Path To Victory: Philadelphia Phillies

When the Mets were surging early while Ryan Howard was doing his best impression of Pedro Cerrano impression, it was hard to imagine the Phillies repeating as NL East champions. However, they got enough good performances, especially on the pitching staff, to carry them back into the playoffs. What do they need to do to make Eric a happy, happy man?

Don’t overreact to Burrell’s struggles

He’s been pretty horrible the last couple of months of the season, but if Charlie Manuel decides that represents a real change in talent and limits his October playing time, he’ll be taking a right-handed power bat out of a line-up that needs right-handed power. Burrell’s not as good as he was early or as bad as he was late, and they can’t just react to the recent performance – it’s not more predictive than his body of work overall. Taking Burrell out of the line-up makes the Phillies worse, slump or no slump.

Don’t trust J.C. Romero

You can’t evaluate relievers by using ERA, and with a guy like Romero, that’s even more true. He had a shiny 2.75 ERA this year, but his command is so dreadful that he’s a very risky option as a high leverage reliever. He gets enough groundballs that he probably won’t kill you by giving up the big home run, but you can’t afford to let him walk the bases loaded while trying to find his release point. If ever there was a guy who needed to be on a much shorter leash in the playoffs than he was given in the regular season, it’s Romero.

Ride the big four

There’s a significant talent gap between Hamels/Myers/Moyer/Lidge and the rest of the pitching staff. As much as possible, the Phillies need to maximize the number of innings that quartet throws. The more innings they give to Joe Blanton or the middle relievers, the less likely they are to win. With a wide open National League, Philly has a real chance to reach the World Series this year, but they’ll have to lean on their best pitchers to get them there – the role players aren’t good enough.