Series Thread: Phillies @ Jays (July1-3)

[Michael Bradley]

Can't wait to see what this team could do with actual talent at 2B, 3B (with Bautista in RF), DH, and CF.

Also, after today's game, Dotel lowers his ERA to 3.86 (23.1 IP, 18 H, 10 ER, 12 BB, 27 K, 4 HR, 1.29 WHIP). He seems like he who would accept arbitration if offered so he is someone I would look to trade this month. Even if it is for a James McDonald type talent, it's better than having a guy who can't get lefties out for nearly $4M.

[Randle McMurphy]

Nice to see Dotel come in and cleanly win this one. He even got a leftie out.

Yeah, I hope that doesn't mean Farrell will consider using him as closer going forward. But you never know with him.

And I don't have a major problem with Hill at leadoff for a few days. If you look at the team's other options, there really isn't much there. Perhaps Patterson/Davis if you were to platoon them by matchups would be better, but they aren't platooning them.

[Hendrix]

I'm guessing it's that our back end is kind of doing what we'd like, and it seems like everyone is happy with Davis in the 8th spot to allow the steal without messing with JBau.

It's also a question of who would you rather, and where would you put Hill instead? Swapping spots with JMac isn't much different, right?

As I was typing that I had another thought - basically there's no one better and it gets Hill a few extra ABs - we still can hope it's just a prolonged funk and he can turn it around, correct? Here's his opportunity.

Hmmm.. I suppose I should have taken a look at the rest of our team, I didn't realize they have sucked this bad to the point that it makes kinda sense to put Hill at th top of the order. But you are right.

I still think theres other guys that belong above him, but it's suprisingly not as big of a gap as I thought it would be.

[LittleOzzy]

Need a new series thread!