It’s another opening day down in South Philadelphia today as the Philadelphia Phillies open their 136th season of playing baseball. You have to figure that with over 100 years of history Phillies have had their fair share of controversy, this year is no different only this year the controversy seems to be lying within the manager’s position.
It’s Opening Day though, I think we should be giving new Phillies manager, Gabe Kapler, a bit more time to settle into his position. What the Phillies have done since the beginning of the season hasn’t been that great. They come into this Philadelphia home opener with a 1-4 record, and they have already sunk to the bottom of the NL East.
The starter for today is Nick Pivetta finished with a 8-10 record last year in 26 starts, he had a somewhat balloon 6.02 ERA in 133 IP. He will have to really improve this year, so far he has started 1 game in 2018. He was only in for 4.0 innings and gave up 3 ER.
The Phils face the Miami Marlins today, so you would think that would possibly help them in securing an Opening Day victory. The Marlins though are just coming off a game with the Red Sox in which they battled them into the 13th inning before losing to a Hanley Ramirez HR, the Red Sox have been red hot, winning 5 games in a row.
My early fears about this team as I wrote about have been coming true. The moves by Gabe Kapler so far have been very knee jerk, he’s trying to play the numbers in analytics rather than sitting back and trying to manage the game. Substitutions and plenty of pitching moves have been very much criticized by a lot of writers in the press. We will see if this settles down as the season goes on.
The home opener is always a great game to take in, it’s a celebration of baseball. Plenty of fun events on the outside of the stadium and even more going on inside the stadium as we see some of the new menu items and different vendors that have signed onto the ballpark. Bull’s BBQ has moved and there have been a few other changes as well.
The NL East has the NY Mets leading the division right now with a 4-1 record, they just ahead of the Braves and the Nationals who both have 4-2 records.
Phillies injuries:
| Name | Last Updated | Injury Type |
|---|---|---|
| Jerad Eickhoff | March 29, 2018 | Upper Body |
| Tommy Hunter | April 02, 2018 | Hamstring |
| Mark Leiter | March 29, 2018 | Forearm |
| Pat Neshek | April 04, 2018 | Shoulder |
Here’s a table from Baseball-Reference on how the Phillies have done so far:
| Gm# | Date | Tm | Opp | W/L | R | RA | W-L | Loss | Time | Attendance | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thursday, Mar 29 | boxscore | PHI | @ | ATL | L-wo | 5 | 8 | 0-1 | Neris | 3:28 | 40,208 |
| 2 | Friday, Mar 30 | boxscore | PHI | @ | ATL | W | 5 | 4 | 1-1 | Carle | 4:16 | 35,123 |
| 3 | Saturday, Mar 31 | boxscore | PHI | @ | ATL | L | 2 | 15 | 1-2 | Velasquez | 3:21 | 37,777 |
| Gm# | April | Tm | Opp | W/L | R | RA | W-L | Loss | Time | Attendance | ||
| 4 | Tuesday, Apr 3 | boxscore | PHI | @ | NYM | L | 0 | 2 | 1-3 | Lively | 2:51 | 21,397 |
| 5 | Wednesday, Apr 4 | boxscore | PHI | @ | NYM | L | 2 | 4 | 1-4 | Hutchison | 3:05 | 21,328 |
| 6 | Thursday, Apr 5 | preview | PHI | MIA | 3:05 | 3:05 | 3:05 | Game | Game | Game | Game |
