Phillies: Quirky winning habit
By Tal Venada
Kapler’s blueprint:
Working six or seven innings, starters have the opportunity in their own hands. However, Kapler won’t hesitate to remove a laboring hurler early on: some performances –or lack thereof– by Ben Lively, Vince Velasquez, and Nick Pivetta.
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As for the relief corps, the workload isn’t burdensome if the rotation keeps multiple crooked numbers off the scoreboard. But the Phillies will have a roster crunch with the returns of Tommy Hunter and Pat Neshek. Prediction: Drew Hutchison (first) and Hoby Milner (now first?) or Yacksel Rios, barring any wrinkles.
With less than 100 at-bats per hitter, the current lineup approach won’t be changing until early May if the sample size is reasonable. But, for now, position players are more familiar with their place in the skipper’s plans.
Basically, the youngsters have confidence in Kapler. Yes, they are warming to his managerial style. And their comfort level is showing in their 27-out approach every day.
"ONLY YOU: “All the information in the universe, plus several bits from other dimensions that I’m still trying to sort out, have just been mainlined into my nervous system.” – R. U. Sirius"
So, you want the second wild card in the National League, and you believe you can handle serious September baseball. Do you realize that the edges of wild-card contention are a daily ride on a roller coaster? Up! Down! Up!
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