RAJ's fault. Who is really under performing from their career norms? If all of our guys were at their career norms we MIGHT be a game or 2 better. But then we would need to regress Chooch to his career norm. So I don't blame the players. I blame RAJ.

Both Rollins and Victorino are underperforming. Polanco as well.

How can you blame RAJ for the Phillies performance this year?!?!? They won 102 games last year. Howard and Utley are hurt. And he's taken the Phillies to the post-season three years in a row.

Idiot. Get a life!!!!

;-)

<Okay, buddy. Relax and untwist your panties. Lee was very good for us down the stretch, through the play-offs and into WS. Do not even try to say otherwise. >

2009
September 2-2 5.59 ERA through 5 starts
His start in October 0-1 5.2 innings 4 earned runs

Pitched great in the playoffs except his last start in the WS.
Pitched great in the playoffs for Texas except his last start in the WS
Pitched great all year for us last year, except his playoff start. 6 IP, 12 hits, 2 walks, 5 ER

Rollins started the year awful, but is not underperforming since coming back, besides his 2 errors.

I must admit, even I didn't see THIS happening this soon, don't think any of us did. But it can't be a total surprise, and I still can't believe some people didn't prepare themselves for this. The sad thing is we actually probably could have "tread water" until Utley and Howard came back, if we spent wisely this offseason. We've had a ton of close losses and if Pap's/Qualls/Schneiders/Nix/Thome money was spread more wisley across the board we could have won a few more games.

Being forced to sell at the deadline is the best possible thing at this point and is really starting to look realistic.

"How can you blame RAJ for the Phillies performance this year?!?!? They won 102 games last year. Howard and Utley are hurt. And he's taken the Phillies to the post-season three years in a row.

Idiot. Get a life!!!!

;-)"

It's only because Howard and Utley are hurt. Otherwise, things are fine!

I agree. As I've written a couple of times recently, while I thought disaster was coming, I didn't think it would arrive THIS SOON.

Basically, I think the Phillies have a world of problems at this point, and cleaning house EVERYWHERE organizationally and starting over makes a fair amount of sense to me. The GM function is lacking, but so is the internal scouting function. The instruction, coaching and development IMO all need work. I basically don't see an area of organizational strength.

"...It's only because Howard and Utley are hurt. Otherwise, things are fine!"

-- And Stutes and De Fratus. They make a HUGE difference. ;-)

Rollins is hitting 15 points below his career batting average, and 24 points below of his career average OBP. For the whole year. Not picking and choosing.

Do you realize how small a difference that is???

When you lose 8 walk off games, even small differences can make a big impact.

a 3 game difference right now would have put them at 34-33...not great, but enough to be hanging in for a while.

For all the money they are paying the starters they're pitching like cr.ap. All things aside in the end it falls down to that. Starters then Bullpen then offense, in that order of blame for me.

everyone gets blame, its someone new every night. it doesnt really matter, they arent playing well enough. you can play the blame game all you want, bottom line, they arent good enough.

15 points of BA and 24 points of OBP over 40% of the season if a heck of a lot less than what you're talking about. Jimmy Rollins is not having a good season, but what you're complaining about changes nothing. MAYBE 1 game if they're lucky.

If you think ONE PLAYER'S being off his career averages by that little is going to affect the outcome of where this team finishes relative to the playoffs, well that's your right, but it's an opinion this isn't mathematically supportable.

He's hit around .300 since his return.

Not just Rollins. Victorino is even worse. 31 points off his career average and 25 below his OBP.

Yeah, he's been better... I just don't share the opinion that the Phillies are 9.5 games back of the division lead and 5.5 games back of the wild card because Jimmy Rollins has one less base hit every three weeks, and one less walk every five weeks, than his career averages.