Thursday, June 26, 2008

Charlie, change it back! New line-up fails to deliver

As I wrote about last night's win, I mentioned the "funky" line-up that Charlie Manuel used that managed 11 hits and 4 walks but only scored 4 runs and stranded 26 runners. That got me curious as to how the "normal" Phillies line-up would have fared. Turns out that if Manuel had kept things the same, the Phillies would have scored twice as many runs and won the game 8-0.

Here is the line-up from last night that scored 4 runs:
1. Werth, RF
2. Utley, 2B
3. Rollins, SS
4. Burrell, LF
5. Howard, DH
6. Feliz, 3B
7. Victorino, CF
8. Coste, C
9. Bruntlett, 1B

Here is the "normal" line-up:
1. Rollins, SS
2. Victorino, CF
3. Utley, 2B
4. Howard, DH
5. Burrell, LF
6. Werth, RF
7. Feliz, 3B
8. Coste, C
9. Bruntlett, 1B

It turns out that with that configuration, Utley would have knocked Victorino in three times, helping the Phillies to score more runs. The Phillies also would have strung together several hits in the 7th inning that would have led to three runs.

The lesson here for Manuel is that this line-up isn't more effective, at least for one night. It's important to keep the table setters like Rollins and Victorino at the top of the line-up so Utley can drive them in.

Here is what last night's game would have looked like:


1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Rollins Out | Single Out |
Victorino Out | Walk | Single
Utley Single | Double (2 RBI) | Triple (1 RBI)
Howard Out | Out | Out
Burrell | Out Single (1 RBI) | Out
Werth | Walk Out | Out
Feliz | Out | Triple |
Coste | Out | Sac-Out |
Bruntlett | | Out Out |






Score: 0-0 0-0 3-0 4-0 5-0


6th 7th 8th 9th
Rollins Out | Walk |
Victorino | Single, Steal Unk (OUT?) |
Utley | Single (1 RBI) Out |
Howard | Out Out |
Burrell | Out | (Jenkins, Out)
Werth | Single | Out
Feliz Out Single (1 RBI) | Out
Coste Single Single (1 RBI) | |
Bruntlett Out Out | |





Score: 5-0 8-0 8-0 8-0

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