This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies going from worst to first and winning the National League pennant. All season long we will take a look back at each game of the 1993 season.

Last Game: Padres 2, Phillies 1

Dodgers 0
Phillies 2

WP: Curt Schilling (3-1)
LP: Ramon Martinez (2-2) 

Curt Schilling pitched a complete game shutout and struck out nine batters in the process as the Phillies opened up a home series against the Los Angeles Dodgers with a 2-0 victory.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies going from worst to first and winning the National League pennant. All season long we will take a look back at each game of the 1993 season.

Last Game: Phillies 4, Padres 3

Padres 2
Phillies 1

WP: Andy Benes (3-1)
LP: Terry Mulholland (2-2)
SV: Rich Rodriguez (2)

Before a Veterans Stadium crowd of 15,826, the Phillies continued a home series against the visiting San Diego Padres but the bats were unable to come alive for most of the game. The Padres took game one of the series by a score of 2-1, with Andy Benes shutting down the Phillies offense in to the ninth inning, allowing just five hits and one run before Rich Rodriguez was called on for the save.

Phillies starter Terry Mulholland had a solid outing, scattering seven hits and two runs over six innings pitched before being replaced on the mound by Mark Davis in the seventh inning. Mulholland and Benes took a scoreless game in to the fifth inning, when Padres catcher Bob Geren smacked a lead off home run to left field to give the visitors a 1-0 lead. San Diego left fielder Phil Plantier would double home first baseman Fred McGriff in the sixth inning to give the Padres a 2-0 lead.

Ryan Howard is an easy target of criticism by Phillies fans. For those who pay attention to the deeper numbers and statistics of the game, Ryan Howard has his flaws. This cannot be denied when taking his contract value in to consideration. But as the month of April starts to wind down I was curious how Howard's first month of the season has compared to some of his previous Aprils, for the sake of comparison. Is Howard still on a decline, or is there a perceived bias against the Phillies first baseman?

Basic Stats

April Batting Average

Howard's overall batting average has certainly declined a little bit, but .277 is actually six points higher than his career batting average to date. As we will see later though, the disparity between batting averages against right handed pitchers vs. lefties is drastic, especially in the early going this season. Ideally you would like to see Howard bring that batting average a little bit, but if he ends up hitting .277 this season that may not be a terrible thing. In fact, if he maintains that batting average, hen Howard would finish the year with his highest batting average since hitting .279 in 2009. It would also be his fourth highest season batting average, not including his September call-up for 19 games in 2004.

When John Lannan went down with a knee injury last week, there was a lot of speculation of who was going to take his next scheduled start.  While many fans including myself would have liked to see Adam Morgan take Lannan’s start it just wasn’t possible giving the way the Ironpigs rotation goes.  Another potential roadblock for Morgan is that he is not on the 40 man roster.  The pitcher that the Phillies chose would have to be on the 40 man roster in order to keep from out righting a player off the roster.  That only left a handful of pitchers available to make the start.

The choices for the Phillies who were included on the 40 man roster were Tyler Cloyd, Ethan Martin, B.J. Rosenberg, and Jonathan Pettibone.  Cloyd, who spent part of last September starting for the Phillies.  He posted a 2-2 record with a 4.91 ERA with 8 home runs allowed in 6 starts.  Cloyd also has not gotten off to a great start this year in AAA either, posting a 7.07 ERA in 3 starts.  Ethan Martin still might be a little raw in his development to be able to make a start for the big club at this point.  We all got to see B.J. Rosenberg work out of the bullpen and while he has a good fastball, he has yet to prove himself to be a viable starting option for the Phillies.  That leaves only one person to make that start and his name is Jonathan Pettibone.

For the seventh straight game, the Phillies offense has failed to score in the first five innings of a game.  In addition, they also have not scored 3 or more runs in any of those games either.  Another stat that I find disturbing is that they have not drawn a walk in 4 straight games.  The last team to accomplish that feat was the Chicago White Sox in August of 2011.  Now, let’s get to the game which was more exciting than any Phillies game I have watched in the last week so there’s that.  Take that for what it’s worth.

