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Posts Tagged ‘Jose Contreras’

Carlos Ruiz hit a career-high 16 home runs and drove in 68 runs in 114 games in 2012. (Kevin Durso/Phillies Network)

He was easily the offensive MVP for the 2012 Phillies. He might have been the best player on the whole team in 2012. And with his contract down to a final-year option, the Phillies are not letting him go.

The Phillies exercised the $5 million option on catcher Carlos Ruiz.

The Phillies had actually made known that this move would happen earlier in the offseason but had to wait until the Postseason was over before making the move official.

Ruiz hit .325 in 2012 with a career-high 16 home runs and 68 RBIs in 114 games. Ruiz was forced to sit out two months of the season with a foot injury.

In addition to picking up Chooch’s option, the Phillies have options on Placido Polanco, Jose Contreras and Ty Wigginton. All three players are expected to be bought out and enter free agency. Similarly, Juan Pierre and Brian Schneider are set to become free agents on Saturday. None of those five is likely to return in 2013.

Hunter Pence is drawing interest from the Giants. Could the Phillies get two needs from one trade. In a roundabout way, the answer is yes. (Phillies Network/Kevin Durso)

This has already been quite an afternoon trying to keep up with the latest rumors. In the past 24 hours, two guys who appeared to be safer than most, but still in rumors have officially hit the block.

Hunter Pence and Cliff Lee are definitely available. Both drive a high price for Ruben Amaro Jr.

The real talk that seems to garnered the most speculation was Pence, at least last night. Even with Lee in there, we all know Texas is interested. How interested pretty much rests on if a deal gets done or not.

But back to Pence, who has been getting quite a bit of attention from two NL West rivals. There are two scenarios that could benefit the Phillies almost immediately.

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Shane Victorino could likely be traded with his contract due to expire after the 2012 season. (Phillies Network/Kevin Durso)

The Phillies are 45-57 this season. They lost 60 games all of last season.

After winning five straight division titles, the run appears to be over for good. The Phillies are 16 1/2 games back in the NL East. They are 12 1/2 back in the wild card. Sometimes miracles do happen, but this is ridiculous.

Charlie Manuel is right when he says that this is not the same team. The players lack heart. The players are losing ability. The injuries and replacement roles have taken its toll on the team. It’s over for 2012.

But, with a day and a half remaining until the trade deadline, should the Phillies be completely focused on selling? Can they get deals that benefit the club without sacrificing the players they say are not on the block? Can they get good return for the players they are willing to trade by selling? Read the rest of this entry »

Hunter Pence is one of the regulars who struggled in last night's 6-5 loss to the Dodgers. Due to injuries, the Phillies are forced to employ a roster heavily loaded with minor leaguers. (Photo by Rob Tringali/Getty Images)

It’s hard to ignore the Phillies struggles this season. It has been a season-long affair, not just this current, five-game slide they are on.

I talked about placing the blame from one player to another or aspect yesterday. It really is hard to actually blame the Phillies for losing when the reason they are losing is either in the dugout or a thousand miles away.

A $173 million-plus payroll is supposed to give you a roster that should supply plenty of wins. Provided that roster is even around to supply. On the DL now are Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and several other players. The 25 players on the current Phillies’ roster make $113.5 million according to ESPN.com. That means there is $60 million on the DL now, and that doesn’t include the salaries of Cliff Lee, Jose Contereas and Freddy Galvis, who have all been or currently are on the DL, or the salaries of minor-league callups.

This team has been snakebitten when it comes to injuries. And the real reason they are 28-30 is that they have to do the best they can with the best they have. If that means sporting a lineup peppered with has-beens and minor-leaguers, the same in the bullpen and a rotation that is trying to fill the void with spot starters.

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Raul Valdes has been serving as the Phillies long man in the bullpen. He will likely be holding the role for longer now that Jose Conteras has joined a lengthy injury list. (Phillies Network/Kevin Durso)

Jose Contreras threw his fifth pitch of the seventh inning in Friday night’s 6-4 win over the Marlins and doubled over in pain. It’s the last pitch Contreras will throw this season. It could be the last pitch Contreras throws in his career now that he’s been diagnosed with a torn UCL and pronator flexor tendon that requires Tommy John surgery.

As another domino on the Phillies roster fell, the puzzle that is the Phillies’ bullpen became more abstract than ever. Sure, they have a definitive closer in Jonathan Papelbon. But there’s a reason Papelbon came in for the last five outs of Friday’s win. It was certainly not Charlie Manuel’s first choice. But the win was too important to let slip away at the hands of a discombobulated bullpen.

