Tigers by a 12-9 score.
When I say clobbered, we’re talking 31 runs in 3 games and opening day looms ever closer.
Starter Freddy Garcia looked good shutting down Detroit over the first 3 innings before giving up a run in the 4th. But then in the Detroit’s 4 run 5th, he walked two and allowed two hits before being relieved by Brian Sanches who gave up a bases-clearing double. All four 5th inning runs were charged to Garcia.
So, in the words of Philly.com’s Marcus Hayes, while “the Phillies’ lineup might be the best in the National League East [and] Ditto the starting rotation,” Inquirer staff writer Todd Zolecki writes that Phillies manager Charlie Manuel “hasn’t seen anybody step forward to claim one of the available jobs in the bullpen.”
Zolecki writes;
So far, he has seen nothing that makes him feel confident about handing the ball from a starter to a reliever come April 2.
“I’m concerned about it,” Manuel said, “but we talked about that in the winter.”
The Phillies’ bullpen allowed seven runs in 31/3 innings yesterday. It also allowed three inherited runners to score.
Combined, that’s 10 runs.
But that’s been the norm. The 14 Phillies relief pitchers currently in camp have a 7.14 ERA in 691/3 innings.
“That speaks for itself,” Manuel said. “We’ve got jobs, roles, whatever, that are wide open. Somebody ought to be able to step up and take one of them, shouldn’t they?”
One would think.
Five pitchers are considered locks for the bullpen. They are, along with their statistics, righthanders Tom Gordon, with two scoreless innings in two appearances; Antonio Alfonseca, with a 6.00 ERA in three appearances; Geoff Geary, who has a 4.91 ERA in five outings; and Ryan Madson, with a 6.00 ERA in three appearances; as well as lefthander Matt Smith, who has compiled a 16.62 ERA in four outings.
Lefthander Fabio Castro is a strong candidate should the Phillies fail to acquire a veteran lefthander, which they said they would like to do. In four appearances, Castro has an 11.05 ERA.
Rule 5 draft picks Alfredo Simon, who has amassed a 12.46 ERA in three appearances, and Jim Ed Warden, who has an 8.31 ERA in five outings, haven’t made a favorable impression.
Then there are others such as Clay Condrey (8.44 ERA), Kane Davis (7.36 ERA), Justin Germano (4.50 ERA) and Brian Sanches (7.56 ERA).
Ryan Cameron has a 2.25 ERA in three appearances, however.
Joe Bisenius has thrown well. He hasn’t allowed a run in four appearances, but the Phillies think he needs seasoning and is more likely to open the season with triple-A Ottawa, with a midseason call-up likely.“At this point, I don’t rule anybody out,” Manuel said. “He’s looked real good. He lacks experience, but we’ll keep running him out there and we’ll see what happens. I like his arm. He’s been throwing strikes. We’ll see.”
In Friday’s game, it was the Phillies who broke out on top for a change with 3 runs in the 3rd inning on Detroit starter Mike Maroth on Shane Victorino’s three run homer. The Yahoo game recap notes that the Phillies have homered in 14 of 16 games.
Then Detroit got to Freddy Garcia for a single run in the 4th inning and roughed up both Garcia and Sanches for 4 more runs to go up 5-3 after 5 innings.
Maroth, in the meantime, survived the 3rd and shut the Phils down in the 4th and 5th innings, although he threw 75 pitches during his stint and was behind in the count a lot of the time.
In the 6th inning, the Phils scored 3 and went back on top by 6-5. But then Tigers bludgeoned the Phils bullpen scoring 2 more runs off of Sanches in the 6th to go back on top 7-6 and then scored 5 runs off of relievers Antonio Alfonseca and Kane Davis; 2 in the 7th and 3 more in the 8th to build the lead to 12-6.
Tiger reliever Jose Mesa who gave up the 3 Phillies runs in the 6th inning was credited with the win while Sanches who gave up the lead run in the Tigers’ 6th inning was charged with the loss.
The Phils tried to rally back in the 9th scoring 3 runs but it wasn’t near enough.
Victorino was 3 for 4, Ryan Howard was 2 for 3 and outfielder Michael Bourne was 2 for 4 with an RBI.
Centerfielder Curtis Granderson was 2 for 4 with a homer and 2 RBIs, shortstop Carlos Guillen was 2 for 2 with a homer and 2 RBIs, 3rd baseman Brandon Inge was 2 for 4 with 5 RBIs and pinch hitter Timo Perez belted a 3 run shot off of Davis in the 8th inning.
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