CinePhillyist Reviews... The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Playlist Rewind: Shonen Knife at Johnny Brenda's
Phillyist Playlist: 311 at the Borgata Event Center
Where Have All Our T-Shirts Gone?
I Have a Baby and Ten Dollars...Now What?
David Bell is hitting .251. Bell’s counterpart on the Chicago Cubs, Aramis Ramirez, is hitting .309 with 27 homers. David Bell has 28 homers in the last 3 years. After last night, Chris Mustazza and I are growing frustrated. Bell may be single-handedly bringing down the Phillies season.
I’m with Chris on this one. Chris suggested to me today, joking around, that the Phillies give Bell to a contender and actually offer to pay his salary. I don’t think that would be out of the question—Bell’s “defense” is one of his selling points, and after last night, I don’t have much faith in his future in the big leagues. If I were Ed Wade, I’d pay to get him out of town. He looks older than the 8 year veteran that he is. Looking at Bell-Lieberthal-Padilla, the 7-8-9 hitters in last night’s lineup, I felt like I had a migraine headache. I was sensitive to light. I need to lie down and close my eyes. I know Abreu-Burrell-Howard is really strong. But what happens to a potential rally when David Bell gets to the plate? The rally dies.
Last night’s game against the Cubs, a fellow contender for the NL Wildcard, came down to David Bell. In the ninth inning, with the Phillies down by a run with bases loaded and one man out, David Bell came to the plate, took two balls against a wild Ryan Dempster, then struck out. Then Tomas Perez struck out to end the game. If all you knew about the game was that the Phillies had managed four hits, with Vicente Padilla on the mound against the masterful Carlos Zambrano, then I think you would have predicted a loss. But maybe you would not have thought it would be as close as it was—with a chance to win it in the ninth. If you knew that a game was going to all come down to David Bell, do you think the Phils would have a chance? I wouldn’t.
All of the postgame comments by Charlie Manuel were about the utter frustration of coming within the brink of a satisfying win only to lose your grasp on a game that Ryan Dempster almost handed to the Phils. The frustration is not imagined: it’s there. The frustration of fighting for the wildcard with other competent teams that are standing out only enough to win some close games; the frustration of David Bell’s misplay of a two-run hit in the eighth inning; the frustration of Bell and Perez swinging when they should be taking.
David Bell’s lifetime batting average is .256. His lifetime on-base-average is .318. That is not okay. Even Mariano Duncan, who walked once a month when he played with the Phillies, earned 12 base on balls for the NL Champion 1993 Phillies, displaying a nearly as impressive .304 on base average.
It was one of those nights where you don’t have Thome or Lieberthal, or the bullpen to blame. David Bell was the villain. And if you look closely at the numbers, his poor 2005 performance is lurking in the quiet clubhouse behind each Phillies loss, behind many blown rallies.
Although you chalk up games like last night’s to David Bell’s continued struggles to be a major league run producer, and the Phils bench continues to demonstrate it’s lack of depth (is Tomas Perez the best you can do in the bottom of the ninth? I would rather have had Lieberthal stay in and take his cuts, righty versus righty) it’s hard to get too frustrated over a Zambrano-Padilla match up. The next two games will be more favorable to the Phillies, at least in match-ups, as the Phillies throw Miguel Tejeda against Jerome Williams tonight and ace Brett Myers against the Cubs ace Mark Prior tomorrow. When you have Zambrano vs. Padilla, you have to accept the loss and move on; turn up the intensity before it is too late.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Post a comment (Comment Policy)