Bullpen preserves Halladay shutout by staying in bullpen

A night after blowing a three-run lead with two outs in the ninth inning against the Braves, the Phillies bullpen atoned for their mistake by keeping their ass in the bullpen as Roy Halladay went the distance for his first NL shutout.

Halladay, aided by several spectacular defensive plays behind him, scattered five hits and struck out seven in his second complete game of the season, but the main story was the hand he received from his bullpen.

With one out in the 8th inning, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel made the call to his bullpen to just sit there and don’t touch anything while Roy Halladay handles his business.

“I made the call to the bullpen in the 8th inning and told them to just sit there and don’t touch nothin’,” said Phils manager Charlie Manuel. “They were outstanding. They sat there and didn’t touch nothin’.”

Halladay is now 4-0 with a 0.82 ERA in 33 innings and two complete games with the Phillies, which is the identical line Cliff Lee had after his first four starts last season with the team. However, the redder Ferrari has only surrendered three walks this season, which is pretty ridiculous when you realize he has more wins (4) than walks.

Phils still waiting to jump into the free agent reliever pool

Fernando Rodney, Matt Capps, Kelvim Escobar, Mike Gonzalez and J.J. Putz have all bit the dust and now the Phils are stuck with names like Danys Baez, Mike MacDougal, Kiko Calero, Miguel Batista, John Smoltz and Will Ohman to fill the remaining two or so spots of our ailing bullpen.

Of the remaining arms out there, the only guy I worth getting excited about is Kiko Calero, who is coming off of a career year in 2009 (1.95 ERA with 69 Ks in 60 IP).

You have to wonder why so much effort was put into the slight upgrade of Roy Halladay over Cliff Lee while Amaro continues to either pass on or let valuable relievers slip through his hands — especially when the bullpen was a major weakness last season.

This continues to be a pretty weird offseason for the Phils and I’m just waiting for that move that I can stand behind 100%. Brian Schneider was about as close as I’ve gotten at about 94.19%.

The truth of the Cliff Lee situation shall set us all free

We give a then 45-year-old Jamie Moyer $13 million after a sub-par 2008 postseason and now we send Cliff Lee packing after plowing through the eventual World Series champs like he was Tiger Woo…ok, nevermind. But something ain’t right here, Rube.

I heard on 97.5 The Fanatic this morning that the Phillies presented Lee with a contract extension offer about a week before the deal went down and within hours of presenting a counter-offer to the club, Lee was headed to Seattle for prospects.

If the above is true, then the Phillies essentially offered Lee a contract extension knowing he wouldn’t accept it right away and were talking to Toronto about trading for Roy Halladay in the meantime.

To me, that’s pretty damn shady of Ruben and the Phillies to dismiss Lee just because you want to bring in Roy Halladay. As great as Halladay has been and will probably be for the Phillies, I think Lee has earned the right to be treated as a king in this town for what he did this year instead of being heandled like Adam Eaton’s soiled draws.

Personally, I wouldn’t have made the deal if it strictly came down to keeping Cliff Lee or taking Roy Halladay. Halladay’s got the deeper resume, but you can’t do any better than 4-0 and shutting down the Yankees twice in the postseason, so I’m not tinkering with a great thing.

The only reason I initially liked the Halladay deal was because of the rumors about Lee wanting too much money and wanted to walk after the season.

Of course, most of this will fade when Halladay heads out there and does what Halladay has done for some time now, which is dominate anyone holding a bat 60 feet away from him, but we still have to wallow in this mess for the next couple months. What would make it worse is if Halladay or Cole Hamels goes down at some point — or worse — if Cliff Lee pitches out of his mind in Seattle and we’re left wondering what could have been in Philly for 2010.

I just want the truth of what really went down because it’s sounding like the Phillies screwed Lee over and if that’s the case, it’s going to be hard to stand behind a team that rolls that way when he gave you the most thrilling pitching performances this franchise has ever seen.

Phillies dealt Cliff Lee to replenish candy bowl in lobby

On a day when the Phillies officially introduced Roy Halladay during a press conference, Wednesday’s talk seemed to center around the trade that sent Cliff Lee to the Mariners for assorted pieces of candy.

Many Phillies fans felt like the team should have tried to keep both Lee and Halladay in the rotation, but Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro characterized the Lee deal as a necessity for the organization’s lobby stash.

