2008 Philadelphia Phillies Season/Playoff Thread (Die Mets Die)

[Don Ho]

wearing my Victorino jersey to junior's football game later this morning!  awesome!

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Wow. Hacktorino gets a free handjob on the house

Cholly?

[Wingspan]

Phils magic number: 98

And a thing about Lidge. There is a slight reason to be concerned (I am not bashing him here)...but I am not sure he has thrown 2 fastballs in the month of June. He's using his slider, almost 100% of the time. He's going to need to use his fast ball eventually, but there has to be a reason he just isn't throwing it right now.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Wing, I think you are off about his fastball usage. He has used it quite often.

[Wingspan]

No, he hasn't. (none is an exaguration...but i don't think he threw it more than once last night) he's using his slider as two pitches. He can place it for a strike, and then he throws it in the dirt to have them chase.

He barely ever throws the fastball, and I was wondering why.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I seem to recall him using it more often, but I will watch closer. Then again, even if he uses it once per hitter, thats okay because it usually is a strike and then he throws that bad ass slider.

[Wingspan]

i looked it up on mlb.com...and he is using it more than i thought(mostly early in innings). but its actually getting hit way more than his slider. could be that it's not getting the movement he'd like.

[SunMo]

i agree, he is slider heavy...there is probably somewhere to look and find out how it breaks down, but i don't know where that is

[MDS]

Where the hell was Kalas last night? Tom McCarthy sucks.

[BigEd76]

The Braves are aggressive and jump all over fastballs so it made sense to use sliders against them.  Unfortunately he left a few hittable ones over the plate.  Oh yeah....they wouldn't have been in that intense situation at the plate if they held Blanco at 1st.  I also didn't agree with allowing Anderson to move up uncontested.  It's only a 2-run lead.  Do that ish when you're at least 4 or 5 runs ahead...

----

videos of last night

ha....check out the Coste play....someone shakes Cox's hand...

----

Harry was at Kane's graduation

[Rome]

I was just about to post that the hitters dictate what the pitcher usually throws.  That said, Lidge threw 13 pitches last night.  Four were fast balls, three were splitters and the rest were all hard sliders.  The slowest speed on any of them was 85 MPH and the fastest was 97 MPH.  He struck out two guys, McCann & Norton and with Norton Lidge dazzled him with three straight off speed pitches.

The "hits" consisted of an opposite field humpback line and a bunt plus the line drive single up the middle from Escobar.

He actually pitched really well last night as he only threw one bad pitch (to Escobar) that didn't end up hurting him too badly anyway.

[SD_Eagle5]

Someone...maybe Mitch Williams said he wasn't using his fastball as much on DNL the other day. He's consistently in the mid 90's with his fastball but his location has been suspect. His slider is his money pitch and I wouldn't mess with his pitch selection right now. He's been lights out all year.

[Rome]

That's just the thing - he's doing what he needs to do to get guys out and he's been pretty damn consistent in getting the job done.  And it's not like his fast ball has been lollygagging it up there either.  He's at 95-97 on the gun night after night.  He uses the fast ball to set up the off speed pitches that are still coming in fairly hard, especially for off speed stuff.

I watched the 10th inning again, and honestly, he only threw maybe two or three pitches that weren't good and only one that was really sloppy.

And by the way - he was throwing 96 on a miserable humid night in Atlanta.  If he can get it up to 96 there, then there's nothing wrong with his arm.

[Wingspan]

Someone could be throwing 110 and it doesn't matter if the fastball has no movement. (that's not a comment on lidge, it's a comment that thinking 97mph is some masterful achievement that should shake batters in their cleats.)

[SunMo]

the sliders that got hit last night were ones he left up in the zone, he struck out guys on ones that were buried

he hasn't gotten as much work lately so he might not be as sharp as he could be, that will probably change with their upcoming schedule.