Call-Ups: Philadelphia Phillies and Antonio Bastardo

Once again it is collaborative post time here on Call to the Pen. This month’s topic is September call-ups. To get the ball rolling, I posed the following question to each of our Lead Writers, “Which player do you want your team to call-up in September and why?” It is a simple question but I think you will find the responses to be very diverse.

Taking the path less traveled this month, I decided to post each team’s write-up individually instead of grouping them by league or division as we have done in the past.

Representing the Philadelphia Phillies and That Balls Outta Here is the site’s Lead Writer, Justin Klugh. Check out what he has to say after the jump.

Justin’s Take*:

*Justin wrote this on the 23rd and Bastardo was recalled on the 27th, but I didn’t want to alter this in any way since I enjoyed it so much.

Tyson Gillies just got busted for his interest in nose candy. Dane Sardinha caught a DUI during Spring Training. And Brody Colvin took a swing at a cop in New Orleans.

So not only is the well somewhat dried up for the Phillies, there’s demons crawling out of it.

Here’s the thing.

There are plenty of promising seeds in the Phillies farm system, but these aren’t guys who are going to be ready for the plucking until 2013. Domonic Brown was our last major league ready dude, and he’s been popped up to counteract the horrific line of injuries the Phils have been faced with all season.

So. With the rosters ballooning in that way that they do this time of year, everybody turns an eager eye to their prospects, and seeing as how Brown is already on our roster, who exactly is the excited young’n hoping for a spot for the stretch run?

I would like to see Antonio Bastardo. Again, I mean. Look, you can’t ignore the utter absence of left handers in our bullpen. You can, sure, like we have been all year, but when its just J.C. Romero out there, a guy with limited success in 2010, it can’t hurt to have some backup. Bastardo has seen major league playing time this year already, and found himself DFA’d after one of our several thousand returning starters came off the DL. But he’s another lefty out there to supplement the starved options Charlie Manuel has to tinker with.

Even he hasn’t been gifted with dominance this year. Yeah, that’s an ERA over 5.00 (5.54) in 13 innings. That is … not a very good ERA. But how realistically could a playoff crusade be with a single left hander in the relief corps, and Romero has proven that while adequate, his inconsistency flaws him away from being able to take the responsibility on his own.

I’m just saying, it doesn’t hurt to have options, and hurting is what the Phillies have been doing all year. The lineup proved itself fiery even before Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Shane Victorino returned, and the rotation is built for the post season with three legitimate aces. The bullpen is where we need the help, and with not a truckload of young guns ready to fire, Bastardo is where it’s at.

Also they’ve started calling him Tony Bastard, which is just bad-ass.