Phil Watch: Finishing Up And PRFM

As always, when reading Phil, I really just want to read something I didn't read five days ago.

It's what any fan of baseball would like from the their city's national baseball columnist instead of reading a local version of Larry King's musings. Wait a minute. I think we have something here.

What if Phil began to pepper his columns with wildly idiotic movie reviews in between telling us the Tigers' rotation could be 'a lot of fun' and Dusty Baker is going to turn around the Reds.

But that's just a Christo fantasy land populated with sprites, fairies and unicorns.

Let's get back to reality with Phil's Whispers Around The League.

The A's can't believe how well Frank Thomas is running since he joined them last month. He recently delivered his first triple since 2002. "I played with the guy in '06 and I don't think I've seen him beat out a ball, much less go home to third," A's pitcher Chad Gaudin told CBS Sportsline.

I saw this 'triple' live. It was a Carney Lansford-like milker dink down the right field line that Vladimir Guerrero - who seems to have left his knees in the dugout back in 2006 - tried to make a play on it and, you know, didn't. You can see it for yourself here.

Any Major League player who couldn't have made it to third on that play shouldn't really be playing baseball. And Frank Thomas is running so well that he was lifted for a pinch runner in the seventh, his team up 6-2, when he was a homerun away from the cycle.

Probably a wise move with the opportunity to put the Angels away - which they did in prodigious fashion - but 'running so well' is entirely relative to Thomas' previous three seasons where it looked like he was carrying two Bengie Molinas and a Ron Karkovice on his back whenever he ran. In other words, he's not especially fast.

Like the 2007 Cubs, the Braves have started poorly because they haven't been winning close games. And the shaky shoulder of John Smoltz won't make it any easier to recover from a 13-15 start that included an 0-9 mark in one-run games.

Phil's been pushing this line w/r/t the Braves for a few weeks now. In fact, it's really the only thing he says about the Braves aside from the fact that Chipper Jones is good at hitting baseballs.

The Braves are 0-9 in one-run games. They're not going to go 0 for, say, 50. Granted.

But to excel at winning one-run games, any team needs a good bullpen. The Braves don't have a particularly good bullpen.

Rafael Soriano - bad elbow.

Peter Moylan - bad elbow.

John Smoltz - bad shoulder. Will be closer when he comes back.

Will Ohman - He's Will Ohman. Peripherals say that ERA is an illusion.

Jorge Campillo - Unspectacular track record. Will return to Earth.

Manny Acosta - More walks than strikeouts. Failed miserably when handed the closer role.

I don't exactly know how Phil thinks they will be markedly better in this area.

Arizona's Max Scherzer, who retired all 13 hitters he faced Tuesday in his big-league debut, had 38 strikeouts in 23 innings in his four starts for Triple-A Tucson. The University of Missouri product had worked only 114 career innings in the minors. He's moving into the rotation Monday, replacing No. 5 man Edgar Gonzalez.

I saw his first appearance, mainly because the Angels were getting their ass handed to them late in the aforementioned Frank Thomas 'triple' game. He's good. Ridiculously good. Small sample size but watching him pitch left me a bit agape, and not in the Kiekegaard sort of way.

Scherzer pitches with a confidence not seen in a long time. He makes his first start against the Phillies tonight. Watch it if you can.

And he's the spitting image of a young Curt Schilling, his look, the way he holds his glove, his delivery, everything.

Which means Phil will probably hate him.

Bartolo Colon, who is about to resume his minor-league assignment with Boston, has an out clause in his contract that should attract scouts from other organizations, including the Yankees. That could be interesting.

Or not.

And then there's Phil's Power Rankings.

3. Cubs (3): Yes, they’ve been spinning their wheels lately. But they’ve still scored seven-plus runs 11 times in their last 18 games, giving them the most prolific lineup in the majors. With no saves since April 18, Kerry Wood has become a problem but will either straighten himself out or become a setup man for Carlos Marmol, who is a closer in waiting.

3-7 in the last ten games. Holds steady at #3. What a Cub fan.

5. Athletics (5): Ignore the 2-5 record. Joe Blanton has been a rock for the young starting rotation.

Joe Blanton is the definition of a slightly above-average pitcher. A number three on a respectable team. And someone that some dopey team like the the Dusty Baker Reds will pursue vigorously and wildly overpay because he throws 200 innings and hasn't been hurt. He's a poor man's Buehrle.

