Phillies Notes: A Numbers Game

In between his training sessions with Apollo Creed, Aaron Rowand is quickly becoming the latest, greatest Philly sports hero. His 4-for-5 performance (including a home run) against Florida on Friday extended his hitting streak to 15 games.

This game was the quintessence of Phillies baseball and another reason for me to rue the fact that I can't see any of the games while I'm out on the West Coast. You had J-Roll and Face Utley keying a dramatic comeback in the eighth until Tom "Yugo" Gordon promptly gave up the lead the very next inning.

Luckily for the Phils, rampant expansion has appeared to have the same depleting effect on nearly every team's bullpen, and they rallied for the win behind another Rowand single and Carlos Ruiz's clutch, um, infield grounder for the winning RBI. (Ruiz is actually proving me very wrong so far, both with his offense and defense--two Marlins caught stealing.)

Friday's lineup was notable in that Rowand is now apparently batting sixth instead of seventh, due to his current hot streak. In my mind, this is a big mistake and gives me a chance to expound on what's wrong with the conventions of setting the order of a baseball lineup.

The "conventional wisdom" on the order of hitters is skewed towards instant gratification. This is odd since baseball, more than most sports, seems to reward patience and careful planning. Yet every single lineup is ordered to maximize the potential of scoring a run in the very first inning.

Why? "Playing the percentages" has always been laughable to me in a profession where a thirty percent success rate (for hitters) is seen as exceptional. I would much prefer a method employed by the best Little League coach I ever had--spread out of some of your more consistent hitters. On the H.L.S. Orioles, we always had a big bopper at the top, in the middle, and near the bottom of the lineup. We were all skeptical at first, but the stigma of batting seventh or eighth quickly wore off once we saw the results: a complete lineup where it was nearly impossible to string together more than one "easy out."

If Rowand stays in the sixth spot, the last three lineup spots look something like this:

7. Wes Helms
8. Catching platoon (Barajas and Ruiz)
9. Starting pitcher

It's good strategy to "protect" your best hitter, but it's just as smart to protect some of your weakest--especially a guy like Helms, who's a solid contact hitter if he gets to see a few good pitches. I would even advocate Rowand dropping to eighth every now and then, considering the top-to-bottom strength of the Phillies lineup, as they always seem to get in situations where the eighth spot makes the last out and the pitcher's spot has to lead off in the next inning.

Bottom line, I'm tired of situations that put a lot of pressure on the heart of the order to close a deficit because they know the "weaker" half of the lineup has even less of a chance to produce runs. Because, more often than not, what we end up with is Abraham Nunez failing at a closer's fastball to end the game. GODDAMN IT, we need some sabermatricians up in here. Think outside the box, people!

A few more significant numbers:

- Utley plunked again on Thursday against the Nationals and now up to 8 HBPs. He had 14 all of last season and now has 39 on his career.

- Rollins hits his eighth homer from the leadoff spot, tying a National League record for the month of April. The Major League record is 11, by Brady "Totally Not on Steroids" Anderson in 1996.

- The Phils have won six of their last eight to climb into a tie for third place in the NL East with the Marlins. Man, do I hate the Marlins, who have won more championships in the past decade than the Phillies have in well over a century of baseball. And I'm not alone.

- As certain sectors of the media have observed, the Phillies franchise is closing in on 10,000 losses, by far the most of any professional sports franchise. The magic number is currently 32.

I am hereby establishing an informal pool to guess the date/opponent and score of the 10,000th loss. The winner will receive a congratulatory post and a 2007 Nomar Garciaparra LA Dodgers bobblehead. Guesses can be posted as comments on any entry until May 6. Here's a schedule for reference.

My official guess: July 3, at Houston, 7-1. Good luck!