Roy Halladay will get the ball for the Phillies tonight as they open their series at home with the Atlanta Braves. The Phils are currently 5 games behind the Braves in the standings and are coming off an embarrassing series loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team 22 games under .500. The All-Star break rolls around next week, giving the Phillies a few days to rest their thumbs, toes, hips and heads. But before that happens however, they’ll have to show some life against a team that could put them in a very deep hole if this series doesn’t go the Phillies’ way.

Insofar as it’s reasonable to say a series in July is a must-win, this 3-game set against Atlanta is a must-win. If the Phillies lose the series they will be, at best, six games behind Atlanta. Coming to town for 4 games immediately after the Braves series will be the NL Central-leading Cincinnati Reds, a team that just last week won their series with the Phillies. Adding to the Phillies standings’ woes is the fact that sandwiched between themselves and the Braves is the Mets, making 2 teams with which the Phils will have to contend.

Because we know this team so well and because of the success they’ve had in the past 3 seasons, we feel a sense of confidence that they can rebound in the second half of the season. But the Phillies aren’t the only ones who’ll have something to say about that; such is life when you’re in 3rd place. If the Phillies are going to position themselves to make a postseason appearance, it’s reasonable to say they’re going to have to start with their ace tonight. Coolstadings.com has the chances of the Phillies reaching to playoffs at 22.7% (based on statistical models). You can only imagine that getting lower if they reemerge in the 2nd half more than 5 games out.

Last night marked the first time a Mets pitcher has allowed 10 runs and 4 homers in a single outing. On the hill for that disgraceful performance was none other than Mets’ ace, Johan Santana. Placido Polanco, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley homered, Jamie Moyer walked and Shane Victorino hit a grand slam off Santana last night. Sure, this is only one game but it was the rubber match of the series between two bitter rivals. 36 total runs were scored in the series and none of the 3 games was decided by less than a 6-run margin.

It’s early in the season but the Phillies ability to open up a collective offensive salvo after losing 9-1 on Friday was the confidence boost this team needed at the plate. The Phils scored 4-more runs in their last two games than they had in their previous 5 games combined. More importantly, they retook control of the N.L. East standings by winning the series against the Mets.

Up next for the Phils is the St. Louis Cardinals who open a 4-game set at the Park tonight. The Phillies will miss Chris Carpenter during the series, having instead to face Jaime Garcia, Adam Wainwright, Brad Penny and Kyle Lohse. They’ll then play two at home against Atlanta and then hit the road for a 3-game set in Denver. Including the Mets series, the Phils will have played 13 consecutive games once this brutal stretch is over. Beating the pants off the Mets was certainly the way to kick it off.

Well thank god that’s over. The Phillies, Giants, Bruce Bochy, Ryan Madson, Brian Wilson and the Giants’ outfield all did their best to lose the game today. But in the end it was the Phillies who outlasted San Fran. After Lincecum left the game, the contest looked like two drunks in a sack race. In winning, the Phillies managed to keep pace with the first-place Mets and avoided being surpassed in the divison standings by the Nationals.

Cole Hamels’ line wasn’t all that bad. Sure, 113 pitches in 6 innings isn’t exactly encouraging. But Hamels fanned 10 Giants batters and kept the game within reach. Only receiving 1 run of support in his 6 innings speaks volumes about the motif of Hamels not getting the offense behind him, which may or may not be the reality but it sure seems to be.

To that point, Hamels has received 4.89 runs of support per 27 outs pitched this season. There’s a perception I’ve had over the past three seasons that Hamels for one reason or another doesn’t get the run support he should from an otherwise potent offense. In reality, Hamels has received the following run support totals over the past 3 seasons: 2008 4.72, 2009 4.67 2010 4.89. In those seasons the Phillies offense has averaged the following runs per game totals: 2008 4.93 2009 5.06 2010 5.43. It’s hard to speculate why this may be, but it does appear that Hamels’ outings aren’t endorsed as strongly by the lineup as are the other starters’ starts.

Joe Blanton’s start to the 2010 baseball season will be spent on the bench, attending to his injured sirloin. On the day when this news was announced in Philadelphia, the Phillies’ hated rival in Queens announced disappointing (but hardly shocking) injury news of their own: Daniel Murphy will start the season on the DL as well with a sprained knee. That loss means that the right side of their infield will be manned by Luis Castillo and someone named Mike Jacobs.

