2011 Philadelphia Phillies Season Thread (choking awful pos team, DIAF)

[PhillyGirl]

downtown Domonic Brown

[PhillyPhreak54]

And Hamels is hurting....pulled, speculation that its his back

[PhillyGirl]

oh no.

[Geowhizzer]

Oh shtein.

[PhillyGirl]

Who is this Herndon (the past 2 games) and where did that bottom of the barrel garbage pitcher go?

[MDS]

cole "should be fine." k

@ pg here is herndon since being called up in may:
vs. tex 1.2 IP, 0 er
vs. cin, 1 IP, 0 er
vs. cin, 2.1 IP, 0 er
vs. LA, 1 IP, 0 er
vs. chi, 2 IP, 0 er, r (three terrible defense plays caused the unearned run)
vs. fla, 2 IP, 0 er

so...not bad. hes one of the top five people fans bitch about for some reason but since getting himself in check hes been superb. but im sure the second he gives up a run J and his buddies will be screaming about how awful he is.

also last year he gave up runs 11 times in 47 games. madson gave up runs 10 times in 55 games. not a humungous difference especially considering madson is a reliable veteran reliever and herndon is a random rule 5 guy.

he got a bad rap last year because when he gave up runs he really gave up runs. but when youre the 7th man out of the pen youre going to have a long leash because youre going to be in lopsided games. so if you dont have it, youre not going to be pulled after a couple of batters like middle relievers are.

[Don Ho]

@ pg here is herndon since being called up in may:
vs. tex 1.2 IP, 0 er
vs. cin, 1 IP, 0 er
vs. cin, 2.1 IP, 0 er
vs. LA, 1 IP, 0 er
vs. chi, 2 IP, 0 er, r (three terrible defense plays caused the unearned run)
vs. fla, 2 IP, 0 er

Wow.  Very impressive.  True, the Cubs game cannot be blamed on him.  Horrible defensive support.

[ice grillin you]

Howard fails to win only one thing: Fans' love
By Phil Sheridan
Inquirer Sports Columnist

More than any other sport, baseball can be explained by numbers. So here's a couple for you to consider:

1.28 million.

1.1 million.

The first is the number of all-star votes amassed, at last tally, by Chase Utley, who has appeared in just 19 games this season because of a knee injury.

The second is the number of all-star votes cast for Ryan Howard, who drove in his 54th and 55th runs of the season in his first at-bat Tuesday night.

Utley is third in voting among National League second basemen, Howard is fourth among first basemen, according to the latest tabulation released by Major League Baseball.

Let's be very clear. The point here isn't that Howard should be the starting first baseman in this year's All-Star Game. The three players ahead of him - Albert Pujols, Joey Votto and Prince Fielder - are all richly deserving of the votes they've gotten. Howard's numbers do not make a persuasive argument that he should be ahead of any of them. That is not the point here.

Besides, after carrying the Phillies for half a season, Howard would probably enjoy three days off more than a trip to Arizona in mid-July.

Utley certainly benefits from the dearth of talent at second base in the NL. Cincinnati's Brandon Phillips leads the voting, followed by Milwaukee's Rickie Weeks. It's hard to work up any real outrage that Utley, on rep, is outpolling, Aaron Miles of the Dodgers (.296, .646 OPS entering Tuesday's game) and Neil Walker of the Pirates (.252, .723).

The issue has nothing to do with how Howard and Utley are doing in relation to the rest of the NL. It's about Utley having nearly 200,000 more votes than Howard. Placido Polanco, who is tops among NL third basemen, has received nearly 700,000 more votes than Howard.

We can assume the Phillies enjoy a bump in fan voting because they play in front of a sellout crowd every single home game. With online voting, that may not be as big an advantage, but fans attending a game are still energized to grab a ballot and fill it out. They are also more likely to vote with their hearts than their minds.

So why would more Phillies fans vote for Utley, who has barely played, than Howard, the team's non-pitching MVP so far?

Now we're getting to the point, which is that Howard has inherited Donovan McNabb's old unwanted title of most underappreciated athlete in the city. Or maybe a better way to put it is that, more than anyone else, fans tend to dwell on what he doesn't do rather than celebrate him for what he does.