The first three innings were ho hum as both Cole Hamels and Adam Wainwright were settling in for another pitcher’s duel which is all too familiar for the 2013 Phillies as they have scored 2 or less runs 8 times in their first 16 games including tonight.

Help is on the way!

The Phillies have been struggling to stay afloat during the first few weeks of the season missing a guy who up until last year was completely underrated by MLB but not by Phillies fans. Carlos “Chooch” Ruiz has been a key cog in this team’s success since his debut in 2006. Not only does Chooch’s presence behind the plate help the pitching staff as he boasts a career catchers ERA of 3.82. In 2012, he also had a career year hitting as well by putting up a very impressive .325/.394/.540 slash line while belting 16 home runs and driving in 68 runs. All of which are career highs for him.

Take in mind that he missed more than a month during the dog days of summer also. After an offseason where he tested positive the second time for Adderall earning himself a 25 game suspension to start the 2013 season we have seen his backups struggle immensely. The current Phillies catchers have combined for 9 hits through the first 17 games of the season. With an estimated April 28^th return of the soft-spoken Panamanian I wanted to project what I want Charlie to pencil on a lineup card on that date. 

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies going from worst to first and winning the National League pennant. All season long we will take a look back at each game of the 1993 season.

Last Game: Phillies 1, Cubs 3

Phillies 3
Cubs 6

WP: Jose Guzman (2-1)
LP: Curt Schilling (2-1)
SV: Randy Myers (3)

The Phillies suffered back-to-back losses for the first time of the 1993 season when the Chicago Cubs handed them their first series loss of the young season at Wrigley Field. The Cubs got to Curt Schilling early and chased him in the sixth inning as they built a 6-1 lead that would be too big a hole to climb out of.

Heavy rains delayed the start of Tuesday night's Phillies-Reds game for one hour and 20 minutes and they returned to force the game to be suspended in the middle of the ninth inning of a scoreless game. The Phillies and Reds will resume their suspended game on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. The game will pick up right at the bottom of the ninth inning and the series finale will go on as planned at 7:10 p.m. unless the first game runs long.

This is the first suspended game for the Phillies since Game Five of the 2008 World Series. Things turned out pretty well in that one of course, but this 2013 team is in desperate need of a spark on offense. On Tuesday night the Phillies recorded just two singles off of Reds starter Homer Bailey, who struck out 10 Phillies batters. Fortunately for the Phillies the starting pitching of Kyle Kendrick and an inning from Antonio Bastardo was effective in holding the Reds to just two hits.

Former Phillies (Gold Glove) right fielder Bobby Abreu is taking the 2013 season off with the intent on returning to major league ball in 2014, according to MLB Trade Rumors. Before you go thinking about a potential return to the Phillies, think again.

Abreu is 39 years old and his batting average has steadily declined over the past four seasons since being traded away from Philadelphia in 2006. Rather than get older, the Phillies still need to get younger and improve the level of play defensively in the outfield. So scratch Abreu as a potential Phillie in 2014 off the list right now.

But have you ever wondered what happened to the prospects acquired in the trade with the New York Yankees in exchange for Abreu?

I dug in to Baseball Reference to find out.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies going from worst to first and winning the National League pennant. All season long we will take a look back at each game of the 1993 season.

Last Game: Phillies 9, Reds 2

Phillies 1
Cubs 3

WP: Mike Morgan (1-2)
LP: Terry Mulholland (2-1)
SV: Randy Myers (2)

Fresh off a home sweep of the Cincinnati Reds and a 5-1 home stand at Veterans Stadium, the Phillies took to the road to visit the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. For the second time in a week the Phillies and Cubs squared off in NL East action and after a series full of offense a week before, there was some anticipation for some classic offensive showings between these two once again. There would be plenty of fireworks to come in this series but the series opener was anything but, with Terry Mulholland taking his first loss of the year in a 3-1 defeat.