But that’s not the real gut-grabbing comedy to come out of New York today. The New York Daily News is reporting that because Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez have been so awful in the Grapefruit League, the Mets 3rd starter is now Jon Niese. Niese has appeared in a total of 8 games in the Majors, 3 in 2008 and 5 last season.

As Joe Blanton rests up, the Mets will try and salvage their year before it begins. When your team is desperately in need of a turnaround season and you do nothing in the offseason other than acquire Jason Bay, you’re in a position where an all-out fan mutiny is likely. You’re also in a position where you need everything to go right from a personnel perspective. The injury gods have not been kind to the Mets in the recent past and they’re showing no sign of relenting. But it’s the Mets’ inability to address their horrible starting pitching that’s really going to sink their ship.

The Atlanta Braves are a team that could give the Phillies a lot of trouble this season. Because they’re still a work in progress (and because the Phillies have won 2 consecutive pennants), we believe it would be irresponsible to expect they’ll actually win the division this year. But the Braves have two-highly touted entities working in their favor this season: their starting rotation and all-world prospect, Jason Heyward.

Let’s start with the rotation, which Paul Hagen of the Daily News believes is the best in the division. Veteran Tim Hudson will get the ball for opening day and despite a 2009 season where he only appeared in 7 games, his career record is 148-78 with a 3.49 ERA. His has won the same number of games as Phillies ace, Roy Halladay (with only 2 more losses) and his ERA is only .06 worse than Doc’s. Directly matching-up starting pitchers doesn’t mean much in the regular season but Hudson’s career numbers (including a 20-win season) indicate that he’s capable of being very productive for Atlanta.

Following Hanson in the rotation are Tommy Hudson and Jair Jurrjens. Hanson’s strong rookie season saw him compile incredible numbers for a 22-year old: 11-4 with a sub-3 ERA (2.89) and a SO-BB ratio of almost 3-1. While a sophomore slump is possible, his promise brings quite a bit to the Braves #2 spot. As for Jair Jurrjens, the 24-year old has a 30-21 career record with a 3.21 ERA. For a guy in the #3 spot, he’ll be expected to improve upon his 13 and 14-win seasons in 2008 and ’09. The Braves’ top-3 guys’ career win/loss records are collectively 4% better than the Phillies top-3 pitchers which shows Atlanta has an excellent core.

The 4th and 5th starters for the Braves are Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami. The 36-year old Lowe has a solid winning percentage of .547 and has a World Series title under his belt (’04 Red Sox) as well as a no-hitter to his name. While he can be wildly inconsistent (as he was for the Dodgers in ’05 and ’07), few teams would be put-out by having a guy like him in the 4th spot. As for Kawakami, the 34-year old pitched poorly for the Braves last year, going 7-12 with a 3.86 ERA. A 2-1 SO-BB ratio looks good but he’s still a question mark in the final rotation spot.

And then there’s Jason Heyward. To listen to Baseball America or Baseball Today, you’d think he was the 2nd coming of Willie Mays (hence his nickname, the “J-Hey Kid”). Heyward is a five-tooler projected to be a consistent 30 HR guy. Coming into 2009 Baseball America had him rated as the #5 overall prospect. At 6′-4” and 245 lbs., he’s got the frame to go deep and a .318 minor league average to go along with his power potential. Heyward is only 20 and he’s already been named to the Braves opening day roster. The Braves’ expectations are high (as are Keith Law’s and Jonathan Mayo of mlb.com; both have him as the #1 prospect in baseball this season). While Heyward probably won’t be single-handedly winning a division title for Atlanta this year, his exceptional talent will most likely translate to an increase in production over last season from his spot in the lineup.

As for the rest of the Braves team, Paul Hagen has their bullpen ranked 2nd in the division behind the Mets, their infield ranked 3rd behind the Phillies and Marlins and their outfield ranked 4th, one spot above the Nationals. Their bench is ranked 4th by the Daily News writer and they come in 2nd behind the Phillies in intangibles. Will this be the Braves’ year? Probably not, but their upside means a lot more to be concerned about for the Phillies.

Much is being made of the fact that Jayson Werth is in the last year of his contract with the Phillies. Werth is due $7.5 million this year, which will make him the 7th-highest player on a team that has a $138 million payroll for the 2010 season. Ruben Amaro has made a lot of noise about the fact that this team is not the New York Yankees, presumably meaning that the Phillies cannot afford to have more than 4 or 5 players making more than $15 million per season. How this relates to their ability to resign Werth is unclear at this point, so let’s take a look at some of the Phillies’ payroll commitments for the near future.