TTO hero Jack Cust went 10-20 (.500) for the week with 3 hrs. More relevant.

3-4 for the week, BTW. They are not better than the Angels (#7 in Phil's world). Yeah. I'm an Angels fan. Wanna fight about it?

7. Angels (11): Mike Scioscia’s team has found its groove after a 6-6 start. It has done it without John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar, which is scary.

Only thing he says about the Angels. Still no mention of Erick Aybar.

9. Dodgers (20): Rafael Furcal ranks behind only Chipper Jones in batting average. Through Saturday, 11 of the majors’ top 12 batting averages were by hitters with NL teams. Does this represent an end to the American League’s dominance of the last decade or is it a sign that the AL now has the best pitchers too?

WHHHHHAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT??????!!!!!!

Because NL hitters are beating up on crappy NL pitching through the first 30 games of 2008, that possibly means that somehow the NL could now be a better league than the AL?

Phil. This is not a sign of either question you posited. By its very structure, each league's hitting (and conversely, each league's pitching) is directly relative to that respective league. The AL is head-and-shoulders above the NL in every freakin' facet of the game. I can't believe I even had to write that.

Why even ask the question? It's dippy, even as a whimsical joke.

10. Rays (8): With a chance to cement their newfound credibility, the Rays took their lumps at Fenway Park over the weekend.

Tampa Bay Rays. Go home. You lost three games at Boston. Ppppffff! You are no longer credible. All that crap I stole from the NY Times and said about you is no longer relevant. You will lose 90 games now.

Go away.

13. Blue Jays (19): Before winning a weekend series against the White Sox, Toronto hadn’t won a series since sweeping Texas April 11-13. Manager John Gibbons isn’t getting the most out of his team, which is 2-8 in one-run games.

We know Phil doesn't like the Blue Jays anymore because they released the next Lou Brock in Frank Thomas. But they jump 6 spots by sweeping a slumping White Sox team at home.

Never mind that the whole starting staff seems to have found their legs over the last 15 days.

Halladay: 1-0, 2.63 ERA

McGowan: Beat Boston at Fenway, 3.57 overall ERA.

Marcum: 1-0, 2.97 ERA

Burnett: 2-0, 2.70 ERA

Litsch: 2-0, looked like Sandy Koufax against the White Sox.

One-run game record is this week's catching efficiency for Phil. I think he's just fascinated by the customizable standings page at MLB.com.

14. Twins (25): Don’t expect Francisco Liriano to return quickly from the minors. He’s given up 10 hits and walked eight in 81/3 innings in his two starts in Triple A.

The Twins jump 11 spots because Liriano sucked in his two Triple-A starts.

16. Indians (12): Victor Martinez leads the AL in hitting but would rank sixth in the NL.

I got nothin' else to say on that.

17. Tigers (14): When Detroit scores four runs or fewer, it is 0-15. Good lineups don’t carry bad pitching staffs. The Tigers’ starters are 27th in the majors with a 5.39 ERA; their relievers are 21st with a 4.32 ERA.

HE SAID IT!!! HE SAID IT!!! HE SAID IT!!!!

Good lineups don't carry bad pitching staffs! $20 says he will heretofore never heed this maxim again.

19. Orioles (17): The Erik Bedard trade looks like a steal for Andy MacPhail and the Baltimore front office.

Adam Jones' .239 avg. and .282 OBP hasn't drawn any comparisons to Willie Mays and George Sherill's 5.00 ERA hasn't confused him with Dennis Eckersley yet, but I get the point...I guess.

29. Pirates (31): Somebody is going to make them a good offer for Damaso Marte before the trade deadline.

Maybe an offer, not a good one. Something along the lines of Ken Phelps being traded for 12 boxes of baseballs.

30. Reds (26): Dusty Baker might have found himself with a bigger challenge than he expected. A 6-15 slide badly dented the chances for Baker to write an overnight success story in Cincinnati, as he previously had in Chicago and San Francisco.

Compare the team rosters of both the Giants and the Cubs the year before and the year following the hiring of Dusty Baker.

A rotting corpse could have managed those teams to 81 wins.

Can everyone stop perpetuating this 'Dusty Baker is a genius' crap?

And he's weird. Just Weird.