SNAPSHOTS: 2016 08 30 Nationals 3 @ Phillies 2

Just a couple of pictures from the most recent Team Phungo trek to the ballpark, a 3-2 loss to the Division leading Nationals.

2016 0830 Max Scherzer vs Cameron Rupp @ Philadelphia PA

The Phillies may look ugly on the diamond but the field still can look nice.

2016 0830 Max Scherzer vs Ryan Howard @ Philadelphia PA

The Phillies didn’t have many highlights in the game. Both runs came courtesy of a Ryan Howard Homer. The above in the above shot is not the from the Home Run AB, this is the Bottom of the 5th - one of two times when Howard Struck Out.

2016 0830 Max Scherzer

The Star of the night was Max Scherzer who took a no-hitter into the sixth and struck out 11 over eight innings. As a batter he also successfully executed a suicide squeeze to give the Nats their third run – which ended up being the difference in the game.

I am Pretty happy with this photo as it sort of captures the oft mentioned differences of Scherzer's eye color

2016 0830 Jerad Eickhoff

The Phillies starting pitcher, Jerad Eickhoff, fought through some early control issues and was able to give the club six innings. If it weren't for a misplayed fourth inning fly ball by Aaron Altherr in the fourth inning, Eichoff may have left the game deadlocked 2-2 with the Nats and Scherzer. 
 

2016 0830 Trea Turner

Nats Rookie Trea Turner is having a good season. The outfielder had a pair of hits on Wednesday boosting his average to .344.

Familiar Faces

 Ben Revere

Jayson Werth

Sources and Links
Baseball-ref

1999 Topps Opening Day #162 Highlights Kerry Wood 20 strikeout Game

The Nationals Max Scherzer added his name to the short list of pitchers to record 20 K games last nights, the others were HoF Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens and....

 1999 Topps OD #162 Kerry Wood

Kerry Wood in just his 5th career game struck out 20 Astros in a 2-0 complete game victory. The sole hit of the game was a third inning single by Ricky Guttierrez.

Among the Hitters in the Houston Lineup were Hall of Famer Craig Biggio (1K), Jeff Bagwell (3), Moises Alou (3) and Derek Bell (2).

1992 Topps #162 Kerry Wood (b-side)
  
The story of the game is told on the back of the card, however there is a Sloppy Topps moment as they got the score of the game incorrect - The text says 1-0, however the Cubs recorded two runs in the game.

Sources and Links
Baseball-ref

Phungo Game Report: 2015 04 12 Nationals @ Phillies

The Northeast is emerging from a long cold winter and baseball on a beautiful Sunday is a very welcome sight. Team Phungo was very excited to make it out to an Opening Week Phillies Home Game versus the World Series Favorite Washington Nationals.

2015 0412 Washington Nationals @ Philadelphia Phillies: Max Scherzer facing Cesar Hernandez

The Nats may be the World Series pick. However it was the Phillies who took the opening two games of the series and entered the day 2 games up on the Washington Squad.

Unfortunately the Phillies were unable to complete the sweep.

The Nats triumphed 4-3 n extra innings. Game Highlights included Yunel Escobar scoring on a Justing DeFratus wild pitch to take the lead in the Top of the 10th, Home Runs by Bryce Harper and Darin Ruf, and fine starts by Nats New Free Agent Acquisition Max Scherzer and Phillies Spot Starter Seaon O'Sullivan.

Snapshots

2015 MLB Opening Day Logo

It has been almost a week since Opening Day but the logo was still visible, albeit a tad faded.

2015 0412 Sean O'Sullivan

O'Sullivan was called up to make the spot start for the Phillies and will likely stay in the rotation until the Phils off-season acquisition Chad Billingsley is ready to pitch again.

2015 0412 Max Scherzer

The Nats big Free Agent signing this winter was Max Scherzer, So far he has pitched very well in both his starts but due to poor offensive support he has not been credited with a W in either start.