In the short term, the six Phillies who will make more money than Werth this season are Ryan Howard ($19 million), Roy Halladay ($15.75), Chase Utley ($15.29), Raul Ibanez ($12.17), Brad Lidge ($12) and Jimmy Rollins ($8.5). All six of these players are under contract for the 2011 season and only two of them, Howard and Halladay, are due raises in ’11 ($1 million and $4.25, respectively). This means that the Phillies are committed for about $88 million in 2011 for their top players and $133 million altogether.

Going a step further, Raul Ibanez’s advanced age and free agent status makes him a certain subtraction from the Phils’ payroll in 2012. Brad Lidge (who knows what he’ll be like in 2 years) is only due $1.5 million in 2012. Utley and Halladay are both under contract through the 2013 season so Jimmy Rollins will have to be renegotiated (2012 is the last year of his deal). With the bulk of the Phillies minor league talent existing in the form of outfielders, the need for Werth’s services past the 2011 season are questionable, which may make parting ways with him palatable for Amaro and the organization. But that all boils down to how much money Werth can expect from suitors in the free agency market.

Obviously, Ruben Amaro is better in touch with the mechanics of free agency than we are, so let’s just do a cursory look at what Werth, a career .265 hitter, can expect in the form of a raise. Statistically, Werth is coming off his most impressive season. He hit 50% more home runs in 2009 than in his next-most productive season (24 in 2008). He’s never tallied more than 100 RBI (max was 99 last season) and he’s never had an OPS better than .879. His career strikeout-to-walk ratio isn’t good (just about 1 BB for every 2 Ks) and while Werth does have good range in right field, his speed hasn’t translated that well to his stolen base totals: his best seasons were ’08 and ’09 where he stole 20 bases each season. For his career, he steals a base about once in every nine games he plays.

Let’s take Jason Bay’s signing by the Mets as a comparison. Bay’s contract will pay him $54.5 million over the next 4 years, plus a $17 million club option for 2014, meaning he’ll average about $13.63 million in his guaranteed years with the Mets. Considering Werth is making $7.5 million, should he expect a $6 million raise on par with a guy like Bay?

Like Werth, Bay has played 7 Major League seasons. His career average is .280. He hit the same number of home runs as Werth this past season (let’s consider Fenway Park and Citizens Bank Park to be washes in terms of their favorability to power hitters–two of the smallest lots in baseball). Bay has hit twice as many home runs in his career than Werth (185-93). Bay has tallied more than 100 RBI in 4 of his 7 seasons (119 in 2009) and has a career OPS of .896 which is better than Werth’s best single-season OPS. Bay’s SO-BB ratio is about 6% better than Werth’s. While Bay has a career best of 21 stolen bases (exceeding Werth’s best season), that was in 2005 and he only steals a base every 14 games.

We know the Mets are a relatively free-spending team when it comes to free agency. Considering they are spending less than $15 on Jason Bay (who has had a markedly better offensive career than Werth), can we really project that Werth will be able to command a contract that pays him in excess of $15 million per season? And assuming we can’t, how should we take Amaro’s argument that a likely parting with Werth will happen because the Phillies don’t want to overspend, on par with a team like the Yankees?

Jayson Werth is a very good outfielder who is coming off his best season. But it seems unlikely to me that Werth will command the kind of money that will prevent the Phillies from making him a competitive offer in free agency. So if the magic number is $140 million for 2011 and the Phillies are already committed to $133 million (with all the other top players under contract), it will be interesting to see how far over $140 Amaro will be willing to go to resign Werth.

That’s what Roy Halladay thinks, according to philly.com. At least that’s what Lou Holtz said, or maybe Ben Franklin. In any event, “WDIAMITWS” was the quote Doc invoked in response to the opening salvo of the annual preseason war of words between the Mets and Phillies. Mets’ ace, Johan Santana, was asked on Thursday who he thought was the best pitcher in the NL East. Not surprisingly, he answered “Santana.”

