This was not a good weekend for the Phillies.
A sweep at the hands of their closest division rival, in dramatically embarassing fashion. Another ugly outing by struggling ace Cole Hamels. A continuously flat offense. Probably the perverbial nail in the coffin of the long, distinguished career of Jamie Moyer. An apparent lack of focus and determination, coupled with some hard partying by a couple of the team's outfielders, resulted in a closed door 20-minute tongue lashing by manager Charlie Manuel Sunday evening.
Ultimately, this weekend could prove to be the best series of the year for the Phillies. Despite being in first place and playing some very exciting baseball for much of this season, the Phillies have often times looked complacent and hungover from their 2008 World Series victory. Coming into this weekend's series, the Phillies looked poised to take advantage of a Marlins' team that just suffered a sweep at the hand's of the lowly Washington Nationals and put some serious distance between them and the rest of the National League East. Unfortunately, they seemed to forget that they had to actually play those games.
Philadelphia Daily News' columnist Sam Donnellon does a very good job of dissecting what went wrong with the not-so-Fightin Phils this weekend in his column today. [Link]
The embrassment suffered by the players, and manager, and the ensuing team meeting, will hopefully send a shock through the roster and shake things up, reminding them that there are still another two months of baseball left to play. Cliff Lee does not automatically translate to the playoffs, let alone the World Series.
Speaking
of Lee and shake ups, Sunday's outing by Moyer, who is the constant
Marlins' killer, most likely sealed the deal for the aging lefty's
ouster from the rotation. Philadelphia Inquirer columist Phil Sheridan
breaks does a great job of discussing the tough, but necessary, job
that Manuel has coming either today or tomorrow when he will most
likely have to tell Moyer, who has done so much for this organization
since coming to town in 2006, that he is the odd man out to make room
for Pedro Martinez. [Link]
We certainly hope that Moyer is savy enough to understand that this move is coming, and needs to be done.
So if Moyer is out, and Pedro is in, what will the Phillies' rotation look like from here on out? Daily News Phillies beat writer David Murphy lays out the possible rotation for the rest of the month in his blog. [Link]
The Phillies look to turn things around Tuesday night in Chicago against the Cubs. The series opener pitcher for the Phillies has yet to be announced, but we expect that to come later today or early tomorrow.
Photo: DAVID MAIALETTI / Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/20090810_Jim_Salisbury__Jamie_Moyer_doesn_t_help_his_cause.html
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