Phillies drop one to last place Pirates.
The Good: Scoring lots of runs. Werth continuing to hit left-handers. He should start every game in which a lefty is starting. Iguchi starting to hit once again.
The Bad: Giving up lots and lots of runs. As much as it pains me to say this, Zagurski just doesn’t have what it takes to be a big league pitcher, at least not yet. Good thing I didn’t order a Zagurski jersey. But now with the ankle injury, he should done for awhile.
Jamie Moyer has to make a big decision. Should he continue to be a pitcher, or is it time to be a pitching coach. Everyone knows he
isn’t going to blow anyone away. For him to succeed, he needs to have good control and a little help from the home plate umpire. But for a guy that relies so much on control, you’d think it would be a little better. I’m not just talking about tonight’s game, because that was a small zone by any standards. But he has to give up less walks. With seven guys behind him to catch the ball, at least give them a chance to help you. It just seems that his slow, slow, and slower approach to pitching isn’t cutting it anymore. Maybe he should work on throwing 97 mph.
This hurts, very badly. Losing a game in which you have a four run lead in the first inning is bad enough. 
But when you do it to a last place team like the Pirates, it’s a wonder why I embarrass myself by wearing a Phillies shirt all day at the beach today. I thought a guy like Moyer would be able to take the lead and run with it. However, I guess the Phillies pitching didn’t want this game bad enough because they kept handing it over to the Pirates. Continued to let them crawl back into the game. We have to make sure that we don’t forget Nunez helping the Pirates with his two run throwing error. I don’t want to criticize him because he’s got as good a glove as anyone else on the team, but those two runs really opened up the game. If you’re driving in runs every other game, a few errors are tolerable. But when you haven’t hit a ball out of the infield the entire season, you need to have a perfect fielding percentage.
I think we all remember Lohse’s last start. The one in which Mr. Russell Branyan made his debut with a clutch pinch hit homerun. Lohse easily deserved a win in that game. But that was when the Phillies didn’t really feel like scoring runs. Nonetheless, Lohse had one hell of a start, if he can just reproduce that with the Phillies once again showing their offensive might, he should be in good shape. Looking at Ian Snell’s last two starts you’d think he was having a pretty good year. But throw in his eight starts before that and you’ll see a string of starts in which he gave up four or more runs five times. Snell has a good fastball and good curveball, and gets better as the game moves on. He needs to improve his control and lefties hit him well. As usual, a series win is a decent accomplishment. After blowing Saturday’s game, the very least they can do now is to win two games.
Last start: ND / 7.0 / 3 ER / 8 H / 0 BB / 7 SO / New York
Last words . . . I just need someone back, either Utley, Bourn, or Victorino. Anyone except Barajas.
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Posted on August 18, 2007 by Soss | Filed Under Baseball, Philadelphia, Phillies, Philly Sports, Professional Sports
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Just another loss, a win today (Sunday, and the series is still a success.