That may be a Philadelphia fan thing. It may be a sports fan thing. It may just be human nature in general. But the balance is always completely out of whack for a certain lucky player or two at a given time. Eagles fans had McNabb (and now dwell more on Asante Samuel's tackling deficiencies than his ball skills). Flyers fans are more concerned with Mike Richards' iffy captain credentials than his gutsy game. Sixers fans have Andre Iguodala.

Is Howard perfect? Hardly. No more than McNabb ever was. The Yankees did a superb job of pitching to him in the 2009 World Series and he struck out a ridiculous 13 times. And yes, the 2010 NL Championship Series ended with Howard taking a called third strike. Not a great moment.

But why were the Phillies in those series? How did this become one of the truly elite franchises in baseball over the last few years? There have been a bunch of very good players, to be sure. Ryan Howard is the most important.

Going into Tuesday's rain-delayed game, Howard had appeared in 940 regular-season games in his career. The Phillies' winning percentage was .563 in those games. That's higher than Utley (.555) and Jimmy Rollins (.540). It's higher than Mike Schmidt (.525) and Larry Bowa (.515) and Pete Rose (.542 as a Phillie). It's higher than Ted Williams (.546) and Barry Bonds (.538).

Babe Ruth? His career winning percentage was higher.

The 2011 Phillies are winning largely because of their remarkable pitching. No one disputes that. But with no Utley for more than two months, and with Rollins and Shane Victorino out, the Phillies have held on to first place. Howard's batting average is mediocre, his home run numbers are down. There are plenty of numbers available to illustrate what Howard isn't, or what he doesn't do well.

But he has stood in the middle of that lineup and produced runs all season. He always has. Since he's been in the major leagues, Howard has driven in runs and the Phillies have been a contending team. They even became a championship team.

Forget the numbers. Howard wins. Except in the fan voting, but that says more about the voters than about him.

i wish i could get the video and post it because no one will believe me and even if they did you had to see it to truly get the amazingness of it but last night after choke hit his homer as he was coming back to the dugout there was a area of people in the first couple rows behind the dugout that not only were not standing OR cheering for choke but they werent even looking at him...they were talking to each other or some shtein...i couldnt believe it...they didnt show a good shot of GRIT going to the dugout after his homer but i guarantee everyone was up...someone find this video

[SunMo]

i was up big guy, and that's all that really matters.

[PhillyGirl]

It's a shame, because he's not even a fleshpophead like Schmidt was. I don't get the Howard hate. It's like every time I even attempt to listen to any sports radio in this town, there are so many callers that are calling for him to be dealt...or hating on him in some fashion.

The guy is a nice, personable dude....who is knocking in a shtein ton of runs for this team. I just dont' get it.

[ice grillin you]

GRIT is GRIT he will never be anything other than a beacon of light in phillie fans eyes so you can understand him but polanco having 700k more votes than choke is staggering

[Eagles_Legendz]

Zimmerman and Wright being hurt helped Polanco a lot.  Takes down the name recognition from NL 3rd basemen.  Pujols/Votto/etc means there will be some Phillies fans who are legitimately trying to vote for the "best" player who vote for Polanco but not Howard.

[ice grillin you]

none of that remotely explains it

polanco has 700,000 more votes than choke because mets and nationals fans switched their vote to polanco?

half the fans in the league dont even know what position polanco plays until they see a ballot....he is getting all his votes form philadelphia

and wright has played double the amount of games as GRIT...so im not sure how injury plays into this

bottom line is phils fans are stuffing the ballott for GRIT and polanco but not for choke

[rjs246]

Imagine anyone caring.

[MDS]

cause he strikes out too much. people despise strikeouts for some reason, even though they are pretty much just outs. the black thing is a minor part of it because hes not ghetto black like AI which drove an untold amount of people to hate him. howard is good, safe, will smith, wayne brady black. not really the issue.

also lets not sugercoat howard's year. homers are there but his avg and obp are not. his rbi's are a byproduct of having runners on base basically every time he steps up to the plate. of course hes going to knock in 120 runs.

he and utley were also horrendous in the nlcs last year and im still not entirely over that.