“We could have kept both of them,” Amaro said of Halladay and Lee during Wednesday’s press conference. “But it was a baseball decision for me and our organization. We could not leave our candy bowl bare.”

With the team’s recent offseason activity, people have been in and out of the lobby at Citizen’s Bank Park taking all of the Hershey’s Nuggets and Snicker’s Bars, with nothing left but a couple Circus Peanuts and Mary Jane’s. Amaro maintains that the Lee deal was his best shot at getting back some solid stuff for future visitors.

“If we held onto Lee for this season and lost him to free agency, there’s no telling what kind of stuff we’d get for him in the draft,” Amaro said of the compensation candy the Phillies would receive for losing Lee after the season. “If we let him go as a free agent and end up with some butterscotch in return, then we’re screwed. It’s my job to maintain a delicious stash of treats in our lobby, even if that means giving up the ace that would make our team the most unstoppable force this world has ever known. But a World Series title with Charleston Chews in your bowl does no one any good.”

Phils dealt Lee to replenish prospects [Philly.com]

Would Halladay and Lee be in the same rotation if Jamie Moyer retired?

I think everyone with at least one finger on the Phillies’ bandwagon would say ‘yes’, Cliff Lee would probably be our number two starter right now if Jamie Moyer retired either during or after last season.

I’m not necessarily saying that Moyer is the sole reason why the Phils will not march into the World Series with a stacked lineup and rotation this season, but he’s certainly not helping the situation. The Phillies owe Moyer around $8 million for 2010 to compete to be our fifth and final starter in the rotation behind Halladay, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton and J.A. Happ. And by ‘compete’, I mean that he may not even get the job and we could have an $8 million long reliever on our hands.

Moyer balked when he was pulled from the rotation late last season, even when it was the best move for the team. Now it’s looking like Moyer is interfering with the team’s improvement again, but this time it’s without even throwing a pitch.

I’ve got nothing against Moyer and he was as much a part of 2008 as anyone else, but when I think about how we could have had Cliff Lee — for at least 2010 — over a 47-year-old pitcher who was bumped out of the rotation last season and is coming off of several surgeries, I think that’s a no-brainer.

I don’t think any of us would have passed on signing a 2-year $13 million deal like Moyer did, so I blame the Phillies for giving a 45-year-old that much money for two years, but at the very least step up and say you’d defer some of your money to next year so we can afford to keep Lee on the team.

Of course, the deferring money thing applies to everyone else on the team as well, like so many others have said. Are we to understand that there was no possible way to keep Lee here at all? I call shenanigans on you, Ruben…and whoever else was involved in this whole process.

As always, I’ll reserve my more viscous judgment until later on, but if Moyer tanks again or we make it to the World Series and Halladay’s the only pitcher pulling his weight, we’ll look back on this trade and know that this is where we went wrong.

Amaro trades in red Ferrari for slightly redder Ferrari

Ruben Amaro is set to announce later today that he will trade in his prized red Ferrari F430 Spider for a marginally redder Ferrari F430 Spider, though no one will likely be able to tell the difference between the two.

“Last July, I noticed some idiot was selling a Ferrari Spider on Craig’s List for $19.95, so I jumped right on it,” Amaro said on Wednesday. “It was the steal of a lifetime and I felt like it would be the last car I would ever drive. But I’d be a fool not to go after a slightly redder one.”

Amaro will receive approximately $1.43 for his less-red trade in, and will pay an additional $400,000 to purchase the new Ferrari Spider, effectively canceling out the amazing deal he got last July.

“A lot of people are saying for the price I’m paying for the new one, I should have just kept the old one too, but really though…who needs two Ferrari’s like that?” Amaro continued. “Other general managers are out there parading around with two and sometimes three Ferraris, but it just seems a little excessive to me.”

The bittersweet acquisition of Roy ‘Doc’ Halladay

This is exactly what everyone was calling for about five months ago and yet we’re all dragging our feet to welcome Roy Halladay to this town since we had to give up Cliff Lee to make it happen. Oh how quickly we have become spoiled, Philadelphia.

The Phillies gave up urinal pubes to get Lee in the first place, so even if they throw in Michael Taylor or Travis D’Arnaud to get Halladay, we got a trip to the World Series and now the top pitcher in baseball — with a new contract extension — in exchange for the pubes and possibly Taylor and/or D’Arnaud. Sounds like a hell of a job out of Ruben Amaro.

