As you all know, our beloved Philadelphia Phillies are on the comeback trail, surging to a 12-2 record in the past 14 games.  There are 22 games left in the month of August, 16 of them at home.  Need I remind you, they are currently on an 11 game win streak when playing in front of the rowdy Philly faithful.  So, things are promising.

All of this is occurring during a barrage of injuries to the entire Phillies lineup.  The list is seemingly endless: Howard, Utley, Polanco, Victorino, Rollins (twice), Ruiz, Schneider, Happ, Moyer, and Madson just to name one or two off the top of my head.  Jayson Werth might as well have been on the DL, since for a stretch of the season he was swinging his twig so ghastly.  Still though, they persevered and have finally begun stringing consecutive wins together.

Last night, August 5, the Phillies found themselves in a bizarre but tense struggle against the Florida Marlins.  Again, they did battle without some of their most well known swingers (batters, people…were talking baseball).  Yet again though, we chalked up another tally in the “W” column, regardless of how controversial.

This win streak is due to two things: solid defense/pitching and the unknown players, the ones that are not on Sports Center daily, the ones that do not have pockets exploding with Benjamins, the ones that drive Toyota Camry’s to the park…ok maybe not Camry’s but you get the picture.  Our bench/position players have become an integral part of the Phillies’ success.  For years now, there has been one man consistently playing that role and consistently laying in the shadows, quietly doing his job and consistently doing it without the recognition he deserves.  That man is #51, Carlos Ruiz.

Last night’s display has inspired to me finally give him some of the credit he is due.  Have you ever heard a complaint come from Ruiz? How about a statement in general?  No! Whether this is because he always talks with a catcher’s mitt in front of his mouth, combined with a thick Hispanic accent that sounds like Antonio Banderas with a bad mumbling problem… or the fact that he just loves playing baseball. This guy is “captain clutch”, a fantastic catcher, and an ice cream eatin’ extraordinaire.  Thus, I proudly present to you, the top ten reasons Carlos Ruiz is the best player on the Philadelphia Phillies (right now).

10. The dude’s nickname is Chooch. How many people do you know nicknamed Chooch? Yeah, you don’t.  “Sounds like a big Choo-Choo Train” (thank you Adam Sandler).

9.  In 2007 he had one of the highest fielding percentages among catchers with a .997, with only 2 errors in 744 chances. Yeah it was 3 years ago but if you held those kinds of numbers you’d probably walk around with it tattooed on your forehead. I would at least.

8.  He’s #51 in the books, and #7 in the batting lineup, but #1 in our hearts.

7.  If you say his name backwards it is Solrac Ziur, which is without a doubt badass.

6.  When receiving a pie in the face, it brings him back to his childhood days filled with carnivals and piñatas…hence the heavy home run swing we see today.

5.  On May 29^th, Halladay threw a perfect game, which he attributes to the pitch calls of his catcher. Why do you think Halladay pitched a perfect game? Maybe because the sphere-like rocket that was propelling out of his hand was coming to a resting spot in a little place I like to call “The Glove”. And who does “The Glove” belong to? That’s right. Solrac Ziur himself. (See #7)

4. He has given myself and my compadres something to do for several hours during the work day, a la this article.

3.  Wait..didn’t Ruiz steal home that one time? OH YEAH. He did. Against the Reds back in ’07. Some of you may ask “How is this possible for a man of his stature?” Well, ladies and germs, if you’re name is Carlos and you have a set of legs attached to an ass bigger than J-Lo’s, you best be able to steal a lot more than home-No homo.

2.  Chooch is Spanish for Clutch. How else can one get dubbed Señor Octubre after the Phils second straight run to the World Series?  He draws walks, hits doubles, and really shines in the post season with a .409 OBP. ¿Reggie Jackson quién?

1. Let’s talk about a place I like to call Panama. Carlos Ruiz not only built the Panama Canal with nothing more than a Rawlings 34” Maple bat and a few pieces of Big League Chew, but he happens to hold the honorary title of being the only player of Panamanian descent to catch a perfect game. Yeah I said it. Panamanian. It’s that serious.

A special thanks to the aforementioned “compadres”, D-Roc and Justin, who greatly assisted me in the development of this list.

Dare I say it?  I shouldn’t, I couldn’t, I mustn’t, I wouldn’t… actually, I think I will.

Overall, it is a great time to be a Philadelphia Sports Phanatic (Canada changed the spelling of center, so we definitely have the right to make changes as we see phit).

I don’t know about everyone else, but despite the baggage and poor reputation we receive (on what seems like a daily basis) from all across America, I’m honored to call myself a Philadelphia sports fan.  Could it get any better than this? It’s a very exciting time for our beautiful historic city, since things seem to be on the up and up on all fronts.  Please, take a moment to digest and let me explain.

Prior to 2008, we had the longest championship drought for a city with teams in all four major sports.  Consistently, year after year, the season would begin with the highest of expectations, proceed through the season with various levels of hope, just to be battered, beaten, bruised, kicked, punched, mollywhopped, and embarrassed come the post-season.

