Phillies offense tired of having to support Roy Halladay
After weeks of providing little support for ace pitcher Roy Halladay, the Phillies offense has decided to cut the pitcher off altogether and insist that he become more self-sufficient around here.
“We want to help him out, but he doesn’t want to even help himself,” Ryan Howard said of Halladay, who has only contributed a .116 batting average to help his own cause. “We’ve only spotted him a few runs in the past month or so, hoping he would get the hint and either leave or get to work, but he just sits there hoping everybody else will do the work for him. We’ll see how much he likes no run support at all. And if he doesn’t like it, then he can carry his freeloadin’ ass back to the American League with their designated mommies that do your hitting for you.”
The offense plans to use the runs they would have scored for Halladay to further support Kyle Kendrick for some reason.
Halladay finds 72 imperfections after analyzing perfect game
Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay became just the 20th pitcher in major league history to throw a perfect game, but after analyzing video of his performance, the former Cy Young award winner deemed it “a stark reminder that I still have a lot of work to do.”
Halladay watched the replay of his perfecto several times and noticed at least 72 separate imperfect acts through his perfect nine innings of work.
“I’m completely embarrassed right now and feel like I owe everyone an apology,” said Halladay, who still refuses to acknowledge his historic outing as a perfect game. “People say I’m being too hard on myself, but I can’t justify calling that a perfect game when I threw 43 balls. I just wish I could hit the reset button and try again.”
Though Halladay managed to find several dozen imperfections with his own performance, the Phillies ace also mentioned that he found at least 6,804 imperfections in the Phillies offense throughout the game.
Bullpen preserves Halladay shutout by staying in bullpen
A night after blowing a three-run lead with two outs in the ninth inning against the Braves, the Phillies bullpen atoned for their mistake by keeping their ass in the bullpen as Roy Halladay went the distance for his first NL shutout.
Halladay, aided by several spectacular defensive plays behind him, scattered five hits and struck out seven in his second complete game of the season, but the main story was the hand he received from his bullpen.
With one out in the 8th inning, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel made the call to his bullpen to just sit there and don’t touch anything while Roy Halladay handles his business.
“I made the call to the bullpen in the 8th inning and told them to just sit there and don’t touch nothin’,” said Phils manager Charlie Manuel. “They were outstanding. They sat there and didn’t touch nothin’.”
Halladay is now 4-0 with a 0.82 ERA in 33 innings and two complete games with the Phillies, which is the identical line Cliff Lee had after his first four starts last season with the team. However, the redder Ferrari has only surrendered three walks this season, which is pretty ridiculous when you realize he has more wins (4) than walks.
Philadelphia baseball club reportedly wins game or something
Editor’s Note: We here at Philly Gameday like to present relevant news that is important to the Philadelphia sports fan. Unfortunately, we are being forced to publish a story about a local baseball team even though it seems everyone just wants to talk about the Donovan McNabb trade. We apologize ahead of time for the following story and hope you will return to the site in the future.
A baseball club with ties to the area began its season on Monday and reportedly played well enough to defeat another team, though it’s still unclear how this has anything to do with Donovan McNabb and his trade to the Redskins.
“Apparently these ballplayers did some amazing things on the field yesterday,” said one local reporter. “Unfortunately, they aren’t Donovan McNabb, so there’s no way they’re getting more than five seconds of attention today.”
According to this guy’s report, the main pitcher man did something awesome and a new player man ran home and people were cheering or something. The final score was 11-1, but McNabb got traded to the Redskins and that’s all you apparently need to know.
Report: Halladay retires six Yankee batters on two pitches
New Phillies ace Roy Halladay reportedly needed only two pitches to retire six of the seven Yankee batters he faced in Thursday’s Spring Training opener.
“He was every bit as amazing as we thought he’d be,” Raul Ibanez said of Roy Halladay’s performance. “To go out there and retire 12 batters on one pitch is just sick.”
The only baserunner allowed during Halladay’s 19-inning outing came on a throwing error by Placido Polanco in the first inning. Polanco would later apologize to Halladay and praised his new teammate for an impressive no-pitch performance that killed at least five Yankees.
Manuel reports no pain after watching Lidge throw off mound
Charlie Manuel told reporters that he felt no pain while watching Brad Lidge throw 30 pitches off of a mound on Thursday.
“I really felt good out there today,” Manuel said of his Lidge-watching session. “A lot of people didn’t know this, but I watched in a good deal of pain for most of 2009 when Brad was on the mound. It’s one of those things you just have to fight through and keep watching though. Today’s outing was a good sign that I may be able to stay pain-free all year.”
Manuel also suffered through bouts of Jimmy and Cole last season in addition to the painful Lidge outings, but according to team doctors, being able to watch Roy Halladay every fifth day should help the manager stay healthy and pain-free.
