The weather was perfect. The pregame ceremonies were nice. Everything was great on opening day.
Except the baseball.
Wait till next year ... or the year after ... or the year after — whenever Pat Gillick said the Phillies would be ready to win again.
Year One of The Rebuild got off to an embarrassing start Monday as the Phillies were pounded, 8-0, by the Boston Red Sox in front of what might turn out to be the only sellout crowd of the season at Citizens Bank Park (see Instant Replay).
Boston thumped Phillies ace Cole Hamels for four solo home runs in five innings. One can only imagine what the Red Sox bats will do the rest of the series. After Hamels, the Phillies’ starting rotation is basically a group of No. 5 starters.
“It’s one game,” outfielder Grady Sizemore reasoned in the losing clubhouse afterward. “We’ve got a long season to go.”
MLB
That’s the scary part.
There’s something about the first start of the season that doesn’t agree with Hamels. For his career, he is 1-7 with a 5.13 ERA in his first start of the season. He will pitch better. Bank on it.
But will the Phillies score any runs for him or anyone else on this pitching staff?
That’s a legitimate question.
The Phils ranked 23rd in the majors with 3.82 runs per game last season. Management did absolutely nothing to upgrade the offense this winter. In fact, it subtracted two of the team’s top offensive players in Marlon Byrd and Jimmy Rollins. All this points to the offense being worse this season.
Monday’s offensive performance certainly supported that possibility. The Phils had one hit, a double by Ryan Howard, through the first six innings against Boston righty Clay Buchholz. They hit just three balls hard over that span. They finished with three hits for the day — Howard’s double and singles by Carlos Ruiz and Sizemore. All the hits were against Buchholz, who walked one and struck out nine in seven innings of work.
Was Buchholz that good or the Phillies’ offense that bad?
Phils manager Ryne Sandberg gave credit to Buchholz.
“Buchholz was tough on us,” Sandberg said. “We could not figure him out.
“He stayed down with his fastball and changed speeds really well. He had a good changeup and it looked like that was in the back of our minds.”
Conversely, Hamels was not tough on the Red Sox, a team he’s long been linked to in trade talks.
The 31-year-old lefty allowed the first solo homer two batters into the game when Dustin Pedroia took him deep to left. Pedroia also got Hamels in the fifth inning. Mookie Betts got him in the third. All three of those homers came on fastballs. Hanley Ramirez homered on a Hamels changeup in the fifth to give Boston a 4-0 lead. Ramirez doubled the lead with a ninth-inning grand slam off erratic Jake Diekman.
“Cole’s command was not sharp at all,” Sandberg said. “He did not get away with any high fastballs. He had long counts. They fouled off a lot of balls and he didn’t get into a rhythm of getting ahead and being able to put hitters away with a changeup or a spotted fastball.
“They’re a fastball hitting team and they didn’t let them pass. They squared them up. Cole was not himself with all the long counts. One-hundred pitches in five innings — that’s a lot of pitches.”
Hamels’ fastball was good — 94 mph. Location was a different story.
“A couple of them might have been the right pitch, just the wrong location,” he said. “You can’t make those big mistakes against an offense like that.”
This may have been Hamels’ last opening day with the Phillies. He is this team’s best trade chip and could be cashed in at any time for a couple of prospects. He wasn’t happy with the way things went.
“It definitely didn’t go the way we all envisioned and I’m one of the culprits of that. When you put your team down, 1-0, like that in the first inning it’s not really setting a good tone or a positive message to get the rhythm or momentum on your side. That’s a lot of my fault.
“It definitely was not what I was hoping for and what I was looking forward to doing.”
But it was just one game.
“There’s 161 to go,” Ben Revere said.
That’s the scary part.