Scherzer appeared very upset throughout most of his pre-game bullpen session. Not sure if he was really unhappy with himself or if this is some sort of technique he uses to get himself fired up.

 

2014 0412 Bryce Harper

The biggest blemish on Sean O'Sullivan's start was giving up a first inning Home Run to Bryce Harper. 

2015 0412 Bryce Harper and Bob Davidson

We happened to capture this strange moment between Bryce Harper and Umpire Bob Davidson. Not sure what was going on here. As far as I know there was not a controversial play or other craziness that the two would be discussing.  It just seemed very odd for Bryce Harper to be putting both his hands on Bob Davidson's shoulders.  

 

 2015 0422 Darin Ruf

The sole offensive outburst for the Phillies was a Pinch Hit Homer by Darin Ruf.

 

Line Up Cards

This years Line Up cards are the same in-hous design the Phillies went with in 2014. Here we have two of the new cards for 2015, Jeff Francoeur, Odbuel Herrera, along with Cesar Hernandez. 

2015 0412 Nationals @ Phillies Game Ticket

Sources and Links
MLB Boxes
MLB Umpires

2015 Heritage First Look - I am obsessed with PATCHES

Successfully avoided Target for a week after Heritage's release this year, but finally gave in earlier this week. Overall I was happy with look and feel of the cards. Here are the highlights from 3 purchases - 1 Blaster, 1 Rack, 1 Loose Pack.

please excuse the meh photo quality, these are Quick and Dirty shots under low light, Hopefully will revisit Heritage a little more in the upcoming weeks.

First Pack

2015 Heritage Glen Perkins

2015H First card is a nice one of Twins Pitcher Glen Perkins. I like the ASG patch on his cap. Late we will see this repeated on the card of Perkins Teammate Kyle Gibson/

Alicides Escobar
Brian McCann
Curtis Granderson (b-side)
Kelvin Herrera

Pack 1 was a Royals hot pack. Have been a fan of Herrera since seeing him pitch at Wilmington DE a few years back.

Kendrys Morales
Derek Holland
Mark Buehrle
Rookie Stars (John Holdkon RJ Alvarez)

There are far too many of the rookie stars representing two ball clubs. I appreciate Topps trying to carry the banner motif to both sides of the card, but it looks lame. On the other hand, I do like the Mark Buehrle card. Good shot of a deserving veteran.

Highlights from other packs
No Phils or hits in the first pack, but did find a few in the remaining pickups.

First Phillies card

Ryne Sandberg

It's a Phil, but not a player - although he was a Hall of Fame player prior to being a manager. As the Phillies Rooom pointed out, it is a little sad that Topps neglected matching the capitalization on the original 1966T cards.

Flair

Freddie Freeman
Steve Pearce
Nick Castellanos
Kyle Gibson

I really like all the special patches that are on MLB unis these days. Here we have Freddie Freeman with Hank Aaron 715 HR anniversary swag. Steve Pearce has a patch honoring the memory of Orioles minority owner and author Tom Clancy. Kyle Gibson has the ASG patch mentioned at the top of this post.

No patch for Nick Casteallanos but I wanted to post a Rookie Cup card, which reminds me - Are there any RC logos in 2015 Heritage. I didn't recall seeing any in the lot I picked up. 

SPs and New Age

Jacob DeGrom
Alex Gordon
#NAP 15 - Javier Baez
Chris Carter

Three Hi numbers and an NAP. There are 75 Hi SPs in Heritage, kind of curious if there is a disproportionate number of stars in the range. Future post possibility.

Flashbacks

#NF-5 Jimi Hendrix
#BF-6 Al Kaline

The top card notes the date the Experience was formed by Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding, and Mitch Mitchell , October 12 1966.

The Al Kaline card refers to a game a few weeks earlier on September 28th. Kaline hit a pair of Homers including a 10th inning shot which was the difference. The card does not mention that Kaline also had a stolen base and outfield assist in the game. 

