Maybe Jonathan Papelbon was right about velocity

Remember the fastball flung from the hand of Jonathan Papelbon that was causing so much distress — the fastball that’s being thrown at a diminished 92.7 mph and has raised questions regarding the closer’s ability to finish games?

Well, that fastball, lacking its past velocity, is doing just fine.

This season, opponents are hitting a meager .154 against Papelbon’s heater, and it’s been the punctuation on seven of his eight strikeouts.

Since his collapse in Texas, Papelbon has tossed eight scoreless innings, allowing just three hits and converting all six of his save opportunities.

The 33-year-old is hitting spots, mixing and matching and still throwing the fastball with confidence in all counts.

Maybe he was right all along.

"Why do you guys care about velo so much, man?" Papelbon said to reporters after saving the Phillies’ 1-0 win on April 17. "Is that -- does that matter? You think that matters? I don’t understand that. I mean, if a ball has life at the plate and you are throwing 88 miles an hour as opposed to 98 miles an hour, it doesn’t make one damn bit of difference. Whether you throw 93 or 94 or 84. I just, I don’t get it, man."

In fact, Papelbon does get it. And so far, he’s been right.

Comments

[bullit]

if papelbon has a great year, will he become tradeable? esp if we eat a few million?

[bay_area_phan]

Jimenez is yet another left-hander, which is the last thing the Phillies need.

[Phillibuster]

I imagine general BP workload will likely decrease across the board soonish. Cliff wasn't going too deep into games his first few starts, nor was AJ, and Hamels being replaced by Pettibone for 2 starts (plus moving up the KK/Hernandez starts to avoid needing a 5th pitcher) really hurt our overall starter IP.

Now that Lee is settling in, Hamels is back, Pettibone is gone, and AJ is looking more solid, I think we can probably expect an average of 4-5 fewer BP IP per time through the rotation. Especially if Sandberg manically rides Hernandez through 6. If Kyle starts going 6.1-7.0 a little more often, we can drop that further.

That's not to say we don't need more competent relievers. We do. But part of the reason some of our BP arms look so much worse than BP arms on other teams is because they're getting exposed to too many hitters.

[Robby]

I don't want to look at Papelbon's picture above anymore.

[Phillibuster]

Also, I don't remember the Phillies getting back to .500 by the end of April last year... Didn't they go something like 2-8 to start the season, and they never really recovered from that until June?

[bittel]

Agree with Philli. Assuming Manship is on the team because he's best suited to being a longman, here's the bullpen I'd like once Martin is healthy:

Pap
AB
Adams
Diekman
Martin
Camp or Giles
Manship or Defratus

Hollands could come up if a lefty gets hurt

[MG]

Alderson didn't have much many left over this offseason after addressing other needs and brought in a bunch of veteran FA relievers on minor league deals including Farnsworth, Dice-K, and Valverde.

Only veteran reliever Amaro brought in was Camp and he traded Lincoln who for whatever reason he buried almost immediately.

[MG]

Philibuster - They were .500 the first week of June and hung around there until after the ASB when they collapsed and Cholly got fired.

[clout]

Last night's loss is totally on the offense. Anytime you give up only 5 runs in 8 innings you should expect to win.

Phillies 8th in NL in OPS+

Phillies 14th in NL in ERA+

[MG is a loser]

MG, get a freakin' life...you're entirely too negative and give us true fans a bad name.

[bay_area_phan]

clout sure does seem impressed by our league average offense. He cites its league average numbers pretty much every day.

[GBrettfan]

From Gelb:

* Josh Collmenter became the first Diamondbacks starter this season with a scoreless outing.
("You're welcome" - Phillies' offense)

* "I think it [going 1st to 3rd) would have been a smart gamble," Mayberry admitted. "The play was in front of me. When he cut it off and got it back in, I shut it down."

* The Diamondbacks, baseball's worst team, last won at Chase Field on April 1.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phillies/20140426_Phillies_fall_to_lowly_Diamondbacks.html#0ugmmEZcz5s0iZE9.99

[Iceman]

"Same thing as last April. Phils hung around ~.500 until Memorial Day until they hit a bump and their season was set."

