MLB Betting: Philadelphia Phillies Mid-Season Report

At the start of the season, it looked as if the Philadelphia Phillies were the team to beat. MLB odds had them favored to win the World Series, and they were set with a strong pitching rotation and solid bats. To good to be true?

What’s wrong with the Philadelphia Phillies, who were a team that was the MLB odds favorite to win the World Series this season based on established lines about six months ago. There is never an exact science this game called baseball. The ball is round and players use a rounded piece of wood to strike contact with that sphere. Strange things will always happen and the Phillies have had a long list of ‘painful’ things happen to them.

The first, is that the injuries to all stars Chase Utley and Ryan Howard have taken far longer to heal and for them to be both back in the lineup. Utley has batted nearly every game in the three hole with slugger and former MVP Ryan Howard batting in the cleanup spot. This chemistry had a lot to do with the success of the Phillies teams past.

Jayson Werth, now a Washington National, batted fifth for the team in the Phillies glory years. He had incredible seasons with them because he saw fast balls to hit and could sit on fastballs against almost any pitcher that would be on the mound. The five hole at the MLB level is a critical spot for generating RBI’s and for being the hitter than can blow a game wide open with a big inning and a crooked number on the scoreboard.

Phillies Bats

The Phillies are hitting .262 ranking 10th in team batting average in MLB. What is hurting is that they are not getting the key hits that they executed in years past and when they do get the key hit, the late inning bullpen relief will give it right back to the opponent. Such is baseball. Another key though is the power outage, where they rank 20th hitting one home run every 36 at-bats. By comparison, the Yankees hit a homerun every 21.6 at-bats ranking best in baseball.

Yet, their hitting becomes a bit controversial when you look at batting average on batted balls in play. In other words, what is the batting average on a ball that it is hit into fair territory. The Phillies are batting a solid .295 ranking 19th in MLB on balls batted into play. In 2011, they averaged .282 ranking 27th in MLB.

Moreover, they are not getting enough extra base hits ranking 28th in MLB with a 30.8% of their hits being extra base hits. This targets the key hit problem for the Phillies, though, as the team ranked 19th with 31.8% of their hits being doubles or better. Still, not a big difference, but is a contributing factor to the lack of wins and mounting total of losses.

Phillies Pitching

It has been the Phillies pitching that has been the demise of the team this season. Ryan Madson was the setup man in years past and he was shipped out without a matching offer to free agency. He is out for the season, however, so it is hard to say with any certainty that he would have made a significant contribution to the Phillies had he even stayed with the club. Still, the late inning blunders centered around Antonio Bastardo and Charlie Manuel’s continued confidence in his failure that has been the most obvious and glaring problem for the Phillies. 

Runners in Scoring Position

Obviously, a team’s ERA based on situations with runners in scoring position (second or third, and second and third base occupied), will be significantly higher than the pure game ERA measure. The Phillies rank second to last in this category with a 13.00 ERA and this statistic includes starters and relievers. By comparison, Washington ranks best with a 8.36 ERA so this is a clear spot of failure for the Phillies this season. 

The Philadelphia bullpen ranks 29th in MLB with a horrifying 4.76 ERA and have pitched the second least amount of innings of any MLB club. This clearly shows that the starters are gettig the job done, but when the ball gets handed to the bullpen leads are blown and tie game situations end up losses.

Let’s note to, while I am at it, that the closer Jonathan Papelbon, sports a 3.34 ERA with a solid 1.14 WHIP. Factor him out of those horrid bullpen stats and you have some very frightening numbers and pitchers, who are barely Double-A quality.