Phillies announcer, Tom McCarthy, said it right last night after the game when the Phillies (31-34) lost to the Minnesota Twins (28-33), “June has been a horrible month for the Phillies.”
The month of June was starting to look promising, for a while, with the Phillies rolling up a 5-game win streak that started June 2nd, and ended on the 6th of June. So it hasn’t been all bad news, but the Phils now find themselves in a 4-game losing streak and the reasons why are pretty simple.
The middle relief pitching for the Phillies has been horrible. The tandem of Mike Adams, who was supposed to plug a bad hole in the bullpen for late relief, and Jeremy Horst, who has a 5.55 ERA in 26 games so far as a relief pitcher.
Mike Adams now has a 1-4 record on the season, with the loss last night. In 21.1 IP, Adams has a 4.22 ERA. Throw Antonio Bastardo into the mix, he’s walked 14 batters in 27 games, and and has allowed 19 H in the process. This all adds up to throwing close games away when the Phillies are ahead.
In 2012, the Phillies middle relief consisted of Bastardo, Schwimer, and Qualls for a large part of the season, among others, and they couldn’t get the job done either.
This season it’s kind of the same story as far as the team not doing too well, when the Phillies need good relief, they almost never get it. When the Phillies really need batting, they just can’t hit the ball. When the Phillies do well with hitting, they get beat up with pitching. That has been the problem lately.
In the next couple weeks, we’ll be hearing about whether or not the Phillies should be buyers or sellers when the trade deadline comes around. Last year, the Phillies dumped two good players in Victorino and Pence, but really got next to nothing for them to make the Phillies better. This year, hopefullly things change. Ruben Amaro can make a deal of two, but at least make a good deal. Don’t deal off a pitcher like Cliff Lee and give us Carlos Zambrano. If that kind of move happens, I think you’ll see a mass exodus of Phillies fans. The kind of moves that have been made in the last 12 months by the Phillies for the most part don’t make any sense. Delmon Young, Ben Revere, and Carlos Zambrano all on the Phillies? If you told me this 18 months ago, I would have thought you were crazy, but maybe the fans are for allowing these kinds of moves to happen with this team that was one of the few elite teams in the league.