Here’s the knowns. The bullpen still has consistency in members like Antonio Bastardo, Joe Savery and Chad Qualls. They have been the only regular members of the bullpen to this point. Jake Diekman, Raul Valdes and Michael Schwimer were not always on the roster. Mike Stutes, David Herndon and now Contreras have all gone down with injuries.

Bastardo is going to get the first chance to be the regular set-up man because he has done it before. That is certainly a good enough reason at this point. Diekman looks like he has the potential to become a set-up man soon, but for now moves into Bastardo’s old role of lefty specialist.

Chad Qualls, once the Phillies set-up man, has been more of a right-handed specialist of late. (Phillies Network/Kevin Durso)

Valdes has been a decent innings eater. Schwimer and Qualls are sort of last resorts at this point after Qualls’ bid to be the set-up man failed. As the only two right-handers in the bullpen, the Phillies have no choice but to give Qualls a longer leash again.

So the Phillies will continue to work around what they have. They have had to do that with the lineup, a spot that clearly suffered yesterday in their 5-4 loss to the Marlins, they have had to do that with the rotation, and they now have to continue going on with what they have in the bullpen.

It may be an unknown, mixed-up bullpen, but like everything else, every time they succeed, they defy the odds more and more.

Jonathan Papelbon and Carlos Ruiz celebrate the final out of the Phillies' 6-4 win over the Marlins. Papelbon completed a five-out save to seal the win. (Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)

It might have been the most stressful winning effort of the season. A few opportunistic scoring plays got the game started, but as it started to wind down, the Phillies were in danger of letting this one slip away.

That’s when Charlie Manuel decided to try something different. He turned to his closer for more than he had asked all season. The closer didn’t disappoint.

The Phillies pitching staff did not have a highlight reel night, but they escaped jam after jam and managed to avoid the rain to complete tonight’s game and add another victory to their total.

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Carlos Ruiz and Brian Schneider celebrate Ruiz' game-tying home run in the seventh inning of the Phillies' 10-6 win over the Mets. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

For Cliff Lee, the bad luck continues. But for the Phillies, failing in a situation once meant taking another crack at it later. The second time around, they delivered the run they needed. The next time, they put the game out of reach.

In their last game in May, the Phillies made sure that it ended on a good note. The score will make this appear like it was an easy win. It was anything but easy.

The Phillies had to battle back from good scoring chances squandered. Once they managed the all-important run they needed, they suddenly got hot at the plate making for an enjoyable night offensively. But the pitching still added that little slice of frustration and agony.

In the end it was another winning effort for the Phillies who closed out May and entered an off day with another morale-boosting win.

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Hunter Pence and Juan Pierre celebrate Pence's 10th-inning home run. The Phillies beat the Cardinals in 10 innings, 5-3. (Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)

One year ago tonight (tomorrow), it took ten extra innings and some six hours to play a ballgame. Tonight, far too much irony was in effect.

That game was May 25, 2011, and featured 19 innings. Tonight’s wasn’t nearly as long, but very similar.

Extra innings were needed tonight. The scoring was low. The starters each pitched well but each took no decisions. And in the end, the win may define this Phillies team.

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Roy Halladay suffered the loss after allowing five runs in six innings to the Nationals in the Phillies' 5-2 loss. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

After storming to a six-game winning streak, the Phillies looked like they had finally shaken off the rust and were on their way to rebounding. Then, tough luck took over and snapped their streak.

Once their streak disappeared, so did everything else. They have lost their sense of fundamentals. They have lost their mojo. And to top it all off, their starting pitching, the Achilles’ heel to their season, has proven human.

These Phillies are vulnerable. These Phillies are borderline done in May. And once again, they couldn’t seem to do anything right as their streak of losses continued.

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Hector Luna, heading toward home plate after his grand slam in the ninth, joined Ty Wigginton and Carlos Ruiz (both pictured) in collecting big hits in the Phillies' 9-2 win over the Cubs. (Photo by David Banks/Getty Images)

One day after having to overcome an error in the ninth to win in the tenth, the Phillies had to overcome another. Only this time, they had five innings to do it.

The Phillies, who in previous games may have let runs like that kill them, rallied back to tie the game almost immediately, then got timely hitting.

You couldn’t write the script that went on tonight. The Phillies went from being the same team that couldn’t put a winning streak together at the plate to the team that had won three straight.

Now, you can make it four straight, as the team’s best player delivered the game winner, and an unlikely hero provided the fireworks that put the game out of reach.

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