It wasn’t pretty, but the Phillies escaped extra innings with a victory over the Reds on Thursday night.
Brian Schneider’s walk off home run in extra innings was the latest in a recent run of big hits from the Phillies’ bench players who have been forced to fill in for injured starters. With increased playing time, it seems that the bench has improved.
First of all let me make it clear that the Phils don’t have Superstars sitting on their bench.¬† These guys are marginal players so whatever you get out of them is a bonus.
While the stars of the lineup struggled over the last few weeks, bench players  Schneider, Greg Dobbs, Wilson Valdez, Ben Francisco and Dane Sardinha have done their best to pick up the slack.
Dobbs hit a home run in Monday’s game against the Braves to get the Phillies on the board and to give them a lead. Still a defensive liability at third base, Dobbs may be breaking out of his year long slump with the benefit of getting more at-bats.
Valdez seems to have grown a little more comfortable with his role after seeing extended playing time. He his hitting above .250, has produced some runs, and isn’t quite the automatic out he was when he was first called up this season. He has even become somewhat of a clutch hitter, seemingly a rarity on the team.
Francisco wasn’t having much success at the plate until he saw more at-bats during interleague play. He’s hit .320 with 6 RBIs in his last 10 games. The Phillies may want to consider working him into the lineup a little more often.
Sardinha, the 4th catcher the Phillies have called upon this year has given the team a little offense with 3 home runs and 8 RBIs.
While the contributions from the bench have been a positive over the past few weeks, it isn’t enough to right the ship. The real problem is that the “stars” continue to underachieve. If the stars wake up, this team will look a lot better, especially with a revived bench.
It’s simple.¬† Former MVP’s Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard and perennial All-Star Chase Utley when he gets back need to get hot and carry this team through the rest of the season.¬† All three of those guys are capable of being the best players in baseball for stretches, so I’m not talking about something they can’t do.
Rollins is hitting .248 with 18 runs scored and 26 hits.  They need him to bat .300 the rest of the way with 70 runs scored and 100 hits.
Howard has 16 home runs and 62 RBI’s while batting .293.¬† They need to hit 20 plus home runs in the second half with 70 plus RBI’s.
When Utley gets back he needs to go on a tear for part of the month of August and all of the month of September.¬† I’d like to see him hit over .300 during that time.
As for their pitching, Cole Hamels and Brad Lidge have been All-Stars for this team and they need to pitch like that in the second half of the season.
If that doesn’t happen, the Phils aren’t going to win this year regardless of what the bench players do and they probably won’t go to the playoffs.
i agree with this article 100% its time for our stars to step up
its crunch time now or never
Howard’s # ‘s are fine..
the Problem has been inconsistency with the lead-off spot and the poor 1st half by Utley..
If the #3 Hitter doesn’t get on and extend innings, then it’s difficult for Howard to drive in runs,
The real issue in my mind with this Average 2010 Team is the Bullpen. I think C Manuel has such little confidence in the BUllpen as a group, that he has to stay with his Starters for an inning or 2 longer than they are used to and then get worn out and hit hard in the late innings. Now Doc Halladay
can handle 8 innings consistently, but Blanton,Kendrick,Moyer are much more effective and fresher if you can get a solid 6 innigs out and then finish up with the Bullpen as in years past..
The current group of Herndon,Baez,Romero,Contreras & Lidge is not good enough. Manuel has to go back and forth at the close spot between Contreras and Lidge since neither one has nailed to the sport down, meanwhile he is trying to ride the hot arms , while others wait 3-4-5 days between appearnaces..Effective Bullpens have defined roles for their Pitchers and Phils right now and for the last 6 weeks have been shooting from the hip in this area and it has put more pressure on the Starters and Hitters..
I stated the weakness of this 2010 Club was it’s Bullpen and Bench back in Febuary and I stand by it. I thoguht the Phils were counting on Relief Pitchers Lidge/Romero too much based on injuries,of–season surgeries and their last seasons perfomance.. Once Madson went down, GM Amaro needed to make some moves to gett some quality arms in the bullpen.. (this was 2 months ago..)
At this point last year they had pretty much the same record. They have enough time left for the stars to get hot and it seems more than possible that the hot teams right now that haven’t been hot in several years will eventually blow a gasket. Not saying the Phillies have everybody right where they want them, but they aren’t in the worst possible situation record wise at this point in the season.