Antonio Bastardo did a pretty nice job blowing up Kyle Kendrick’s great pitching performance, and the return of Ryan Howard.
However, you have to question why he was even out there.
Charlie Manual must have gotten some false sense of security from Bastardo’s performance the night before in New York. I get the lefty vs. lefty thing, but in this case Charlie just out-managed himself. With a bullpen as bad as the one that we have, sometimes you have to ride a hot hand, and when your pitcher is at 89 pitches, and he’s pitching a shutout… You let him go.
Kyle Kendrick had thrown 7 great innings, possibly the best 7 innings of his career. He threw seven shutout innings, allowed four hits, one walk and struck out five. Kendrick was yanked for Bastardo after 89 pitches with the game knotted at nil.
“My fastball is my best weapon,” Bastardo said, post-game. “I’m not commanding it.”
One would have seen that if he had been watching Bastardo’s warm-up. He was all over the place.
Bastardo faced seven batters and gave up five singles, three walks and a big homer. This just one night after Jonathan Papelbon was rocked by the Mets.
Though the offense never scored, this game was lost by Charlie Manual and the bullpen.
Welcome back Ryan Howard, in case you missed it, we stink. The Phillies are 1-8 since Chase Utley’s return. They’re 0-1 with Ryan Howard
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I didn’t get it either. Still scratching my head.
You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. I still would have tried to ride Kendrick a little further.
Definitely! Give him a chance to pitch a complete game for sure.
Well, I don’t really care about that it this point, but he was pretty dominant up to that point, so I would have kept him going.
I would rather risk gonig for a complete game or at least eight innings with my starter than to EVER go to the BULLpen
Right now Robin, I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for reading!