Hittin' weather

Crazy day at the old ballyard yesterday. So crazy that I had four different stories written during the game based on the outcome only to scrap them all when Raul Ibanez smacked his grand slam and when we learned Brad Lidge had an MRI, a cortisone shot AND was taking anti-inflammatory medication. So yeah, crazy day at the ol' ballpark.

"Good ol' slugfest," Charlie Manuel said.

Charlie calls these early hot days "hittin' weather." He's certainly right about that considering the ball seems to travel a little bit longer when the winds are calm and the temperatures higher at Citizens Bank Park. Ibanez says he noticed the ball carrying well during batting practice earlier on Monday afternoon. But even Ibanez or Manuel would have had difficulty predicting the long shots belted by the Nationals and Phillies.

Not only did two shots clear the center field fence and strike the batter's eye (Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard), but the Nats clubbed two upper deck shots - one to left by Zimmerman and one to right by Nick Johnson - and blasted one onto Ashburn Alley by Elijah Dukes.

Clearly the Nats gained more yards in the air than the Washington football team did all of last season.

Though the Phillies offense seems to be clicking after the two losses to the Brewers late last week and the first part of the Marlins games, Manuel is clearly concerned about the team's pitching. The staff's ERA is far and away the worst in the National League and only the Rangers and Yankees have a worse mark in the Majors.

"Looks to me like they are leaving pitches out over the good part of the plate," Manuel said when asked about his staff's troubles.

And by good he meant from a hitter's perspective.

At this point it seems as if the manager has little flexibility in regard to his staff. J.C. Romero is still serving his suspension (he has 32 games to go), Lidge might have a DL stint coming and the starters aren't giving the relievers too many breaks. So far the Phillies are fifth in the league for innings by relievers and 14^th in innings pitched by starters.

Unlike with hitters, Manuel can't sit pitchers when they struggle. In fact, it might be the exact opposite - if a pitcher is struggling the manager might opt to get him more work.

You know, depending on the circumstance.

Surely the pitching will be a topic to rear its head again soon...

* Not messing around... Speaking of J.C. Romero, the suspended reliever is not messing around with his law suit against the makers of the supplement 6-OXO Extreme as well as the retailers that sell the product. How so? Consider that he has Howard Jacobs as one of his attorneys.

Yes, that Howard Jacobs.

For anyone who follows cycling, track or doping cases, Howard Jacobs is the go-to name in law. It seems as if he has represented everyone from Tyler Hamilton to Floyd Landis to Marian Jones. If there is one lawyer who knows about the ins and outs of doping tests and drugs in sports, it's Jacobs.

Better yet, Jacobs was a competitive triathlete so he understands all of the aspects of doping and athlete's rights.

The presence of Jacobs on Romero's legal team as well as thoughts from several attorneys weighing in on the case indicates that the pitcher has a strong case.

Still, one lawyer said if the supplement company advertised its product as something that complies with the MLB testing regimen, then yeah, Romero has a case. Otherwise, he might be losing even more cash.

Game 4: Phillies 6, Brewers 2

MILWAUKEE – Charlie Manuel went with Brad Lidge in the ninth with a four-run lead mostly because there won’t be another game until next Thursday. Because the closer struggled a bit in Game 1 on just three days of rest, the Phillies might need to make sure they stay sharp the rest of the week. At the same time, the Phillies will have a pitching staff rested and chomping at the bit when the Dodgers come to town next Thursday for Game 1 of the NLCS. Obviously L.A. will be sharp and rested, too, so it should be a pretty good series.

After all, pitching and defense are the keys to playoff baseball. During the regular season it’s often difficult to find rest for some pitchers, but here the Phillies and Dodgers will get some built into the schedule.

They can thank the prime-time TV schedule for that.

Anyway, down to the clubhouse for more color and flavor from a celebratory clubhouse. Do they pop the champagne for the NLDS? The Rockies did last year, but is it necessary?

Oh hell, why not? After all, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen every year with the Phillies.

Live it up!

Game 4: Phillies 6, Brewers 2

Phillies win series 3-1

It's still about the pitching... right?

Runs are easy to understand. Actually, scoring runs are the most important thing in baseball. Get more than the other team and you win. Yes, it's so simple. The thing about runs though is that they have a way of clouding up the memory banks. It actually might be one of those cases where one cannot see the forest save for the trees.

Or something like that.

The point is that beneath an avalanche of runs and, the nice little ancillary benefit called wins, has been some pretty decent pitching outings. In last night's 7-4 victory over the Rockies, Kyle Kendrick turned in a career-high 7 1/3 innings, which ended up being the most important performance of the game. For one thing, Kendrick kept the Rockies from inching back into the game when the Phillies' bats finished scoring for the evening.

For another, Kendrick gave the bullpen a break. After all, the relievers had to turn in five, solid innings to keep the Astros in check last Sunday when ace Cole Hamels turned in an atypical poor outing. As a result, the bats rewarded Chad Durbin and the gang with 15 runs and some not-so strenuous situations on Monday and Tuesday nights.

After the game Kendrick explained how pitching with such a big lead actually helped him last night. While the Phillies scored seven runs before they had even registered five outs, Kendrick said he could relax, settle in and go to work.

"That's big," Kendrick said about the early support. "When you take the mound, it's your job to give your team a chance to win."

More importantly to the guys behind him, Kendrick pitched quickly, threw strikes and got them back into the dugout reasonably quick. According to Jimmy Rollins, those traits are a sign of Kendrick's maturity, which is saying something considering the young right-hander had all of 12 starts above Single-A before joining the Phillies last season.

"He got up there and he pounded the zone, and got ahead of hitters," Rollins said about Kendrick. "He's keeping us in the game. That's all you ever ask of any starting pitcher. He's starting to rediscover his confidence."

Perhaps some of that comes from the tutelage of the sage-like, 45-year-old starter Jamie Moyer. Kendrick regularly chats with Moyer for advice and guidance on pitching and baseball, which makes a lot of sense. After all, Moyer was finishing up his first professional baseball season when Kendrick was born. Plus, there are very few situations that Moyer has not seen - or been directly involved in - during his 22-season Major League career.

So watching Moyer work through his seven-inning stint during the 20-5 victory over the Rockies on Monday might have been the perfect primer for Kendrick.

Though pitching with such a large lead is difficult for some pitchers because they claim they have difficulty directing their focus, Moyer kept the Rockies to just six hits and four runs with just one walk and seven whiffs while the offense piled on the runs.

But falling back to his old mantra of "Keep it simple, stupid," Moyer says his focus was on keeping the Rockies from scoring as many runs as he was given. As long as the Rockies never matched his teammates, Moyer was satisfied.

"I was just trying to stay away from the crooked numbers," Moyer said. "To me it's just about winning, not the numbers."

A good offense is certainly is a nice luxury to have. But then again, what good are scoring runs if there is no one to stop the other team?

Truth hits everybody

If you ever have the chance to visit a press box in a Major League stadium, take the invitation under advisement. These places are how I always imagined old west saloons to be in that they are filled with misfits, outlaws and the dregs of society. Essentially, the kids you knew in high school that you were fairly certain would eventually move on to a solid career as a name on the authorities watch list hang out in big-league press boxes. The press box in a ballpark in any city across the country is where these people gather nowadays. Once, Manifest Destiny sent all those people west to escape one bad deed or another, but a century-and-a-half later, they watch professional sporting events.

If there were a piano player plinking out those jaunty, bouncy saloon notes, all we'd need is someone to serve whiskey instead of Hi-C and then the ballpark in South Philly would instantly be transformed into an episode of Deadwood."

I've never actually ever seen an episode of Deadwood, but I hear things.

Anyway, in the press box, the outlaws and the rejects get together and talk about the state of things. No, it ain't exactly a sewing circle, but if anyone wants to hear the story behind the story, a press box is a good place to go.

And if you go, just make sure you're updated on your shots and your papers are in order. I also suggest taking a small shiv that can be stowed up a sleeve or behind a belt. When you step into a press box, you never know when it's about to go down...

Needless to say I made it out of press row at CBP following Monday afternoon's debacle against the Washington Nationals relatively unscathed. I say relatively because I woke up this morning with a head cold that made me feel as if a dump truck at backed over my temples. A baseball bat to the noggin would have been preferable to the feeling I had all morning until a Technicolor nose-blowing session, a couple of Sudafeds and some Italian Roast from the Starbucks.

They didn't have Yukon.

The fact is that along with its general surliness, the press box is the breeding ground for many airborne infections and diseases. Again, if you go, make sure you're updated on the vaccinations.

Anyway, based on a few of my conversations with a handful of creeps at the ballpark yesterday I was able to discern that most folks in the know don't think much of the 2008 Phillies. Sure, they are a playoff-contending team and very well could capture the NL East for a second straight season. But in order for that to happen the team's hitters are going to have bash the ball at a rate more prolific than Genghis Khan.

Simply put, the pitching just isn't there.

