Phillies Opening Day Review

After months of having the last image of the Phillies playing competitive baseball being Ryan Howard crumpling to the ground after rupturing his Achilles tendon on the last play of the NLDS loss to St. Louis, the Phillies finally played a game that means something and gave the Phans a chance to create new memories to replace that painful, painful one.

What did today's 1-0 Opening Day win tell us?  Let's begin promptly, shall we?

Reports of Roy Halladay's Demise Are Premature

Many people were sounding alarm bells when Roy Halladay's performance this spring was less than stellar.  Today's start was going to tell us whether we should panic or be cool.

As they say in West Side Story, play it cool boys.  Real cool.

Hearts likely flew into throats when Halladay gave up singles to the first two hitters he faced.  However, he got the next batter, Andrew McCutcheon, to ground into a nifty 6-4-3 double play and induced a fly ball to John Mayberry for the final out of the first.

He wouldn't give up another hit.

True to form for Doc, who can have shaky first innings but then settles in to dominate, he absolutely shut down the Pirates the rest of the way, allowing only two more baserunners over the next seven innings, both hit batsmen.  Had it been June or July—even May—Halladay would likely have come out to finish the ballgame, having thrown only 92 pitches.  But Charlie Manuel decided not to push him toward 100 in his first start and let Jonathan Papelbon close the door in the ninth.

It was vintage Halladay and showed to us all that his odd spring was nothing more than a veteran tinkering and making sure everything was right with his body and with his pitches.  He'll likely be in CyYoung form once again in 2012.

Papelbon Looks Locked In

Papelbon looked fantastic in the ninth inning today.  He threw only 10 pitches to get his first save as a Phillie, striking out the first hitter he faced on four, then getting two weak ground balls to Placido Polanco at third base.

Papelbon will be facing hitters that, for the most part, have either never seen him or have only one or two ABs against him.  His fastball command—key to whether or not he is effective pitching—looked spot-on today, and coming into a new league it looks as though he may be primed for a big year.

The Bullpen Will Be Little-Used...Again

Papelbon was the only man to leave the confines of the bullpen today.  Last year, the Phillies' 'pen was the least-used in the majors thanks to the team's tremendous starting pitching.  If Halladay's outing was any indication, they will be staying there more often than not.

It's a good sign for the Phils, whose middle relief is reliant on some younger arms.  If the aces again go deep into ball games, the younger guys can cut their teeth in low-stress situations while veterans and youngsters alike will be fresher at the end of the season, something that ended up biting teams like the Braves at the end of the season when their fantastic young relievers were pushed too far and ran out of gas, a major catalyst of their September swoon.

Keeping the 'pen fresher was a great bonus of last year's fantastic starting pitching, and it looks as though it will pay out again this year.

The Offense Will Be Like This for a While

Today's scoreline: 1-0.  Be warned: we're going to be enduring a lot of these this season.

Until the injured middle of the order comes back, this team will lack pop.  No one but the biggest of homers has denied that this offseason.  Without Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, the main power just isn't there, and it will put pressure on the starters to put up more games like this one, where one run may have to be enough.

There were a few good signs.  John Mayberry Jr., who is coming off a terrible spring, went 2-4 with the game's only extra base hit, a double to right in the seventh that set up Carlos Ruiz's RBI sac fly.  Shane Victorino stole his first base of the season, and Jimmy Rollins surprised Pirates third baseman Pedro Alvarez with a bunt single in the first, something that Manuel has been preaching to Rollins and Victorino this spring.

The key this year will be execution.  Today it happened—the only time we got a man to third Ruiz knocked him home.  Situations with runners in scoring position—especially with a runner on third and less than two outs—need to be converted.

Ruiz Remains Clutch

Speaking of Carlos Ruiz, he may have had the best offensive day so far in what has been an Opening Day dominated by pitchers.

He went 3-3 and drove in the game's only run in the seventh with a sac fly to right.  It wasn't hit all that well, but third base coach Juan Samuel was aggressive in a scoreless game and sent Ty Wigginton, who beat Jose Tabata's throw.

Every time the Phillies have had to deal with a long-term injury to one of their key players, someone else has picked up the slack.  In 2007, when Chase Utley and Ryan Howard both hit the DL at different points in the season, Jimmy Rollins picked up the slack in what would end up being an MVP season.  Last season with Utley out at the beginning of the season Howard reversed his trend of slow starts and beat kept the Phillies' offense going in April.  Vance Worley picked up for Roy Oswalt last year as well.

Hopefully, Chooch's day today is signaling that the pint-sized catcher may be the one to help the offense along until the bigger pieces make their returns.

The 8 Spot Is Going to Be a Black Hole for a While

Please, please, baseball gods, send Chase Utley back to us soon.

Freddy Galvis was absolutely terrible today at the plate.  He hit into two double plays and struck out, going 0-4 overall on the day.

His defense was, as expected, solid.  Galvis was probably playing major-league ready defense two seasons ago.  The problem is his bat.

Until last year, he had never hit higher than .240 in a given season.  Last year he hit .273, which gave some hope that if Jimmy Rollins hadn't resigned that Galvis would be able to step in.  J-Roll did come back, but Galvis found himself at second halfway through spring training when Utley finally announced he couldn't go yet.  I disagreed with the believers and was still skeptical of Galvis' skills with the bat, and while he had a great spring and it only is one game, he looked really bad today against some marginal pitching.  If the team ends up desperately needing offense it would be better to option Galvis back to Lehigh Valley and give the second base spot to Pete Orr or Wigginton.

The Rest of the Division Has Its Problems Too

The two top contenders to take the Phillies' crown in the revamped NL East had major belly-flops on Opening Day.  Last night Josh Johnson had a hiccup and allowed four runs, and the vaunted Miami lineup could only muster one run against Kyle Lohse, a mediocre pitcher at best.  That young, power-laiden lineup may be the next to end up getting burned by a new ballpark.  The new Marlins Park looks like it may end up playing really big.  A blast by Giancarlo (nee Mike) Stanton late in the game that looked gone turned out to only be warning track power.  That park has some big gaps and it might hamper the Marlins offensively.

The only thing hampering the Braves offensively is themselves.  Against a returning Johan Santana and a bullpen made up mostly of journeymen the Braves mustered only four hits and only put one man past second base—a one-out triple by rookie Tyler Pastornicky in the seventh that was wasted when Tim Byrdak struck out Jose Constanza and Michael Bourn.  Top lefty reliever Johnny Venters looked fairly human, loading the bases before bailing himself out with a strikeout of Lucas Duda.

Most think that the step back the Phillies will have taken due to injuries on offense and giant steps forward by the Marlins and Braves will equal the Phillies losing the division for the first time in five years.  But so far those steps forward aren't showing.