To be fair, I don’t know that Santana is wrong. His 2009 effort was his worst as a Met, a season marked by injury and unimpressive numbers. While the Phillies’ brass and local media would have you believe that Roy Halladay is the best pitcher since Sandy Koufax, the numbers don’t exactly support that. Santana has a better career WHIP than Halladay (1.113 vs. 1.198). He averages more strikeouts per season than Halladay (173.3 vs. 149.5) and fewer hits per season (143 vs, 199.7). Santana also has a lower career era than Doc (3.12 vs. 3.43), though he does give up an average of 1.8 more walks than Halladay per season. And Santana has won 2 Cy Young Awards in the American League while pitching for the Minnesota Twins. Halladay has 1 CYA as a Blue Jay.

I don’t know that there’s much of a difference between the two. In fact, other than the last two seasons Tim Lincecum put together, there aren’t better bodies of work among current pitchers than those owned by Santana and Halladay. Obviously the media wants to make a big deal out of Santana saying he’s the best pitcher in the division but in reality, there’s no reason for him to say anything other than that.

I’d like to kick Inquirer columnist John Gonzalez’s ass, but with the Kumite coming up, no dice. Why? Because his journalistic signature is the publishing of predictable and humorless pieces about topics that are already beat-to-death. Today’s piece about athletes he’d like to tase, entitled “A Stunning List,” is no exception. The only thing stunning about the article is how tired and cliche the list of tasees is. Brett Favre/ESPN. Jerry Jones. Mets fans. Andy Reid. Derek Jeter. Bill Belichick (really, you’re still whining about illegal videotaping?). Why doesn’t he just write something about how surprised he is that his friends enjoy long sandwiches filled with steak, cheese and onions. I mean, if you’re going to try and be the Bill Simmons of Philadelphia you should probably be able to open an article with a movie reference a little less childish and devoid of humor than the taser scene from The Hangover.

In order to establish the taser gun as the article’s motif, Gonzo also references the “don’t tase me, bro” incident from the University of Florida a few years back as well as the recent, alleged tasing of a Jets fan by Indianapolis police (he fails to reference the scene in Bloodsport where Jean Claude van Damme redirects an inbound tase with a garbage can lid). But regardless of how much Gonzo lets us know that he fills his free time by rehashing the cliche treasures of the fraternity lifestyle (“sometimes I re-watch that video to lift my spirits as needed”), the central idea that he’s tired of Brett Favre and that he hates the Mets and Jerry Jones is neither novel, compelling, news-worthy, unique, interesting nor funny.

Readers of my writings on the happenings in the world of sports can certainly relate to the feelings of disappointment with what was just read. But the difference here is that we’re talking about a guy who is paid to write this stuff and who presumably has an audience of tens of thousands. I have an audience of about 100 people who only look at my stuff in between trips to the bathroom to masturbate. Seriously, John, not only are you not the first one to be bothered by steroids users who “lied about it and got offended and overly sanctimonious when accused” but in a world of around 6 billion people, you’re probably the last. Nor is yet another joke about how you don’t like Derek Jeter because of all the tail he gets funny. Please, John, less taser next time.

The Phillies have released their promotional schedule for the upcoming season. The first dollar dog night will be May 3 against the Cardinals (it’s also Asian Pacific Celebration). Subsequent DDNs will be May 17 against the Pirates, June 7 against the Padres, July 5 against the Braves, September 6 against the Marlins and September 20 against the Braves.

Interestingly enough, Schedule Magnet Day will be September 26 against the Mets. That seems like a promotion that should take place earlier in the season than the last week. Other awesome giveaways are the Ryan Howard collectible tin on April 17 against the Marlins and IBEW Local 98 t-shirt day on September 5 against the Brewers.

It may seem hypocritical that we’re promoting hot dog eating and the Phillies on the same day as we celebrate Charlie Manuel’s weight loss but man, $1 for a full meal is hard to pass up.

The Phillies made what, by all accounts, is a terrific move today by signing veteran catcher, Brian Schneider, to a two-year deal. Schneider has played in the N.L. East for 10 seasons (with Montreal, Washington and the Mets) so his in-house experience should prove valuable. He has a lifetime average of .251 which is the kind of number that the Phillies can feel very comfortable with having behind Carlos Ruiz.

Though Schneider had a sub-par season in 2009 (he only had 194 plate appearances and hit just .218) his experience should prove valuable, especially in the event of an injury that sidelines Ruiz for any extended period. The other thing he brings is a bat off the bench in late inning situations, allowing Manuel to play around with the lineup in the 8th or 9th innings knowing he can substitute at the most crucial defensive position. And at just under $3 million, Schneider’s contract does little to inhibit the Phillies off-season shopping and at such a relatively low number there doesn’t seem to be much of a downside to this move.