Forget who’s starting game three. Should Cole Hamels have started game two? I recall too well my mental and emotional state the day my first kid was born, and let’s just say anything I would have tried to write that day would have read like Sylvia Plath on an ether binge. Plus there’s this issue Hamels has with day games…
Charlie Manuel is of course getting killed today for his handling of the pitching staff, and not entirely without justification. I kinda like Charlie acknowledging that all the rigid roles on his staff have broken down, so almost every pitcher the Phils have can expect to be used at almost any time - that’s how it oughta be, and how it will be, necessarily, for most big-league teams 10-15 years from now. If they have to go with a Pedro/Blanton/Happ troika in game three, that’s not at all a bad thing.
What I’d like to know is, why have 12 pitchers on your postseason roster if you only have confidence in 7-8 of them? Manuel relieved Hamels with Joe Blanton in the sixth, down 4-0, with a one-game lead in the series, thereby perhaps jeopardizing Blanton’s availability for game three.
If you weren’t going to use Chad Durbin or Kyle Kendrick in that spot, when are you going to use them? Having three bullpen righties active in this series, Durbin and Kendrick and Brett Myers, none of whom you quite believe in or have a specific job for, is ridiculous. The only position player Manuel didn’t use yesterday was Paul Bako, the backup catcher. That’s why Cliff Lee had to pinch-run.
Of course, the sixth inning would have been Chan Ho Park’s spot if healthy. His absence looms large over this series. But so, in fairness, does the unavailability to the Rockies of Jorge de la Rosa, a lefty who won 16 games.
Ruppie is hysterical today even by his standards, but I still like the Phils in the series, and I still think their lefthandedness is the key. You’ve got to like that lineup against Jason Hammel and Jason “Mercury” Marquis with Lee coming back, if necessary, in game five.
