Philadelphia Phillies to maintain highest Major League attendance in upcoming seasons-Part 2
Offence has been the weak-link of the Philadelphia Phillies in the season. Improvements in this area can provide magical effects on the overall performance of the team.
Their pitchers are among the most feared arms in the National League and hardly any batter cherishes their existence on the mound. They are capable of forcing hitters to make mistakes and getting them to strike-out cheaply.
However, when they witness little support from the offence, their confidence suffers. As a result, their passion to win games for the team turns into a demoralised attitude toward the game and the fall in the belief of their abilities.
At the start of the season, Cliff Lee threw impeccable innings on the mound but he could not enjoy the fruit of his effort as team's offence provided him little to defend. The confidence dented right in the beginning of the season never allowed him to recover.
Thus, when he went on to throw in upcoming games, he was prone to leaking runs.
It is just unimaginable that a hurler of his calibre records such paltry number of wins in a season. Watching him struggling on the mound is kind of disbelieving for the experts who know his stature as a pitcher.
All those fans that believe that 2012 season is a beginning of the Phillies' decline should analyse facts before they make any conclusion.
Handful of factors led to their demise in the season. It appears that if the Phillies could plug certain loop-holes in their offence, their overall performance will have been drastically different. Few changes will have meant that the Phillies are back on
track on the way to keeping their hegemony in the National League East Division.
For example, when the offensive production declined, it should have served as an alarm bell to the team officials. It should have made it clear to the management that if they do not take measures in this regard, the rest of the team will suffer. Regardless
of the immense potential of their pitchers, they will have ended up doing a great disservice to them with the status quo.
Unfortunately they turned a blind eye to this and instead pursued measures which only aggravated the problem. When they should have solidified their offence, they unloaded batters from their roster and weakened it further. As soon as the trade deadline approached,
they resorted to selling and in turn completely ignored the fact that they still were in contention.
Manuel was aware of the fact that offensively they were mediocre right in the beginning. They entered into the season with two of their most dependable hitters injured.
"It's hard for me to sit down and make excuses," Manuel said, "but coming out of Spring Training, we knew we didn't have Utley and Howard, the middle of our batting order was gone, our big run producers. I knew offensively, that was going to hurt us tremendously,
and when I looked at our bullpen, I saw a big question mark.”
In the second half of the season when Ryan Howard and Chase Utley joined, the strength of their offence remained unchanged. Their entry only counter balanced the effect of outgoing batters that were sent by the Phillies to other organisations through trades.
This was the time when the Phillies missed a great opportunity to launch a comeback into the contention for the playoffs.
With Utley and Howard in the line-up if players that were traded had been retained, Phillies’ offence would have improved enormously.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
Continued in Part 3
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