In Possible NLCS Preview, Phillies Take Game One Without Aid of Top Bats

After watching the Phillies game yesterday I noticed a blog post by the PhilliesNation blog titled, "Iron Pigs Beat Brewers." I found the post title quite humorous because it felt like that is exactly what happened. In what most people are considering to be the NLCS preview, the Phillies took to the field to play the third best team in the NL with no Utley, no Howard, no Ibanez and no Rollins. Four of their starters sat and were instead replaced by bench players Valdez at 2B, Mayberry at 1B, Francisco at LF and Martinez at SS.

Although the Phillies did not pull guys up from AAA to play this game, they used players who have spent most of this season riding the bench. For example ever since Mayberry has pretty much gotten the LF job against righties, Francisco has barely seen playing time. Gload has emerged as the number one pinch hitter off of the bench so Francisco really hasn't even had that many at-bats. Valdez and Martinez are the same thing. When Utley, Rollins and Polanco are all playing, these two are really only used to pinch hit or pinch run. That is not to say that Valdez and Martinez have not gotten at-bats though because for most of the season either Polanco, Rollins or Utley did spend time on the DL and during those stints Martinez and Valdez pretty much platooned the open position.

So to say that the Iron Pigs beat the Brewers is false because all of these guys who played have big league experience.

This game did show something else though and that is that the Phillies can afford to rest starters. Let's face it, the Phillies are going to win the East and go into the playoffs with home field advantage throughout. There is no doubt in my mind. Personally I'd rather us rest our guys especially Utley, Rollins, Howard and Polanco, all of whom have had injuries this season. It is less important to me that the Phillies win 100 games if it means having tired players going into the playoffs.

But it looks like I could get both 100 wins and fresh starters because last night I realized how deep our bench really is. I wouldn't worry too much about resting the big boys because the bench showed that they are talented. We as fans love seeing the starters out there but we have to remember that almost every player on our bench has major league experience and is a major league player.

We are so blessed to have starters as good as we do but our bench players are pretty good too. We don't realize this but Gload, Valdez, Francisco and Martinez really are good enough to start on most other major league teams. Actually if take one of the worst teams in the majors, say the Astros, they would be happy to have a Valdez or Gload on their team as starters.

So in NLCS game one the Phillies lead the series 1-0. They lead the series without putting four of their best players on the field and by throwing their third ace. They also lead on the road which if this were game one, they'd be at home and no team wants to have to face the Phillies in the playoffs let alone at Citizen's Bank Park in front of some of the most passionate sports fans this world has ever seen. I don't like to make assumptions but being down 1-0 before Halladay and Lee even took the mound and before the Brewers had a chance to face the explosiveness of Chase, Ryan, Jimmy and Raul, I'd say the team from Milwaukee is in trouble/