However, the optimist in me implores you to once again bestow your faith in the athletes we have come to love and hate simultaneously.  Let me break it down for you…

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We all know Charlie Manuel as a fun-loving, easy-going baseball guy with a slight kink in his delivery of the English language. It’s just who he is, and he’s never tried to hide it. Wouldn’t do any good, in his view.

Manuel will be managing the NL All-Stars for the second straight year for next week’s game in Anaheim, and he will have three of his players with him: Chase Utley, Roy Halladay and Ryan Howard. Utley was voted in and obviously will not be playing, but Halladay and Howard were picked by Cholly. Halladay will probably be used early in the game and Howard should play a few important innings toward the end as the National League attempts to win their first exhibition game that determines home field advantage since 1996.

The story is not that they are there, however; it is how they got there. The perks that come with being the National League manager for the second straight year, courtesy of two straight World Series appearances, go beyond assuring continuity in the NL dugout. Beyond the starters (voted in by YOU, THE FAN!), Manuel was allowed to assemble the team as he sees fit—remembering, of course, that he must represent each team. Yes, even you, Pittsburgh.

So it comes as no surprise that Cholly named Ryan Howard to the team. It’s even less of a surprise that Manuel, when asked why he chose Ryan Howard over Cincinnati’s Joey Votto for the NL All-Star team, said he picked Howard because he’s “my guy”.

If Cholly is nothing else, he is loyal. He believes in his guys, and rewards them whenever he can. We saw Manuel bring Jayson Werth with him to the All-Star game last season, and wouldn’t be surprised if he does it again this year, what with the injury to Jason Heyward.

As for next season, it’s not looking good at the moment for Charlie to be in any sort of position to bring his guys with him. It will all depend on whether those same guys start to play for him like he says they can.

"For trading Cliff Lee, they are condemned!"

By now you’ve probably heard the apocalyptic news that both Chase Utley and Placido Polanco have been placed on the 15-day DL. You also are probably dealing with the physical aftermath of the emotional decision you made to jump off the Phillies 2010 World Series Champions bridge specially constructed for this season.

You can’t totally be blamed. Entering last night’s game, the news on Polanco was cautiously optimistic. He’d received a second cortisone shot on his ailing elbow, and hoped to play in Tuesday’s game in Cincinnati. There was nothing to report on Utley because, well, nothing had happened to Utley—yet.

In the fourth inning of last night’s series-opening loss to the NL Central-leading (!) Reds, Utley tried to stretch a single into a double, sliding head first into second base. He was tagged out on the play, but ultimately did worse damage by snagging his right thumb on the bag. Utley soldiered through the rest of the game without any apparent signs that the opposable digit was ailing, but with the Phils facing a six-run deficit in the ninth inning, Charlie Manuel pulled Utley for a pinch hitter. That’s when we learned of The Thumb.

Now, a day after, both Utley and Polanco are on the DL. Utley had an MRI on his thumb earlier today, and while it is not believed to be serious in the season-altering vein, it certainly is not something to take lightly. The Phillies are in trouble from now up until the All-Star break, at the very least, and possibly longer if The Thumb and The Elbow do not heal enough for both players to be effective.

If they don’t? You won’t want to be around to see it.

Something terrible is happening in Philadelphia.

No, it’s not the city being broke. Nor is it the atrocious amount of traffic in and around the city at seemingly all hours of the day. And no, it’s not Buzz Bissinger’s column at the Inquirer.

It is the fact that Harry LeRoy Halladay, the proclaimed “Best Pitcher in Baseball” and resident ace of your two-time National League champion Philadelphia Phillies, has six (6) losses on the season. He has the most losses of pitchers with a sub-3.00 ERA in baseball, and in those six losses the Phillies have scored a whopping nine (9) runs for Doc.

Even in his perfect game, the Phillies managed only one run for Halladay—an unearned run, at that. In his 15 starts, the Phillies have scored 56 runs. Halladay’s average support is 3.7 runs/game, which should be good enough to win games given his low ERA. Those numbers are buoyed by the Phils’ early season success however, as the team has not scored more than three runs in Halladay’s last nine starts.

With no end in sight to this devastating misuse of the staff’s ace, something must be done. Here at Philly Fan Complex, we’ve come up with five strategies that can relieve Halladay’s burden:

1. Keep Greg Dobbs away from Halladay

Greg Dobbs, in a word, sucks. An extremely valuable pinch hitter two years ago, Dobbs’ skills have diminished significantly. His decline presents quite the Catch-22 for manager Charlie Manuel: Dobbs is useless as a pinch hitter because he does not play enough to be effective, but is relegated to pinch hitter status because he is, as Charles Barkley would say, “turrible” as a starter.

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Is this a metaphor-in-action for the Phillies’ offense falling on its face? Keep your eye trained on the guy in the blue shirt in the upper-left corner:

via The Sporting Blog

Of all places in the ballpark to fall down, this guy does it right behind home plate in vision of the camera. Not only is he attention starved, but he was also likely on his cell phone.