Honestly, not this bad. You look at the lineup and it's not a bunch of nobodies. I'm not saying it's a good-to-great lineup, but it's not horrific (on paper). Then you look at the rotation, Myers is a legit #2, Happ and Wandy are legit #3s; it's not like we're trotting out rookies. Then the bullpen looks above average; the name-guys have a decent track record and the no-name guys have either above average stuff or really good numbers in the minors or ST.
I don't know, I'm not saying I expected the team to make the postseason or anything, but I didn't think they'd look as clueless as they did this series with the exception of Myers.
The horrific is in the hitting. There's a lot of maybes and hopefors in there and a few guys who pretty much hit like we expect them to on both sides of decent. The fielding is pretty good except for the OF corners and 3B. The bullpen is ok but shaky at closer.
After three games what we saw was one real good duel that was lost by the closer, one game where they got hammered in the fourth and relief didn't matter much in that one, and one where the game got away early and relief wasn't a factor there either. So what we saw was two starters and a closer getting hit and not enough offense to make up for it.
Today Pence had a good game. Yesterday it was Lee. This is not the kind of team that one player can carry though, because no one gets on base to be driven in. Until that gets taken care of, the starters are going to have to lock other teams down for the Astros to have much of a chance.
The caveat is that I'm just cranky today and prone to pessimism. After all, it was the Phillies, not those motherscratching Stem or the Shitbirds. 159 left.