I think the thing that makes this especially nice is we’re hearing that Lee had no intention of signing a deal with the Phillies when his contract ended after this season, so getting something in exchange for Lee — other than a throw-in compensation pick — makes more sense than just letting him hit the market.

It really stinks that we were all just starting to warm up to this guy, but if he valued a big payday over sticking around with a winning team, then I don’t know if I wanted him here anyway. I’ve had enough of the athletes out for the paycheck. Lee didn’t seem like that kind of guy, but seeing how well this team was built and the direction this franchise is headed, I would think he’d want to stick around to ride the big red wave.

Good luck in Seattle and wherever else you end up in 2011, Phife-dog. Your three months with us were friggin amazing and I was definitely looking forward to getting a full year out of you…but Doc’s coming to town. I’ll say it again so everyone can let it sink in: Doc’s…coming…to…town. Get your popcorn apples ready.

More Halladay madness at the Winter Meetings

I think everyone is pretty numb to the prospect of the Phillies somehow trading for Roy Halladay by now — especially since we get to trot Clifton Phifer Christ out there every fifth day — but SI’s Jon Heyman is saying the team is jumping into the mix again.

These things rarely actually turn out the way we all think they will, but it’s looking like the Angels are in the best position to land Halladay with the Phils just sticking around to see how far the price may drop before they consider getting heavily involved.

Right now, the Angels are reportedly offering Joe Saunders, Erick Aybar and minor league OF Peter Bourjos for Halladay, which is a less than the summer asking price of Kyle Drabek, J.A. Happ and either Domonic Brown or Michael Taylor, but still pretty steep. I’d say a similar deal with the Phillies would involve Happ, Taylor and either Shane Victorino or a lower-level prospect, which is doable but still a bit much.

Not only is there the issue of the trade, but with Lee and Halladay’s contracts expiring after 2010, the Phils would essentially have to choose between one or the other, so this is looking like a one-year fling even if it gets done. Stranger things have happened, though. I think with the right combination of a World Series win next season and if Dave Montgomery knocks off a couple banks, we could work something out and keep both pitchers for the next 10 years and completely forget what it was ever like to watch losing baseball in this town.

Lee unavailable for Game 2 after clutch nine-inning save

It appears the question of who the Phillies’ playoff closer will be was answered yesterday as Charlie Manuel called upon Cliff Lee in the first inning to close out Game 1 against the Rockies.

Manuel’s hunch paid off as Lee dominated for nine innings in relief, giving up only one run in the final frame as he closed the door for the Phillies in a 5-1 victory.

“Cole [Hamels] was ready to start the game,” Lee said after the game. “But with the score knotted at zero in the top of the first, I guess Charlie didn’t want to take any chances.”

Lee will not be available to pitch in Thursday’s Game 2 matchup and will likely sit out Game 3 as well, due to being overextended on Wednesday. This means Manuel will have a tough decision to make should Hamels throw an incomplete game on Thursday.

“If Cole can go out there and give me nine innings, that would make my job a lot easier,” Manuel said. “If we have to dip into the bullpen, I’m just gonna go with what the gut tells me. Right now it’s tellin’ me Cole should just go ahead and throw nine innings.”

Manuel: Lee handling demotion to National League like a pro

Most major league players would lash out at the front office after being demoted in the middle of an impressive season, but Cliff Lee seems to be handling his banishment to the National League with dignity and class.

Charlie Manuel spoke briefly on Thursday about Lee’s unfortunate situation.

“The guy’s been a great sport about everything so far,” Manuel said. “Everybody wants to prove themselves against real major leaguers, but he’s tearing through this NL slop to try and get another chance in the AL at some point.”

Lee turned in yet another stellar outing for the Phillies on Wednesday, allowing only two hits and one unearned run in his second complete game for his new team.

“When I first got the news that I was headed to the NL, I thought ‘Oh no, here we go again’,” said Lee, who was demoted to the minors with Indians in 2007. “But now that I’m here, I have to admit it’s kind of fun. It would be a lot more fun if these guys actually knew what a baseball was, but I’ll take an ERA under 1.00 and a .385 average all day long.”

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