With the Phillies seemingly pulling away in the NL East, it’s becoming easier and easier to get complacent. Recent strong performances by Jamie Moyer, J.A. Happ, and Rodrigo Lopez have the Philly faithful confident in the rotation, and all of a sudden giving up a boatload of prospects for Roy Halladay seems entirely unnecessary.
For those who have truly been paying attention, however, this is still a team with some serious flaws.
All due respect to Happ, but I’m not sold that he is this good. While he has given up three or fewer runs over his last five starts, you really need to look at the opponents he’s faced before you get too excited. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Toronto, and Baltimore are anything but powerhouses, and his latest hot streak comes after two dreadful starts against the Mets and Red Sox where he walked ten batters. To his credit he has improved his control and cut down his walk totals, but who says that’s a problem that won’t flare up again at some point?
As for Moyer and Lopez, I have about as much faith in them as I do in the stock market. When they’re up they are solid, but when they’re down they are a massive liability. Who knows what we can expect from Pedro Martinez too?
The bottom-line is the Phillies need at least one more solid starter (not necessarily of a Halladay-caliber) to contend for the repeat. They may be pulling away in the NL East, but the Phillies aren’t competing with the lowly Mets or Marlins anymore. The teams they really need to be concerned with are the Red Sox, Dodgers, Cardinals, and the other top teams in the league that they will inevitably run into in October. Hell, even the Mets will be getting a lot of talent back off the injured list in the coming months, and the Braves starting pitching is really coming on. A seven-game lead may seem safe, but a lot can change in a minute in the MLB. Just ask the Mets over the past two seasons what happened to their supposedly safe late division leads.
He probably just struck out.
Another area of need that has really been ignored in lieu of the Halladay rumors is a right-handed bat off the bench. Miguel Cairo and Chris Coste failed miserably to fill the role, and John Mayberry (.176 BA) and Eric Bruntlett (.132) have been particularly bad of late. Bruntlett in particular has been a disaster in every way shape or form: he just isn’t a major league caliber player, and the fact that he is still even on the roster is a credit to his versatility in the field and nothing more. Notice I said VERSATILITY and not SKILL: his three errors put him in a tie for forth on the team despite the fact that he has played in far fewer games than those around him on the list (Rollins, Werth, Ruiz, etc.)
That’s two crucial areas where the Phillies need to improve over the next 11 days, and it will be up to a rookie GM to get the job done. All I know is if the Phillies come up short after Amaro stays pat at the deadline (IF he doesn’t make a move) we’ll know exactly who deserves a big part of the blame.