Then and Now

#TN-9 Sandy Koufax and David Price

Not a fan of this card, also saving that up for a future post.

Target Only

2015 Topps Heritage #NR-4 Nolan Ryan A Legend Begins

This card is dedicated to Ryan's second no-hitter, July 15 1973. There are 15 cards in the Target Only set, this is the first where Ryan reps the Angels. 

MMMM Serial

2015 Topps Heritage Chrome #THC-441 Dee Gordon (#d 383/999)


I think the Topps Heritage Chrome inserts come 1 in 23 packs.

Relic

2015 Heritage Clubhouse Collection #CCR-MS Max Scherzer

So yeah the hit of the box and the Chrome card are both cards of players that have changed teams. bleck.

By the Numbers
1 Blaster (71 Cards)
1 rack pack (20 Cards)
1 standard pack (9 cards)

forgive me but I forgot to track pricing but my guess is $29 for the bounty ($20-Blaster,  $6-Rack, $3-single)

100 cards
2 Duplicates

3 Phillies
3 Hi Numbers
5 Inserts
1 Chrome
1 Relic

25 Teams represented (Snubs for Brewers, Rockies, Rays, White Sox, and Mariners) 

Phungo Verdict
As I mentioned above, I am happy with this years set. This may be due to low expectations. 1966 is one of the blander Topps releases. But I think Topps has done a good job of mixing in some semi-action shots and featuring more than the standard headshots of the original sets. Solid photography has caught some players in interesting moments and as I have noted, I like seeing several cards with interesting patches and uniform flair.

Sources & Links
1966 Topps/2015 Heritage Index
the Phillies Room
Cardboard Connection
baseball-ref

2011 Topps Opening Day #16 Max Scherzer

Tonight the Detroit Tigers Max Scherzer is attempting to become the first member of the 20 win club in 2013.

2011 Topps Opening Day #16 Max Scherzer

The Tigers Max Scherzer has put together an amazing season. Going into tonight he is 19-1. Sometimes Win Loss records are seen as empty numbers. Certainly each season there seems like there is one Phillies pitcher that gets no run support (Hamels in 2013), and one who gets a lot of runs (Kendrick every season). In Scherzer's case This isn't true. He may not of racked up 20 wins with less offense, but he was still destined to get a bunch.

The current WAR leader among AL pitchers is Chris Sale. I am not sure why this is. Scherzer and Sale have comparable innnigs, ERA, ERA+, Strikeout and WHIP numbers.In fact Scherzer wins All of those categories. I checked around on Twitter and Dan M @_LeftField  (blog = Left Field) specified higher competition, ballpark factors, and the Whilte Sox mediocre defense as reasons that Sale's WAR rating is better than Scherzer.

This amounts to a WAR calculation for Sale of 6.2 while Scherzer stands at 5.8.

Regardless Scherzer is pitching for a team likely destined for postseason play, while the White Sox certainly are not.  There is still a month left to play and right now I would have Scherzer as unanimous Cy Young in the AL.

Another interesting aspect of Max Scherszer's season is his emergence as staff ace on a team that also has Justin Verlander. Verlander has been decent, but not nearly as dominant as his previous seasons.  He has struggled a bit his last few starts and overall his season has been average since Mid May.  Through his first 8 starts of the Season Verlander had an ERA of 1.93.  Since then his ERA has been in the middle 4s.  He has maintained a .500 record across both sets of starts and is still among the league leaders in Innings and Strikeouts.  However, both of those numbers are in the middle of the top 10 among his peers. He led the the league in both Ks and IPs in 3 of the last 4 years.

Justin Verlander is still a good pitcher on a good team and it will be interesting to see if he can return to form as October approaches.  If Max Scherzer can be the staff Ace in the playoffs it makes for some nice options for Jim Leyland at the top of the Tigers rotation.

Sources
baseballcardpedia.com
@_Leftfield

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