Philadelphia Phillies’ offence lets their pitchers down in regular season - MLB Update
Four games they played have gone to re-enforce perceptions made about their offence before the start of the regular season. Phillies’ worries on this front are not new and injures of two of their best hitters Ryan Howard and Chase Utley have just exposed
it rather vividly.
Otherwise, right from the time they were eliminated by St. Louis Cardinals in their play-off contest, as their offence has been vulnerable.
What Phillies’ starter Cole Hamels states on this is enough to suggest that Philadelphia themselves are aware of how their pitchers have been dismayed by the offence on a number of occasions.
Hamels is a starter with one of the poorest run supports drawn by a pitcher.
“Our job is to pitch deep into games and minimize runs regardless of what happens on the offensive side,” said Hamels. “Our job is to get the opposition out.”
Pitchers like Roy Halladay and Josh Johnson are bound to meet losses if Phillies continue with the poor run of hits they are drawing from their offence at the moment. Only handful of hits have come off so far in the four games they played.
The fact they have veterans like Shane Victorino who can fire up any time cannot mask an overall incompetency of their offence.
For the moment, Phillies are under severe criticism over their inability to plug discrepancies, which were prevalent right from the start of Spring Training.
Though no one can predict their fate in just four games, an impression they left on the experts is not allowing them to utter anything positive about their prospects.
As the case may be, who knows down the line Howard and Utley recover and make immediate comebacks to the Big League, as things may change diametrically for the Phillies by then.
This is what one of the Phillies' hitters Victorino seems to be emphasising in his own words however implicitly.
“I understand that,” Victorino said. “We have the expectation to be a winner. But after four games, it’s like the end of the world. We’re four games into this. Talk to me after game 162. We’re way too good a team to worry about it at this point."
Only time will tell how far the Phillies can go in the season with the kind of offence they possess.
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