Phils still waiting to jump into the free agent reliever pool
December 27, 2009 by Zaki
Filed under Analysis & Opinions
Fernando Rodney, Matt Capps, Kelvim Escobar, Mike Gonzalez and J.J. Putz have all bit the dust and now the Phils are stuck with names like Danys Baez, Mike MacDougal, Kiko Calero, Miguel Batista, John Smoltz and Will Ohman to fill the remaining two or so spots of our ailing bullpen.
Of the remaining arms out there, the only guy I worth getting excited about is Kiko Calero, who is coming off of a career year in 2009 (1.95 ERA with 69 Ks in 60 IP).
You have to wonder why so much effort was put into the slight upgrade of Roy Halladay over Cliff Lee while Amaro continues to either pass on or let valuable relievers slip through his hands — especially when the bullpen was a major weakness last season.
This continues to be a pretty weird offseason for the Phils and I’m just waiting for that move that I can stand behind 100%. Brian Schneider was about as close as I’ve gotten at about 94.19%.
Happy Holidays and Halladays to everyone, from Philly Gameday
Between Roy Halladay and Jrue Holiday, Philly fans will have plenty to look forward to in the coming years. And for the folks that don’t read so good well, it’s pronounced Hal-A-Day…not Holiday.
From myself and the two awesome guys that contribute to the site, have a happy and safe holiday season.
The truth of the Cliff Lee situation shall set us all free
December 18, 2009 by Zaki
Filed under Analysis & Opinions
We give a then 45-year-old Jamie Moyer $13 million after a sub-par 2008 postseason and now we send Cliff Lee packing after plowing through the eventual World Series champs like he was Tiger Woo…ok, nevermind. But something ain’t right here, Rube.
I heard on 97.5 The Fanatic this morning that the Phillies presented Lee with a contract extension offer about a week before the deal went down and within hours of presenting a counter-offer to the club, Lee was headed to Seattle for prospects.
If the above is true, then the Phillies essentially offered Lee a contract extension knowing he wouldn’t accept it right away and were talking to Toronto about trading for Roy Halladay in the meantime.
To me, that’s pretty damn shady of Ruben and the Phillies to dismiss Lee just because you want to bring in Roy Halladay. As great as Halladay has been and will probably be for the Phillies, I think Lee has earned the right to be treated as a king in this town for what he did this year instead of being heandled like Adam Eaton’s soiled draws.
Personally, I wouldn’t have made the deal if it strictly came down to keeping Cliff Lee or taking Roy Halladay. Halladay’s got the deeper resume, but you can’t do any better than 4-0 and shutting down the Yankees twice in the postseason, so I’m not tinkering with a great thing.
The only reason I initially liked the Halladay deal was because of the rumors about Lee wanting too much money and wanted to walk after the season.
Of course, most of this will fade when Halladay heads out there and does what Halladay has done for some time now, which is dominate anyone holding a bat 60 feet away from him, but we still have to wallow in this mess for the next couple months. What would make it worse is if Halladay or Cole Hamels goes down at some point — or worse — if Cliff Lee pitches out of his mind in Seattle and we’re left wondering what could have been in Philly for 2010.
I just want the truth of what really went down because it’s sounding like the Phillies screwed Lee over and if that’s the case, it’s going to be hard to stand behind a team that rolls that way when he gave you the most thrilling pitching performances this franchise has ever seen.
Phillies dealt Cliff Lee to replenish candy bowl in lobby
On a day when the Phillies officially introduced Roy Halladay during a press conference, Wednesday’s talk seemed to center around the trade that sent Cliff Lee to the Mariners for assorted pieces of candy.
Many Phillies fans felt like the team should have tried to keep both Lee and Halladay in the rotation, but Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro characterized the Lee deal as a necessity for the organization’s lobby stash.
“We could have kept both of them,” Amaro said of Halladay and Lee during Wednesday’s press conference. “But it was a baseball decision for me and our organization. We could not leave our candy bowl bare.”
With the team’s recent offseason activity, people have been in and out of the lobby at Citizen’s Bank Park taking all of the Hershey’s Nuggets and Snicker’s Bars, with nothing left but a couple Circus Peanuts and Mary Jane’s. Amaro maintains that the Lee deal was his best shot at getting back some solid stuff for future visitors.
“If we held onto Lee for this season and lost him to free agency, there’s no telling what kind of stuff we’d get for him in the draft,” Amaro said of the compensation candy the Phillies would receive for losing Lee after the season. “If we let him go as a free agent and end up with some butterscotch in return, then we’re screwed. It’s my job to maintain a delicious stash of treats in our lobby, even if that means giving up the ace that would make our team the most unstoppable force this world has ever known. But a World Series title with Charleston Chews in your bowl does no one any good.”
Phils dealt Lee to replenish prospects [Philly.com]
