Even though the Phillies are considered to be the best team in major league baseball, they still need to prove themselves on the field. Their first step on the road to the playoffs will be to win the N.L. East. Luckily for Philadelphia, they possess four aces that will start 80% of the games this season (barring injury).
In turn, that spells trouble for their N.L. East counterparts. The Mets, Braves, Marlins, and Nationals will face, at the minimum, two of the four aces in a three-game series, and if they happen to be unlucky, they will be forced to go up against all four pitchers in a four game series.
So how have all four pitchers fared against the N.L. East over their careers?
Cliff Lee (8 games)
Record: 5-1
ERA: 2.85
Strikeouts: 42
Roy Halladay (32 games)
Record: 22-5
ERA: 2.34
Strikeouts: 180
Cole Hamels (65 games)
Record: 24-23
ERA: 3.56
Strikeouts: 399
Roy Oswalt (54 games)
Record: 17-15
ERA: 4.10
Strikeouts: 274
Combined (159 games)
Record: 68-44
ERA: 3.21
Strikeouts: 895
(games against the Phillies were not counted)
Don’t look into Oswalt’s numbers too much because most of those games occurred during his time with the Houston Astros, who were not great at providing him runs during his eight-year tenure with the organization.
Last season, Oswalt went 4-2 with a 2.06 ERA and 52 strikeouts against his N.L. East opponents (not counting his appearance against the Phillies).
We all know that Halladay is, arguably, the best pitcher in the game today, and his numbers against the N.L. East are just mind-boggling. A 22-5 record is phenomenal, a sub 2.50 ERA is terrific, and don’t forget, his perfect game came against a division foe, the Florida Marlins.
In my opinion, the N.L. East is the toughest division in the National League. The N.L. West has a few solid teams between the Rockies, Padres and Giants; however, only one of those teams made the playoffs after the Padres lost out on the wild card to the Braves. The N.L. Central had a down year in 2010, and I don’t expect a major improvement next season seeing that the Reds and Cardinals were the only teams to finish above .500 in 2010.
The Braves have gone out and improved their roster after acquiring Dan Uggla via trade, and they went out and signed two new relievers, George Sherrill and Scott Linebrink.
The Nationals, as we know, added Jayson Werth via a monumental contract. However, their pitching?
The Padres,Chargers and Rockies all iomproved this off-season
The Team to watch is the CIncinnati Reds who bring back mostly the same group and
are a lot like their Phils were a few years back, where their core players are young,hungry and have a good team chemistry and have been together for a couple of seasons and seem to play hard for Manager Baker..
Their Pitching staff is loaded with young arms (Cueto,Volquez,Chapman,Leake,Bailey,Ondrusek and have a proven Closer in F Cordero) if their young pitchers mature like they did last season,they could be a real threat to the Phillies,barring any injuries..
Great job!! Love this actual sports stuff. All I’m gunna say is…. Flyers have the best record, eagles in first place, phillies are gunna be sweet and the sixers just hung with the lakers. I’m all smiles.