Results tagged “ryanmadson”

We’ve had some amazing athletes grace our city in the last 25 years. Some of the greatest to ever play their game have suited up and thrilled the fans of Philadelphia.

The Phillies have signed free-agent Brett Favre…er, 33-year-old outfielder Geoff Jenkins (see the resemblance?) and 30-year-old starter/reliever Chad Durbin, continuing a rather dulling off-season for the Fightins.

by Ryan Dougherty

They’re up, they’re down, they’re all around. The Phillies halted a five-game losing streak and a possible sweep by the Boston Red Sox, on Sunday afternoon. But they blew it in an up and down, 16-inning marathon 9-8 loss last night to the New York Mets. Ryan Madson might as well have been the starter – he came into the game in the ninth inning and pitched seven innings of relief, his longest outing as a major league pitcher. He was near perfect until his last pitch, which turned into a Carlos Beltran home run that gave the Mets the win.

The Phillies called up 22-year-old superstar Cole Hamels to the big leagues yesterday. There’s a few reasons why this is a great move: an 0.39 ERA over the starts in Scranton. In those three games, he allowed a whopping one run, and batters are hitting .128 against him.

We had so much hope in Ryan Madson, the hot young thing that could be the stable leg in the Phillies' starting rotation. Wrong. He got shelled last night for nine runs, and it only took him an inning and some change to do it. Hey, we know it happens, but this is a bad time for a Phillies pitcher to self-destruct early in a game, especially with a bullpen that’s already overtaxed. They managed to hold the Nats to one more run for a 10-4 loss, which give the Phillies a whopping 2-7 record at home.

Jimmy Rollins extended his league-leading hit streak last night against the Atlanta Braves, but that was about the only thing that went right for the Phillies. The Fightin's lost 4 - 1 against the Braves last night in Atlanta, leaving them two games behind the Houston Astros, who beat up on the Pittsburgh Pirates. Both teams have 11 games left this season. The Marlins, sitting in third place in the Wild Card race, lost to the New York Mets in 12 innings and now find themselves three games back of the Astros.

Bobby Abreu’s first inning grand slam off of Mark Prior in the 92 degree heat at CBB gave Brett Myers a four run lead, enough room to pitch with a good amount of sloppiness. Myers flirted with disaster, giving up 10 hits to the 30 batters he faced. But luckily for Myers, and for the Phillies, Myers held off the Cubs without giving up one home run, although he did allow five doubles. The Phillies hit three home runs off of Prior, adding a Chase Utley shot in the fifth and a Todd Pratt blast in the fourth. Because the long ball tallies were all courtesy of the Phillies, the Cubs were never able to score more than 2 runs in an inning. Due to the early Phillies lead, Brett Myers could afford to be a little more aggressive to Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez than he otherwise might have been.

. It’s the second in a row of Lieber’s starts where the he had pitched an excellent game and the team could not score a few runs to get him the win. In his last start before last night, the Phillies lost 1-0 to the Dodgers; last night, they lost 2-1 to the Astros. Just score some freaking runs and give this guy a break! Phillies, you have no excuse for last night: you had all of your starters playing (except for Lieberthal, but that’s a good thing), you had an excellent game from Lieber, and you even had that ridiculously shallow 315-ft left-field wall.

Chris Mustazza and Phil Sandick, our regular Phils followers, are back again this week to talk about five issues surrounding our Phillies. This week, the duo examines how likeable this team really is, Ryan Madson's role, and Jim Thome's future in Philadelphia, plus much more.

Un-freaking-believable. That’s all that can be said about tonight’s heartbreaking loss to the Atlanta Braves. Never before were the Phillies’ relief pitching needs as apparent as they were tonight. Robinson Tejeda had another sterling start, as he led the Phils through 6 shutout innings with only two hits surrendered. This kid is on fire. He hasn’t allowed a run in three of his five starts. No one expected Tejeda to come up this big when he filled the void left by the injured Randy Wolf. It really looked like the Phils were going to take this one. It actually took more effort to lose this game than it would have to win it. The loss can be chalked up to horrific relief pitching. The blame can be divided amongst Rheal Cormier, Ryan Madson, Ugueth Urbina, and Billy Wagner. All of them contributed to the Braves coming back from a 3-0 deficit in the final innings to win 4-3. The Phils’ runs were scored by a 3-run homer from young prospect Ryan Howard. Howard will continue to play for the Phils while Jim Thome is on the DL. So what do the Phils do now? Do thet need to make some trades by the deadline and pick up better starting and relief pitching? Do we really want Ed Wade to pull the trigger on such a decision? Who would the Phils trade – Howard, Wagner, Burrell, Utley? These are all questions that will need to be answered in the near future. Here’s what I think they should do: in true Philadelphia tradition, the Phils need to trade some of their most valuable prospects for a washed-up player who used to be good. The Phils need to offer this player a big-money deal for a long time-period. Also, whoever the Phils trade should promptly become a spectacular player – ala Scott Rolen. Might I suggest Ryan Howard for Mike Piazza at 10 million a year for 7 years?