Sixteen games have been played this season. At this time last season, Cleveland was leading the Central, while Detroit was two games below .500. The Reds would have won the Central, while the Cardinals were barely .500. And the Colorado Rockies were running away with the NL West. In fact, Had the season ended after the Phillies 16th game last season, the NLDS matchups would have been Rockies vs. Marlins and Phillies vs. Reds. Three of those teams finished sub-.500 last year. The AL matchups would have been been murkier (but closer to reality), with Cleveland winning the Central, either Anaheim or Texas taking the West (with a wildcard battle between the west loser and Kansas City), and the Yankees winning the East. While watching the Phillies the past couple of weeks has been painful, perhaps these trials are a lesson that will make thmem stronger, and (other than the 2009 Yankees), the World Series has been won by teams that have fought tough battles to get there- last year's Cardinals won the wild card on a wild final day of the season, the 2010 Giants won the West on the season's last day after chasing down the Padres,and the Phillies clinched the East in 2008 in the last weekend of the season. Maybe living through the tough stuff and finding ways to succeed gives these teams an edge that lets them face adversity when it happens in the post season knowing they can rise to the challengs. The Phillies teams that made it to the World Series were both .500 at this point after starting the season sub .500. This team will be fine!

It is often said that football is a game of inches... but I think in this NFL playoff's it has really been a game of feet (and ankles)...

• The Broncos beat the Steelers in part because Ben Roethlisberger was less than fully effective due to a high ankle sprain.
• The Ravens beat the Texans in part because they were facing T.J. Yates instead of Matt Schaub, whose season was lost to a Lisfranc Sprain in his right foot. Heck- the Patriots in some ways owe home field advantage to this injury!
• The Patriots beat the Ravens because a ball off of the right foot of Billy Cundiff sailed wide of the mark.
• The Patriots lost to the Giants in part because old "friend" Bernard Pollard continued his march of destruction and sprained Rob Gronkowski's ankle.
• In good news, at least the Patriots conducted themselves with pride and did not put any feet in their mouth this year!

It has been suggested by some that it is time for Brady to go. After all, he is getting older, and his playoff performances of recent have not been what they used to be. Emotionally, this move just feels wrong. He is the face of the franchise, and of the NFL- like Peyton Manning in Indy, it is hard to see him in another team's uniform. But sentimentality and emotions do not win championships, and as every one of us has learned at one time or another, this organization is far from sentimental. So perhaps it is time for a bit of rationality- is it time for this franchise to embrace a re-build- offensively as well as defensively?

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With the baseball season ended far sooner than any of us would have liked, the time has come for off season pursuits. For me, that includes reading. With the recent release of the movie Moneyball, my desire to read the book has been piqued (I generally try to read the book before watching the movie.) I have done online book clubs in the past, and loved the opportunity to discuss what I was reading with others. I was wondering if anyone else would like to do a book club to read Moneyball. If you are interested, please post in the comments. I hope to see a lot of you there!

Good Afternoon all- I have a bunch of Borders Gift Cards from Christmas that I need to use before Borders liquidates, but for once my booklist is incredibly short (read almost empty), so I would like to know- what football books have you read and loved, or want to read? They can be about the Patriots, or football in general- not very picky here! Alternately, are there any books on other topics that you have read and just loved? Thanks in advance for helping!

Good Afternoon all- I have a bunch of Borders Gift Cards from Christmas that I need to use before Borders liquidates, but for once my booklist is incredibly short (read almost empty), so I would like to know- what baseball books have you read and loved, or want to read? They can be about the Phillies, specific players, or the sport in general. Alternately, are there any books that you have read and just loved? Thanks in advance for helping!

Just a little bit volatile... via media.trb.com

 

This afternoon, Cliff Lee started July with a performance that was as ugly as his June was beautiful. When Lee imploded in the eighth, it was sudden and traumatic- 4 runs went on the board in the blink of an eye, turning a narrow lead into an almost sure defeat. This got me thinking about just how volatile Lee is- when he is good, he is amazing (as he was in June) when he is off, he falls apart just as spectacularly. He is in many ways the pitching equivalent of the little girl with the curl right on the center of her forehead. 

 

Last June, David S. Cohen created the kERA, or Kendrick ERA stat in response to Kyle Kendrick's volatility- to that point in the season, he had been either very bad, or very good, with almost no in between. He developed this stat by taking the difference between the pitcher's ERA in the best half of his starts, and his ERA in the bottom half of his starts. At the time, the group thought was that the better the starter, the more a smaller kERA would be desireable, as for lesser pitchers, the volatility would make it so that some of their starts would still be very winnable. 

With that in mind, I looked at the Phillies starters to see how their ERAs, kERAs, and win-loss records fit together. For the purposes of this writing, I looked at every Phillies pitcher to start a game (with the obvious small sample size warnings for pitchers not named Hamels, Halladay or Lee). The results are after the jump. 

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via www.blogcdn.com

 

Sitting here today with the World Series tonight, and the Phillies not going for the first time in three years,  I got to thinking back to all of the moments that made up this season, some were happy, others not so much, but all in all, a ride that I am glad that I got to take with all of you!

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via www.csnphilly.com

 

Roy Halladay, for all of his talent had never beaten the Giants. While he had not seen them often, the team tended to hit him hard, and going into Game Five of the NLCS, had never allowed less than four runs in any start against them. In two games this year, his line was as follows:

14 IP 18 H 9 R 9 ER 0 BB 12 K 3 HR

In the first inning of Game 6, Halladay looked to be in for more of the same. Halladay had allowed a walk and a single, along with an RBI ground out. His pitching was so off that there was a first inning coaching visit to the mound. Over the course of the game, though, the Giants were not able to hit him hard. No home runs were scored that night, with the hardest hit balls being a pair of back to back doubles in the fourth. Watching from home, Halladay did not look like his usual crisp self, and it later came out that he had pulled his groin in the second inning of the game (ironically trying to strike out Cody Ross). Unable to launch off of his plant foot as he normally would, his pitch selection was forced to change. Gone was his sinking fastball, as Halladay was forced to stick to breaking pitches- beating the Giants with a combination of curve balls, cutters, and change ups. He gutted it out through six clearly labored innings before being lifted, giving up only one more run, and getting the Phillies what they needed- a Game Five win. The natural thinking is to believe that this injury was a hinderance, and to wonder what type of game he would have put together had he not been hurt. But could this actually go the other way? Could pitching without a fastball actually have given him an advantage?

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After last night's game, I am trying to find a way to look at games pitch by pitch- specifically the pitch type (and result) for each pitch thrown by a pitcher in a given night. I know that it is possible to do this by going into Game Day on a regular computer, but I do a lot of my research on my iPhone while travelling, and full scale Game Day is flash enabled, making it a no go. Any help that y'all can give me would be appreciated! Thanks in advance!

via isportacus.com

After Saturday night's game, phrozen asked in the post game threads whether Shane Victorino had made the last out in a high number of games. I thought that Werth had a lot of these final outs, as I remembered him striking out to end the game a number of times earlier this year. That got me thinking, so I looked through this season to find out who had the most last outs, and whether it was possible that either recent, or more memorable (read close) games somehow skewed perception. So who made the largest number of final outs for the Phillies this year. The answer is not who you think, as you will see after the break

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