Pitching improvements, Terrible 2's, and more

Welcome to Philadelphia, Joe Blanton. Blanton is definitely a guy who is primed to come around. While he's not Ben Sheets, and he's not CC Sabathia, Blanton is a needed addition to the Phillies' staff. At the very least, this is addition by subtraction....take away Adam Eaton from the starting rotation and the Phils take a step in the right direction.

Blanton makes his Phillies debut against the Mets on Tuesday, the 22nd. Mets batters David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran are a combined 3-for-20 (.150 avg.) against Blanton. 2 of those hits belong to Beltran.

Statement to ponder...The catchers suck. Everyone's favorite 35 yr old sophomore, Chris Coste, hasn't been able to shake himself out of a slump this month. Carlos Ruiz has been slumping for almost a couple months now. Since seeing his batting average reach a season high of .246 on May 25th, Ruiz has had only 1 multi-hit game and his avg. has dipped just about every week, to where it stands now at .204.

In 11 July games, Coste is batting .125 (4 for 32).

In 11 July games, Ruiz is batting .138 (4 for 29).

As pointed out by several sources, first of which was yesterday's game radio broadcast, Colbert Hamels has given up 6 earned runs in his last 3 starts. 5 of those 6 runs are solo homers. Hamels, to be a real ace, needs to cut down on his homeruns allowed. Oh, the offense scoring some runs behind him, might assist with that also. The Phillies have scored 8 total runs in those same previous 3 Hamels starts, and have lost two of those games.

Lastly, I want to touch on the Matt Holliday trade rumors. Keep dreaming!

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Phreestyle Battle & Notes

Unrelated to baseball, really...but it's fun and our Phils are off today. This new kid on the hip hop scene, Charles Hamilton , whose single Brooklyn Girl is ripping up radio and video count downs, was at PSU for a performance recently. A freestyle battle ensued, and as you'll see, the Penn State student held his own. Stay tuned for the ending. It's the best part. Here are some random Phillies-in-idle baseball thoughts and notes- Colbert Hamels is slated to make his Grapefruit League debut tomorrow vs. Team Canada. Shane Victorino is going to wear #50 on his jersey for Team USA, a nod to Hawaii Five-O. Brad Lidge is likely to not see game action till next week, after he throws some more bullpen sessions and works out the tightness in his forearm. Albert Pujols is declaring "respect for his country" as reasoning for sitting out of the Cardinals' exhibition this week against Team Dominican Republic. He told reporters, "I don’t want to play against them...

Heroes- Fight of the Century

VS. It's a big day for your boy, Jay Ballz . No work, X-Men Origins: Wolverine premieres, our Phillies face the Metropolitans for the first time this season and tailgating for BOTH doesn't sound all that absurd to me. Anyway, I surveyed some qualified phans and got several opinions on how exactly a fight might go down if the mutant hero Wolverine faced off against Phillies hero Matt Stairs. Well known blogger, Chris, of I've Made a Huge Tiny Mistake , kept it real and said the following- "Wolverine has adamantium ( indestructible metal substance) claws, so that's a great advantage. Stairs' Wonder Bat is neutralized there. See, the problem becomes Wolverine's ability to recover (he has a regenerative power) faster. Stairs is merely human. Sure, he has a goatee, and goatees are great, but they're great for saving sauce, not for defeating mutants. I think Wolverine takes it in a fight to the death in about 15 minutes because Stairs simply doesn'...

Michael Taylor Q&A

Michael Taylor is currently leading the Reading Phillies' offense and is near the top of the Eastern League in most stat categories (3rd in batting avg- .342, 3rd in HR- 14, tied for second in RBI- 55, 2nd in OPS.- .994, tied for 1st in runs scored- 49, tied for 1st in hits...). The 23 year old Taylor is 6 feet 6 inches tall and has quickly grabbed the attention of phans and media alike as a top prospect to watch. I spoke with Mike Taylor over the weekend, and here is that interview. With all the big stats and being among the league leaders in so many categories, do you think you're ready for the next step? It's kind of a difficult question. Do you have anything left to prove here? There's always something to prove. There's stuff to prove every game. I mean that's one thing that's very interesting about this game. It's such a numbers oriented game. You're only as good as your last "whatever statistical category that someone's valuing". ...

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