Initially I felt bad about predicting a third-place finish in the NL East for the Phillies. I was worried that I made such a pronouncement out of some sort of spite or anger that is rooted in my DNA as a born-and-bred Northeasterner. Worse, I felt that by suggesting that the Phillies were only as good as the offense would allow them to be that I would be exposed as an even bigger fraud than what is already obvious. What happens if the Phillies' pitching measures up with the rest of the staffs in the division? Surely no one likes to be shown that they don't know what they are talking about.

Then again that, as they say, is part of baseball. Players rise up and shove it in someone's cakehole every day. One day a guy is up, the next day, yadda, yadda, yadda...

But when Tom Gordon slinked off the mound after that five-run ninth as if he had just been caught feeding rat poison to the neighbor's overly yappy dog, it all became clear. A few of my more astute colleagues and I were correct - it's all about the pitching.

And that means the Phillies, as they are currently constructed, are going to have to bash their way to another playoff appearance.

Meanwhile, it was noted by more than a few folks in the writing press that if people truly believe that the Mets' acquisition of Johan Santana is relatively insignificant, then the proper course of action would be to remove the television from their homes so they could never, ever watch the game again. Because it's obvious they don't get it.

Santana is another one of those truths that some people just don't want to accept.

Hi, remember me?

I'm finally back from a weekend of masochism (a.k.a. the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, Vt. where the temperature reached 85 oppressive degrees under an unimpeded, sweltering sun) and a couple of days at the ballpark to get back into the grind of writing about a baseball team. But before we get into the baseball stuff it's important to welcome Miss Lucy Samantha St. Clair to the world after her birthday on May 25. From the sound of it, Lucy was rarin' to go and surprised everyone by making her debut six weeks early. So far, Lucy's mom and dad are doing really well, but we're sure they're going to be tired soon.

Tired old injuries... Jon Lieber had an MRI yesterday to determine the extent of the damage caused to his injured groin. However, at the time we saw Lieber in the clubhouse he did not know the results of his exam, but that doesn't really matter. Whether or not his groin muscle is torn doesn't seem to change the period he will be out, which the Phillies are saying will be three weeks to a month.

Either way, Lieber's absence will hurt the Phillies. Sure, he hasn't been as good as in past seasons, but the big righthander is still an innings eater, who has pitched the team to the seventh inning in all but three of his 11 starts and one of those was lastMonday when he left the game early because of his injury.

Plus, Lieber won a lot of games last season because of his ability to keep himself (and the team) in games.

In his place the Phillies decided to call up Eude Brito from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre instead of activating Cole Hamels from the disabled list. Hamels, of course, is pitching in a rehab assignment for Single-A Lakewood tonight where he'll throw between 75-80 pitches, so it makes the move to plunk Brito into the rotation for a turn or two look like general maintenance.

But that's where it gets tricky. The Phillies very easily could have opted simply to activate Hamels to pitch Saturday in Lieber's normal spot where he could throw his 75-80 pitches against Major Leaguers for a team in desperate need of pitching help, but instead decided to have the lefty phenom pitch tonight... The same day as Gavin Floyd -- and his 6.62 ERA -- take the mound against the Dodgers.

When Hamels is ready to pitch again it will be on the same day as Floyd.

Does this mean Floyd has been put on alert? Or that the improved Ryan Madson is a better option for the rotation now than Floyd? Maybe there is a trade brewing? After all, there were a whole bunch of scouts in the press box during the past two days. Some of that might have to do with the upcoming draft, but where there are scouts, there are a lot of people talking with conspiratorial voices.

Even manager Charlie Manuel's comments about the situation are cryptic:

"I don't want to put pressure on our young pitchers. I want them to be able to go out there and throw their game. I don't want them to read into things. I don't want them to go out there thinking 'I've got to get this guy out or I'm going to the minors.' I'll surprise them one way or the other.

"I think when you're pitching, somewhere along the line, unless you're pitching outstanding, there's going to be some heat put on you."

Certainly the situation would be solved so much more easily if Randy Wolf were ready to go. Even though the All-Star lefty looked pretty sharp in his first game action (he whiffed five of the seven hitters he faced in two innings in an extended spring training game), he's still at least a month or two away from joining the Phillies.

Interestingly, Wolf is pitching again in an extended spring training game on Saturday.

Etc. Does anyone think former Phillie Jason Michaels went over to new teammate Scott Sauerbeck, showed him a copy of his mug shot from last summer's little dust-up with the local police and said, "I understand, man... I've been there."

Maybe not, huh?