The One Decision Between the Phillies and Another World Series

Another week, another blown save by Brad Lidge.

Granted, Lidge's latest abomination was now four or five days ago at this point, but I've been stewing over it ever since. This one was particularly bad, in that we came back and took the lead 4-3 in the top of the ninth against the league-worst Pittsburgh Pirates, only to see Lidge blow it in the bottom of the 9th in spectacular fashion. This article pretty much sums it up better than I could, but suffice it to say, the rest of Philadelphia is finally starting to accept what I've been saying for months and months now:

Brad Lidge has got to go.

I know, I know, Brad Lidge was our savior in 2008. Over the entirety of the 2008 World Championship Philadelphia Phillies season, Lidge probably had as much to do with the city nabbing its first professional sports title in 25 years as anybody, period. His perfect 47 saves in 47 appearances will live on in stories told by grandfathers to grandsons for generations in Philly, believe me when I say that, and nobody was a bigger Lidge guy last year than me. You'll never hear me take anything away from what Lidge did in bouncing back from blowing huge playoff games on longballs for the Houston Astros to come in and basically be perfect for an entire season in 2008, and if I hear someone else minimize his contributions to the 2008 championship I won't even let it go for a second without educating the speaker on this game we call professional baseball.

But the thing is, this isn't 2008, and the 2009 flavor of Brad Lidge isn't anywhere near as good as the 2008 version. In fact, Brad Lidge absolutely sucks balls this year.

There, I said it.

As the above article references, Lidge's record is now up to 0-6 with an ERA of 7.33, easily the highest of any reliever in the majors. His nine blown saves so far in 2009 also leads both leagues by two saves over his closest competition for this ignominious stat. And it's not like blowing big games is exactly a new thing for Lidge. Astros fans would still like to have Lidge drawn and quartered after he single-handedly ruined their playoff run in 2005 by giving up a monstrous home run to Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning and with the Astros just the one win away from advancing in the league championship series. No, sadly, Lidge has pretty much been a step-down-in-the-clutch kind of guy for years, somehow only digging deep again and again during the magical Phillies run of 2008, but in 2009 Lidge has reverted back to his old suck-job form, and Phillies fans are being forced to repeatedly bear the brunt of the decision to keep Lidge pitching.

The saddest part of the entire article to the Phillies fans is not the details of Lidge's latest failure, but rather Phils' manager Charlie Manuel's quote at the end of the piece:

"He's got to stay with it," Manuel said. "He's got to keep going. ... That's all we can do. ... That's where we're at. That's our closer. I've said that all along. That's the guy we give the ball to in the ninth inning."

I mean, Manuel makes it sound like he actually doesn't have an actual choice to actually sit Lidge's ass on the bench, on the DL, wherever. When in reality, if Manuel were not simply being too loyal to his hero from 2008, nothing could be further from the truth. As I've written about recently, Pedro Martinez was recently brought in by the Phillies, and here is a perfect example of a guy who has never won a championship but who could play a pivotal role for us by coming out of the bullpen to close our games. P-Mart is perfect for the role in many ways because he has the power, he has the finesse, and the one thing he doesn't have at this point in his career anymore is length. But for a 1- or even 2-inning guy, nobody who knows baseball can tell me that Pedro is a worse option than Brad Lidge right now. It's not even close. And let's not forget the man who Pedro replaced in the Phillies' starting rotation, old man Jamie Moyer, who still leads the team in wins with 12, now coming off the bench in a bullpen role already as it is. And there is also the imminent return of Brett Myers from injury, who not only has the stuff relievers are made of, but who has also pitched out of the 'pen in late relief already recently in his career in Philadelphia. So even if Manuel doesn't necessarily want to go with hard-throwing righthander Ryan Madson (who frankly hasn't been much better in this role than Lidge this year) to close games, in reality he's got plenty of options just sitting on the bench for him to go to instead of Lidge in any situation, any time he wants. Truthfully, Manuel probably has more realistic options at closer than anybody in the entire major leagues at this point in time. And yet somehow, he has no choice but to keep going again and again to the clearly dried-up well that is Brad Lidge? "He's our guy in the ninth inning, that's just the team we are?" WTF!

High Time

Thats it. Brad Lidge, you are officially dead to me.