"They were .500 the first week of June and hung around there until after the ASB when they collapsed and Cholly got fired."

This is the same person talking about the same season. Unfathomable.

The second one is basically correct (the last time they saw .500 was two days after the ASB) but the first one must be talking about another team.

[MG]

Iceman - I meant '12 the first time.

[GBrettfan]

Oops, I meant to take out my flippant "You're welcome." Oh, well!

Sandberg also thought Asche should have gone on to 3B in that play that he ran past 2B and then dove back, the one that was reviewed.

[GBrettfan]

On Hernandez, I keep thinking of Moyer who didn't go past 6 innings too often, and frequently gave up 4 runs in those 6 innings. Although Moyer's ERA was lower than Hernandez's is (so far). And when Moyer did have a 5.01 ERA, it was in '07 when the Phillies offense could negate a 4-run deficit with relative ease.

But at least Hernandez is only $4.5 million. We paid Moyer and Blanton more than that.

Still, while I keep hoping he'll get his act together/find a good groove, I'm beginning to think this is just what he'll be - i.e., not very good. Pitching for a team with a bad BP and an offense that can not easily erase a 4-run deficit.

[StairsTalksTooMuch]

You were right, Pap.

Now lets trade his ass while he's "hot".

[GBrettfan]

Revere
Rollins
Utley
Howard
Byrd
Brown
Ruiz
Galvis
Lee

[Kashmir]

The Phils have other problems besides the bullpen. The offense is 4th in the NL in runs scored, but very inconsistent. They've scored 3 runs or less in 11 of 23 games. They don't get enough XBH's, especially HR's, which is reflected in their SLG% (9th in the NL). Gone are the days of scoring runs in bunches like the 2007-10 teams did.

[PLM]

I really hope you guys are right about Ethan. I m just not feeling it. Well hopefully "he do good" once through a line up sticks.

[PLM]

That maybe true but the BP has been responsible for how many loses 5?

[Kashmir]

PLM, I'm not absolving the bullpen from their issues. Merely pointing out another facet of the game that's hurting the Phils bad. Other than Papelbon's meltdown game in Texas he's having a very good season. Aside from him the bullpen's been terrible.

[Dickie Thong]

Mike Drago (@mldrago):
Reading C Tommy Joseph will be placed on DL; he took a foul tip to the mask in Friday's game. Manager Dusty Wathan calls it "precautionary"

[bay_area_phan]

Joseph had actually been playing pretty well, too. That is unfortunate, especially in light of his prior concussion issues.

[Jack]

Clout: Want to make a bet that the pitching finishes better than 14th and the offense finishes worse than 8th?

Because I do.

[Jack]

So I was just flipping through some team stats on Fangraphs, and I found this mind-blowing one:

The Phillies relievers actually have an above-average walk rate.

Seriously. Out of 30 teams, they have the 12th lowest BB% for relief pitchers.

I didn't mean to write a post defending the bullpen, because I have let that ship sail long ago at this point. But I found that and was amazed. I honestly expected them to be close to last.

[Jack]

Looking through the relief pitching stats, it's really home runs that have killed the relievers so far. They have pretty comfortably the highest HR rate of any bullpen.

Other than that, their hits, Ks, BBs--all are in line with essentially the average bullpen. Again, I didn't expect to find that; I expected to find that we were every bit as bad as you'd think given the league-worst amount of runs they've given up.

All of this should be taken with an enormous grain of salt, because we're talking about 66 innings of work. I think even if the home runs evened out, the walks and hits would rise. Outside of Paps, Bastardo and Adams, these are pretty bad pitchers we are talking about. But it's interesting nonetheless.

[Conway Twitty]

Jack: I would be curious to know our BP stats when a pitcher comes out for his 2nd inning of work.

[bay_area_phan]

Gillies was apparently suspended for damaging a bat rack after striking out 4 times. Doesn't really sound like a transgression that warrants a 3-game suspension (or any suspension at all). But I guess the punishment increases if you're a recidivist offender.

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