Phillies can't find explanations for woes at home ballpark
PHILADELPHIA -- The ballpark looks the same, right down to the tarp on the field in early afternoon and the raindrops coming down as the game goes on.
The Phillies look the same, with Howard and Utley and Hamels and all the other guys we got to know so well last October.
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| 'We're lucky,' Matt Stairs says about the 'kinder' Philly fans. 'We could be getting booed out of this place.' (Getty Images) |
The team that didn't lose at home in all of October, somehow can't win at home in April and May and now through half of June.
• Recap: Blue Jays 7, Phillies 1
With Wednesday's 7-1 loss to the Blue Jays, the Phillies are 13-18 at Citizens Bank Park, the third-worst home record in baseball (ahead of only the Nationals and Diamondbacks). They're in first place in the National League East, but only because of a major league best 23-9 road record.
The Phillies have played 11 home series this year, splitting one, winning two (both against Washington) and losing the other eight.
Everyone in Philadelphia and everyone in the Phillies organization has asked and been asked why. No one has yet come up with a reason that makes any sense.
"Anything you can say is logical is illogical," first-base coach Davey Lopes said. "I mean, it's illogical. There's no logical reason. It doesn't make sense."
He's right.
If anything, Citizens Bank Park should be an even harder place for opponents to win this year than it was last year. The Phillies are selling out nearly every game, the fans are loud, and while they haven't totally stopped booing -- this is Philadelphia -- the World Series title seems to have kept them from getting all that angry with their heroes.
"The fans have been outstanding," Matt Stairs said. "We're lucky. We could be getting booed out of this place."
The fans do seem to be kinder this year, and there's even one theory that a little more booing would help. Manager Charlie Manuel told reporters last month that "maybe [the fans] should get on us a little."
Manuel brushed off that idea Wednesday, saying, "I don't know what the heck I meant."
But he still couldn't come up with a better explanation for the sudden troubles at home. Neither could general manager Ruben Amaro.
"We just haven't swung the bats as well here," Amaro said. "By the end of the year, hopefully it'll turn around. For now, I'm just glad we're playing quality baseball somewhere."
Amaro talked about the distractions the Phillies had at home in April, first from the pennant raising and ring ceremonies the first week of the season, and then from the death of legendary announcer Harry Kalas. But now it's the middle of June and the Phils are still losing at home, so it's a little hard to blame distractions.
"I don't know if our guys have got in any kind of home rhythm," Amaro said.
Amaro has other concerns right now, as he searches for a pitcher in a trade market that seems to offer less starting pitching by the day. The Phillies' biggest need is a top-of-the-rotation starter to pair with Cole Hamels, but Manuel and Amaro both said Wednesday that they might have to shift gears and make a move for bullpen help instead.
Pitching has been a problem for the Phils, whose team ERA of 4.75 ranks next-to-last in the NL. But the pitching problem has showed up even more at home, where Phils pitchers have a 5.35 ERA, and where the Phils have been outhomered 53-41.
"Our pitching was absolutely putrid the first month of the season," Amaro admitted.
Hamels, the rare Phillie who has been better at home (4.19 ERA) than on the road (4.85), said he's not too concerned.
"As long as we're in first place," he said. "You do want to win for your fans, and to see the fans come out, that means everything to me and my teammates. But we see them on the road, too."
In fact, that's the other oddity of the Phils' strange home/road split. Because the Phillies are coming off a championship, Phillies fans are showing up everywhere the Phils go.
"In Washington, it almost feels like home," Hamels said.
In Washington, the Phillies are 5-1 this year. Of course, they're also 5-1 against the Nationals at Citizens Bank Park.
Take out those games against the Nats, and the Phillies' home record would be 8-17.
It's hard to believe this team could play that poorly anywhere, let alone in the ballpark that we all thought fit them so well.
It's hard to believe, and hard to explain. So maybe the only thing to do is joke about it.
"What we really need to do is play for the wild card," one Phillies official said. "Then we'd get more playoff games on the road."
He was kidding, but why not?
In this illogical Phillies season, anything that's logical doesn't make sense at all.
