Two comments on the Phillies

Well, the Phillies lost again yesterday. 7-5 to the Mets at Shea. They're now 5.5 games out of first place. In the first week of May. This is a very bad sign. But on to my comments.

1) This has more to do with the people writing for the Phillies website than the Phillies themselves, but it left me so flabbergasted that I need to comment. When I checked on the score of yesterday's game in the top of the ninth, the headline was "Padilla turns in decent effort against Mets". Padilla gave up 4 runs in 4 1/2 innings. If he put in a "decent" effort like that in every game, his ERA would be 8.31. I don't know whether expectations have just gone to hell or what, but there's just no way a performance like that can be described as "decent." Then again, maybe they were just writing about his effort, not his performance. Well, to be honest, I don't care all that much how hard he tried (though see here). I care how he actually performed. And yesterday's performance was atrocious. For the Phillies writers not to recognize this is a disservice to the fans.

2) Tim Worrell had another awful outing, giving up three runs in the eighth inning, allowing the Mets to extend their lead to 7-2. If that weren't painful enough, the Phillies came right back to score three runs in the top of the ninth. This isn't to say that had Worrell pitched a no-run 8th the Phillies would have won; if it had been a two-run game in the ninth the Mets may have gone straight to their closer, Braden Looper (whether he's successfully close the game is another question). But there's no denying that it's a whole lot easier to erase a two-run lead than a five-run lead. Worrell's poor performance really hurt.

On the bright side, manager Charlie Manuel finally seems to have realized that using Tim Worrell as the set-up man for Billy Wagner is a bad idea. That Worrell accepts this is good news, too. Hopefully this means we'll see better bullpen management from Manuel, with Ryan Madson and Aaron Fultz pitching in high-risk situations before the middle of the eighth inning. After the eighth inning has started, it's time to bring in Billy Wagner, who has been lights-out all season.

This change won't allow the Phillies to jump up to first place. They need more runs and more consistent starting pitching to do that. But using the bullpen's strengths effectively can go a long way, especially in close games.