Last season's Mr. Perfect is now 0-5 with 8 blown saves on the season, leading all pitchers in the National League in that stat. Every Phillies fan knows, whenever this guy enters a game this entire season, it's like shades of back in the "Wild Thing" days. Even when he saves a game this year (and much of last year, for that matter), getting that save entails giving up a double, walking a guy or two and always always always putting the tying and go-ahead runs into scoring position. After one year of glory at the absolute pinnacle of his profession, Brad Lidge has returned to what he always was before the miracle of 2008, which is basically a suckjob pitcher that you wouldn't want out on a major league mound unless your team is either up 15-2 or down 15-2.

What I want to know is, when are Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies finally gonna get smart and just make Pedro Martinez our new closer?

P-Mart's Got Game

Yep, that's my new nickname for Pedro Martinez, book it. P-Mart.

Anyways, I know I have not posted much this week, but suffice it to say it has been a very, very busy time for me. Judging by how many blog updates I'm seeing (and not seeing) these days, most of you can relate. It's August, the summer is coming to an end, people are vacationing, spending time with family, going to the beach, and just generally decompressing after the WSOP came to a close with a bang last month with Phil Ivey final tabling the Main Event. So you can count me in on that boat, except in my case I haven't been away so much as just super busy between work and home life.

In any event, Pedro Martinez made his debut for Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday night at Wrigley Field. And you know what? He wasn't half bad.

Now don't get me wrong, Pedro ultimately did exactly what I was telling you guys he would do a month ago when I first posted about him -- he made it through just five full innings on the night, requiring us to go to the bullpen for four separate innings, just like he did with regularity over the past couple of seasons in New York. Pedro is just not more than a 5 or 6 inning guy anymore, period. Ever. And that in and of itself is not a great turn of events for the Phillies, and there's no doubt in my mind that it won't be changing here as Pedro celebrates his 75th birthday in the City of Brotherly Shove.

But all that said, Pedro's five innings were actually pretty solid. All month all I've heard -- in particular coming out of the New York sports media -- was how Pedro is a shell of his former self, Pedro can't get anybody out, and Pedro's fastball is down to 80, 85 miles per hour. Well, I'm happy to say, all three of those statements are not exactly true. I mean, 75-year-old Pedro is surely nowhere near the form we saw from him back when he was truly baseball-aged, back when he was going 17-8 with 305 strikeouts and a 1.90 ERA for Montreal in 1997, or 23-4 with a 2.07 ERA and 313 K's for the Sox in 1999. But he's not exactly a shell of his former self either, at least not from his recent former self of the past few years in New York. Pedro on Wednesday night was more or less exactly like he was the past season or two with the Mets -- able to pitch a fairly solid 5 or 6 innings, giving up 2-4 runs but able to come up with just enough to wriggle his way out of any more trouble than that.

P-Mart was certainly able to get batters out on the night, including five strikeouts in five innings, and he managed to pitch his way out of trouble without major damage on two occasions including in his final inning where the bases were quickly juiced with nobody out. P-Mart had decent control on the night too, only walking one batter in his 5.0 innings pitched, throwing 54 strikes out of a total 99 pitches thrown. The seven hits and three earned runs he gave up in five innings wasn't spectacular, but anyone expecting spectacular out of Old Man P-Mart needs to get off the crack. But Pedro definitely had some game in Chicago last night, as the Cubs' batters would be the first to tell you. As would the radar gun btw, which regularly registered above 90 mph on P-Mart's fastball, which looked to me at least as good as I saw it all of last season at with the Mets.

In all, Pedro Martinez definitely justified his presence on the field last night, and in so doing effectively won over thousands of Phillies fans like me who doubted that he even had what it takes to get back on a major league roster and do the job. Even though he is and will never again be near his steroid-era form, P-Mart showed the world that he in fact still has some game left in him. I don't see myself agreeing anytime soon with Phils' GM Ruben Amaro's decision to stick Jamie Moyer -- the team's winningest pitcher for two years running now -- in the bullpen in favor of the aged Martinez, at least we saw this week that P-Mart isn't completely running on empty. I still have a sneaking suspicion that Martinez would have a chance of being an excellent late-game reliever or even closer for one or two innings at a time, probably of more value to the team overall due to the strain using him as a starter puts on our bullpen. But at least he's not the stiff I was afraid we might see when he stepped onto the mound for the first time again in the majors.

At least now the hometown fans might give the guy a lil love when he makes his first start at Citizen's Bank Field as a Phillie, as opposed to the absolute trashing he was fixing to receive if he went out there and dogged it at Wrigley on Wednesday night.