The first two games are down and out of the way and the Braves have come out with half the win total against the Phils as they had all of last year. The team has responded to the challenge of playing the defending World Series champs as well as I could have possibly imagined.
Pitching: Both Derek Lowe and Jair Jurrjens were unhittable. They combined for 13 and 2/3 shut out innings against one of the most feared lineups in baseball. Check out these lines for the Phils 3 MVP candidates.
Jimmy Rollins- 1 for 9
Chase Utley- 2 for 7
Ryan Howard- 2 for 8 with 2 Ks
The vaunted Phillies leaders went 5-24 with no RBI against our 2 aces. The entire Phillies team has only been able to scrap together 1 run on 10 hits (with only 3 being for extra bases). Lowe and Jurrjens only gave up 6 hits combined. Unreal! The bullpen has even looked halfway decent. Mike Gonzalez labored through the first few hitters in the 9th on Sunday but shut the door when needed most then had a perfect inning tonight. Soriano pitched a solid inning only allowing a walk. Even Eric O'Flaherty looked promising coming in and protecting the lead after Jeff Bennett allowed the 1st runner on that he faced with 2 outs in the 5th. Now we have to be getting excited since we still have 2 debuts coming with Vasquez and Kawakami. Assuming those go as well as I plan, we should be 4-0 going into Saturday.
Hitting: 5 home runs for this team already. 2 for an outfield that only hit 27 all of last season. WIth that said though, we haven't exactly been hitting the cover off the ball. Chipper has started hot though, and Jordan Schafer gave us a hopeful glimpse into his future hitting a 400+ foot homer to the deepest part of Citizens Bank Ballpark. What the offense did do is stake our starters to 2-run 1st inning leads and added on through out the game.
Overall, everything is goign according to plan (my plan) thus far. The Braves have started off like they were playing in the spring. Don't expect them to fall off. We're here to stay.
No comments:
Post a Comment