KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Ran out of real estate in the 50-cent edition (too much going on yesterday) to sufficiently handicap the candidates to make Freddy Garcia's scheduled start Wednesday night against the White Sox. So, we'll do it on The Blog instead.With top pitching prospect J.A. Happ on the disabled list, there appear to be three front-runners: right-handers Zack Segovia, J.D. Durbin and Kyle Kendrick (left to right). Before last night's game, assistant GM Mike Arbuckle offered these scouting reports on them:
On Segovia (1-7, 4.92 ERA at triple-A Ottawa): "He's scuffled, but I think we've still got to talk about him. He's leaving too many pitches over the heart of the plate. He's not going to overpower people, and his stuff is good enough if he locates. But he's not located like he needs to."
On Kendrick (4-7, 3.21 at double-A Reading): "Kendrick has pitched very well in double-A. I think we've got to talk about him. He's pitched deep into games, and he's thrown strikes. We've got to make a determination where he's at mentally [and] whether he could be ready."
Not much on Durbin (2-4, 5.13 at Ottawa), except that he once was a Twins' prospect and he has major-league experience, going 0-1 with a 14.63 ERA in five games (one start) for Minnesota and Arizona. One sleeper is right-hander Matt Childers (4-1, 3.41 at Ottawa). Charlie Manuel said the Phillies likely will name Wednesday's starter before tomorrow night's game.
* Promised to give y'all some flavor of KC, so here goes. The local specialties are BBQ and steak. Tried the BBQ for lunch Friday and found some excellent ribs here. The last-place Royals, who haven't made the playoffs since winning the World Series in 1985, aren't exactly holding everyone's attention. Last night, I met up with a friend who covers the University of Missouri basketball team for the Columbia Daily Tribune. While we were here, an announcement was made that tickets are still available for today's Royals-Phillies game. Didn't see anyone lining up to buy any. Last night's promotional giveaway: a Dennis Leonard bobblehead. Leonard retired in 1986. Ah, the glory days.
* From Sunday's 50-cent edition: Jon Lieber stymied the Royals; the Phillies don't suspect any foul play in the Freddy Garcia trade, and even if they did, they couldn't do anything about it; Jose Mesa is back and Paul Lo Duca returned fire at Cole Hamels; old friend Jim Thome is about to return to Philly.
* Light rain right now. Supposed to be like this all afternoon, but they're expecting to get the game in. They better. The Phillies play here once every 27 years. ... (Update, 12 p.m. Central): Chase Utley is getting a rare day off today).
4 comments:
Mesa's ERA with the Phillies matches his Tigers ERA (12+). Dallas Green is the biggest moron in baseball. But I'm glad they keep consulting him - Phillies and their dumb fans will be disappointed once again.
It was a flat out gutless performance today by the team from the 6th inning on. They played like they wanted to board the plane after the 5th. It was absolutely pathetic.
Good teams don't lose 2 out of 3 to the Royals. People want to jump on the bandwagon every time they sweep a team like the Mets, but then they follow it up with a poor performance against the Royals. Good teams beat up on bad teams like the Royals. Good teams punch in runs when men are in scoring position. The Phillies are mired in mediocrity this season. Sure, they'll make a late July/August run when all the pressure is off and come up short again. But, really does it even matter if you come close? To me, it doesn't. Get it done (Get in the playoffs), already.
i lost any hope of a playoff birth in anyway when garcia went onto the DL. we're going to be trotting out paul abbot v2 all year long now for the 5th spot. we have NO ONE that is close to coming up in the rotation. any pitcher that looks decent is either 2 years away or on the DL.
Phillies (and fans) are mopes.
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