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Michael/Male/26-30. Lives in United States/Pennsylvania/Wexford/Christopher Wren, speaks English. Spends 20% of daytime online. Uses a Fast (128k-512k) connection. And likes baseball /politics.
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United States, Pennsylvania, Wexford, Christopher Wren, English, Michael, Male, 26-30, baseball , politics.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Anemic 

Well ... I'm back, if a little sleep deprived. My wife & I closed on a house on April 29th and have spent the last week sanding and staining floors, moving furniture, and fixing leaky toilets and faucets. I've been getting up at 5:30 AM, going to work, getting home at 5:00 and then working on the house until 1:00 or 1:30. I'm beat and exhausted, but happy with the way my home is shaping up. Bear with me, I'm still getting on track ...

Nice to take two of three from the Cubbies, but things are not well. Phillies fans have spent the last month wringing their hands as they watch the Phillies flail away at the plate, futile in their efforts to hit the ball with any power. For a team featuring players like Jim Thome and Bobby Abreu and Pat Burrell to be near-last in most offensive categories is simply unacceptable. The fact that the Phillies are dead-last in the NL in ISO is shocking and it should be. We are .027 behind the Pirates for 15th in that category, and .037 behind the league average. While the Phillies are doing o.k. in OBP (.334 vs. .333 NL average), the team isn't hitting for power and it is killing us. Check out the difference in the Phillies road and home slugging percentages:

Home: .396
Road: .339

In sixteen road games they have just 32 extrabase hits (20 2B's, 10 HR's & 2 3B's). Their ISO is just .100 (opponants: .164). Home, our allegedly home run-friendly park, isn't helping much either: the Phillies have an anemic .135 ISO at home, but opponants are hitting .227 ... .227! ...

To put all of this in its proper perspective, consider the Phillies 2004 stats:

Home: ISO / SLG
Phillies: .184 / .450
Opponants: .184 / .444

They are running nearly 60 points behind on ISO and 50 in slugging. Ouch. The Phillies have a real power-outage on the road. Compare to 2004:

Road: ISO / SLG
Phillies: .168 / .436
Opponants: .183 / .452

Sixty-eight point decline in ISO and a nearly 100 point decline in slugging. Yikes.

We need to get better and in a hurry. I'll be back with some suggestions soon.

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