Billy Paultz Reconsidered

August…. the storylines of the baseball season are already old enough to be tiresome, but we’re still a ways from anything decisive. There’s so much failure in baseball that when it isn’t quite leading to anything, it’s tough to take. And everybody knows football is coming. This is a tough time of year to follow baseball […]

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One interesting thing about the Penn State investigation on “Outside the Lines,” was the contrast between what Joe said and what University president Graham Spanier said.
Confronted with the raw numbers - 46 players arrested since 2002, 27 of them found guilty of something - Paterno went into knee-jerk defensive mode, using the word “witchhunt,” several […]

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I wrote this last night during the Barnstormers’ game and then got occupied writing alternate ledes to that 10-9, six-error, 217-minute mess of a game. Random observations while getting ready for the Barnstormers game with Newark at the Clip…
ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” is reportedly planning a look at some of the off-field issues with Penn […]

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The Phils and Blue Jays are evidently in serious talks about A.J. Burnett. I’ll be looking for Blue Jays scouts (Jim Fregosi?) when I go to Reading to watch Brett Myers pitch Saturday. Reading has some legit prospects, but since the Big Club’s catchers are a 35 year-old and Carlos Ruiz, I’d strongly advise against […]

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Even though it’s rendered moot by the events of this morning, here’s the column from yesterday’s Sunday News: 
In 2003 Joe Kerrigan, then the Phillies’ pitching coach, told anyone who’d listen that Brett Myers’ head position at the release point — yanked to the left, toward the first-base line, rather than toward the plate — was a […]

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Some things that have annoyed/amused/intrigued me lately:
*Re: The Phillies nice win over the Mets Friday. Nobody I heard mentioned that Johan Santana - who averages 200 innings a year and over 100 pitches a game - left a 2-2 game after eight innings having thrown 95 pitches, with a lefthander, Ryan Howard, leading off the ninth. The night […]

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Despite himself, Chase Utley seems to be having his moment. Everybody digs the Phillies’ second baseman, including the all-star voting public and this guy. Now he’s been named one of America’s 25 fittest men by Men’s Fitness magazine.

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The Phils scored seven runs in the first two innings last night against a pitcher who was throwing 97 with movement. That made 42 runs in a stretch of 20 innings. Things are going fairly well right now.
In more substantive news, tonight’s start might be a crucial one for Adam Eaton. Kris Benson threw 75 […]

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After Chase Utley crushed a three-run homer against the Mets on ESPN a couple weeks back, Joe Morgan said, sort of flippantly (I think), that Utley has a chance to be the best-hitting second baseman ever. Since then I’ve read and heard some similar things, so I thought I’d look at Utley vs. some of the […]

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… it’s April, and he was over 100 pitches headed into the eighth inning in Milwaukee last night. Given that, you’d hope the Phillies’ ridiculous 5-4 loss to the Brewers might shut up the “pitch counts don’t matter,” crowd, or at least give those folks pause for thought.
Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.
The irony is this […]

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