Phils off to promising start despite Savery struggles

Two young Phillie pitchers got their first real test yesterday against the Pirates, Josh Outman and Joe Savery. Despite a nice front-page piece in the Daily News this week touting Savery as the a talented young prospect for the Phils, the duo combined for two and two-thirds innings, allowing 9 runs (an ERA over 30). Manuel, however, assured us fans that they "have real good arms and real good stuff."

While these performances were less than inspiring, Chase Utley got his first hits of the pre-season, going 2-3 with two doubles. Our third-base platoon-reliever Pedro Feliz continued his rate of one double per game, which we can naively assume will leave him with 162 doubles for the season. Also, can't forget that Howard rocketed a three-run-shot into right-field in the third inning off Bullington.

At two-games in, the Phillies fall at the middle-of-the-pack of the Grapefruit league, standing at 500. They have scored and allowed the second-most runs in the league (16 and 12 respectively), strangely only trailing the empty Marlins in RS. The pre-season thus far is encouraging for several reasons:

1. The Phils have come out swinging. With the 4-11 start from last year fresh in the mind of any worrysome Philadelphia resident, we want runs on the board, and quickly. The biggest acquisition thusfar in this department is certainly Pedro Feliz. Most would regard him as a good defensive relief for an inauspicious platoon (now Nunez won't have to get no hits every time Moyer pitches), but I think and hope the most rewarding aspect of Feliz will be his bat. While certainly inconclusive, he has shown with his 4-5, 2-double start, that he wants to play hard, now. This is the attitude the Phillies need, especially with the loss of the morale-powerhouse in Rowand still looming.

2. Greg Dobbs, who we will have consistently coming off the bench, has gone 2-4 with a home-run. I am not saying that this will continue, and he will almost certainly not be the first player to hit 500, but like with Feliz, this shows an urgency. An urgency off the bench late in the game could prove to be the contingency plan we need for our less-than-ideal relief staff, especially with Lidge's status still largely in the air.

3. Carlos Carrasco, and to a lesser extent Travis Blackley. With only one inning of one game under his belt, it is hard to make any conclusions about Carrasco, who can't drink in this country until March 21st, but I am sure going to try. His one-inning performance left a good amount of zeros in the right places on the box-score, which always warms my red and blue heart a little bit. I am hopeful, and our skipper has shared this sentiment, that Carlos will be pitching for the Fightin's by mid-summer, granting our staff another young force to be reckoned with. Travis Blackley did not pitch yesterday, but his one-hit, three-inning performance on the 27th is a nice argument for his spot on the roster. His spot, it seems to me, is unlikely because under the Rule-5 restrictions, he must be on the roster through the year or be offered back to the Giants. This brand of young-depth scares some, but it is the youthful urgency to play hard that comes with it which i am most interested in. Our team is replete with talent and all it takes to mobilize, as we saw last year with Jimmy Rollins, is a spark. With each new player who steps up, it becomes more and more likely that that spark will happen, and will happen early.

So (also, So Taguchi has be...I guess well save that for a few days), get excited because we have the best team in the NL East and we are now battling on a national stage.