Weekly Wrap

Well it was an up and down week for the Phillies in what has so far been an up and down year. SS Jimmy Rollins is still out of the lineup and is projected to be available possibly Saturday. I suspect however that he will probably not start until Sunday night at the earliest. The Phillies have missed his presence at the top of the lineup along with the speedy Victorino who is still out recovering from a calf strain. CF Shane Victorino looks to return on Apr 29 when he is eligible to come off the DL. Reports on his status are positive and his strain is less severe than originally thought. Hopefully he will be able to slide back into the lineup and give the Phillies another speedy leadoff type guy at the top of the lineup. OF Jayson Werth has been very solid in his place and is batting .370 on the year with 1 HR/5 RBI. It will be nice to get Werth back into his platoon role in RF along with Jenkins. I think it is safe to say that he has earned himself some additional ABs with his performance in the past 2 weeks. That being said, its time for the Weekly Awards:

Player of the Week - LF Pat Burrell: Pat continues to mash the ball in his contract year and he leads the team in all offensive categories. He went 7 for 20 with 5 BBs this week along with 3 HRs and 8 RBI and 6 Runs scored. He is also been playing outstanding defense (for him) in LF. Both his Range Factor (RF) and Zone Rating (ZR) are well above his career norms so far this year. For a player that is much maligned for his mediocre fielding he has been stellar in LF. He has simply been carrying the Phillies so far this season.

Pitcher of the Week - SP Brett Myers: Brett is 2-0 this week with an ERA of 2.40. In 2 starts he has gone 15 Innings while striking out 13 and walking only 1. His BAA is a mere .185 in those starts. He has really turned it on and begun challenging hitters with his fastball after a slow start to the season.

Goat of the Week - UT Eric Bruntlett: It may be unfair to expect much offense out of a utility guy but Eric has had a rough week filling in for JRoll. One surprising stat is that his defensive play has actually been better than JRoll in nearly every category so at least he's doing one thing right. Eric went 4-22 (.182 AVG/.217 OBP) this week and was the only position player without a hit yesterday in the Phillies rout of the Houston Astros.

Honorary Goat of the Week - Houston GM Ed Wade: Ed Wade made what I will politely call some "questionable" moves in his tenure as Phillies GM but I must say that his trade for SS Miguel Tejada appears to be topping all of them. Not only has Tejada been implicated in the Mitchell Report but now we've come to find out that he is indeed 33 years old instead of 31. All this makes the bevy of young prospects that Wade shipped to Baltimore even more painful for Astros fans. This is the same guy that traded his team's closer for a utility OF so go figure.

The Phillies have the Mets coming to town starting tonight where SP Johan Santana will face off against fellow lefty SP Cole Hamels in the Battle of the Changeup. It should be an interesting game to watch. Also the Phillies will be on national television again this Sunday when they face off in the series finale at 8pm on Sunday Night Baseball. Hopefully JRoll will be back for this series.