Reasons I am backing phills: huge bullpen advantage (discussed below), experience/age, rest, and what I think is one of the most overlooked and important advantages:
They do not have intense scouting reports about their opponent, and do not have the advantage of facing an AL east opponent that they’ve seen a lot of, which I think played a big role in the ALCS win in jumping on a couple of bad pitches for HR’s. Most hitters wouldn’t capatilize on sox mistakes as well as tampa did, but the hitters knew what to look for from each pitcher as they’ve faced eachother so much this year. This is not the case w/ philly…..TB/Philly have not matched up since 2006! Follow me…
In the divisionals, they faced a banged up, fatigued out-of-gas CWS team. They were expected to roll and did, good work, but im not impressed.
In the ALCS, they beat the defending world champion which is great, but who had a lot of struggles with consistency and waited too long to makes some changes in the lineup (game 6), IMO. And also the rays had the better of them in the regular season already so had some momentum going into the series.
But the main thing here is the fact that these two met eachother (18 times) this season. Theyre AL east rivals, the scouting reports are in-depth and each team knows the other like the back of their hand.
But what of philly? These teams haven’t met in two years. And lets look at THEIR resume…..
In the divisional series, see above post regarding rays/TB series. The screwers, like CWS, limped into the playoffs riding CC into the ground and having him carry them on his back continually on 3 days rest, and the way the offense was hitting they really didn’t deserve to be there either. But in the NLCS, beating LAD is a one helluva feat. And they did it In 5 games.
This team quickly disposed of arguably the hottest team going into and during the playoffs.
Rays also struggling with errors. This is where the age/inexperience has played a role I think. After starting out with 0 errors in the first 3 games, in games 4-7 they committed 6 errors, with at least 1 in each game. And the ones in game 6 and 7 were in key situations late in the game. The phills committed only 2 in 5 games against LA.
Alsobig advantage, bullpen, to the phills. They have experience, and the arms in the pen all have an arsenal of secondary pitches. I think Tampa pen is a bad matchup against philly, as guys like wheeler and balfour that throw strictly fastballs are too predictable. Plus this is a team that has hit fastball pitchers well all season…. And have shown the ability to pounce on weak bullpens. And does tampa even have a “closer” right now?
Interesting to see how the youngin price will perform, and if he can keep up the lights out innings and not buckle under pressure, that could be an x-factor for tampa if he can hold down the closer role. He was VHT and is certainly maturing before our eyes, but can he perform in the WS in citizen bank? Or will he only be used at trop?
I think a pitcher like bradshaw could have success against philly as desceptive lowball-groundball pitchers are the ones that tend to have success against philly (ie Derek lowe). Although certain hitters hit him very well as hes been in the league for awhile, and I don’t have philly battors #’s against him on hand at the moment.
And whats up with trevor miller? Must be something, maddon has been very hesistant to use him, hes only thrown 19 pitches this whole postseason?
Gimme Madson, Lidge, and Romero who have been un-hittable this postseason, and even better in clutch situations. Lidge has not blown a save since the cubs won a WS =)
Please limit usage of the durbinator, I don’t want to see much of him unless we have a 5+ run lead.|
Hell, even throw in eyre who is still riding an adrenaline high from the realization that hes not a cub anymore (LOL).
opcorn:
