Phillies Weekend Preview Will Cure Your Baseball Deprivation
The 42-48 and merely 6 GB of the Wildcard, Philadelphia Phillies will take on the damaged Mets for a 3 game series this weekend.
It starts tonight with deadline candidate, Jeremy Hellickson facing off against the ageless Bartolo Colon. Hellickson, who went into the All Star break with a 2-1 record and 2.16 ERA in his last 4 games. Hellickson will be an interesting name the next couple weeks, especially now after the market has been somewhat established after the Drew Pomeranz trade. Phillies have an interesting dilemma on their hand where they can keep Hellickson, extend him a qualifying offer at the end of the season, and perhaps secure a compensation pick in the 2017 draft if he signs elsewhere.
That’s quite the risk for the Phillies in my opinion. For the first time since the qualifying offer was established, 3 players singed this past off-season for quite the price tag of 15.8 million. The next two weeks will be very interesting. I have no idea what direction the team will go with Hellickson. We need arms to ride us through September and Hellickson is one of the only veteran pitchers in this rotation. I am indifferent towards any move they make.
Jared Eickhoff will toss Saturday and Zach Eflin will go Sunday. Eflin, coming off his first career win and complete game his last start will face the always dangerous and Phillie killer, Jacob Degrom. Degrom is 3-0 career versus the Phillies with 37 K’s in 35 IP.
This next month will tell us everything we need to know about this team. The lineup ended the first half on such a bang, it gave off the appearance of what looks to be a bright future. Then again this is a very young and inexperienced team. The chances of them making any sort of run is absurd and the likelihood of them running out of gas by August is very high. Still, a man can dream.
Go Phils.