Lee has to be wondering what has happened this season. (Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE)

Thus far in 2012, Cliff Lee is 0-4. Unbelievable. He really hasn’t pitched that bad all season, posting a 3.48 REA and 3.13 FIP entering his start on Sunday night. But in his outing versus the Rays, Lee made some mistakes and the Rays took advantage. They came away with a satisfying win, sweeping the doubleheader and taking their series versus the Phillies.

The Rays looked to be at a disadvantage immediately. Against Cliff Lee and the Phillies, the Rays started lefty Cesar Ramos. One problem: Ramos is a middle reliever. In the absolute best-case scenario, Ramos was going to throw 4 innings. The Rays were going to be very dependent on their bullpen in the game and they needed it to come up big. Luckily, the Rays took some of the pressure off in the second inning. Lee walked Keppinger to begin the inning before Ben Zobrist singled, and then Lee left a fastball right down the middle to Sean Rodriguez and Rodriguez hit a high flyball to deep center that was just over the glove of Shane Victorino for an RBI double. Then Lee left a 3-0 fastball up to Brooks Conrad and Conrad drilled a 2-run double down the left field line to give the Rays a 3-0 lead.

Cesar Ramos went 2.2 hitless innings for the Rays, striking out 2 but walking 3. Wade Davis got the final out of the third inning. Gomes got into immediate trouble in the 4th, allowing a walk, a Placido Polanco RBI double, and a John Mayberry RBI single with still nobody out before escaping the jam. The Rays’ lead was down to 3-2. But the Rays got those 2 runs back against Lee in the 6th, with Conrad drilling another big 2-run double. Davis allowed another Polanco RBI double in the bottom of the inning before he exited the game and Brandon Gomes got the final 2 outs of the inning. Davis did not pitch well, allowing 3 runs on 3 hits in 2.2 innings, striking out 2 while walking 2. But the Rays were able to tag Lee for 5 runs, turning what could have been a back-breaking Davis performance into a side-point.

The Rays put the game away in the 8th, drawing five walks against Phillies relievers B.J. Rosenberg and Jake Diekman, the last to the pitcher Gomes, to plate 2 runs to give the Rays a 7-3 lead. Other than the walk and the RBI, Gomes tossed 2.2 innings allowing no runs on 1 hit, striking out 1 and walking 1. J.P. Howell tossed a 1-2-3 inning in the 9th to finish this one off as the Rays won 7-3.

Gomes (2-2) earned the win, while Lee (0-4) took the loss. The Rays came away with 7 runs on 6 hits, but also 8 walks, and went a solid 3 for 10 with runners in scoring position compared to the Phillies’ 1 for 8. Brooks Conrad came up huge again, following up a game-tying RBI single on Saturday with two 2-run doubles. The Rays’ pitchers were not dominant at all in this game, posting a 6-6 strikeout to walk ratio, although they did allow just 4 hits, but they were able to escape jams and unlike other games we’ve seen the Rays play, they refused to let a golden opportunity against Cliff Lee and the Phillies slip away. It was a big win for the Rays as they clinched a doubleheader sweep and a series win in Philadelphia, and they’ll look to build on the momentum from this big day moving forward. After a debilitating loss on Saturday in walk-off fashion, the Rays came right back with some of their best baseball of the season. You never know. Maybe today will go down as the turning point of the Rays’ season.

Robbie Knopf: 2012 has been a disaster for the Phillies as they sit in last place in the NL East. We know that the Phillies have been bombarded by injuries. What are the major factors in the Phillies’ debacle thus far this season? How much of their struggles if any was just from the fact that they are an old team with declining players?

Ethan Seidel: A lot of the Phillies problems are easy to see. They are missing key players to injury (Halladay, Utley, Howard), and many of their Vets have been having a down year (Rollins, Victorino, Polanco). Personally, i think the biggest cause for the teams last place standing is their casual demeanor entering the season. Without Utley and Howard the team brought the “stay afloat” attitude with them from Florida. Staying afloat can only get you so far, especially with a resurgent division. Utley may be back in a week or so, and Howard not far behind, but rest of the clubhouse will have to take more responsibility if they are going to crawl out of the cellar.

RK: What do you make of Cliff Lee‘s 0-3 record thus far in 2012? He hasn’t exactly been at his best, but a 3.48 ERA and a 3.26 FIP is still not too shabby. How does he still not have a win?

ES: It’s mind boggling that Cliff Lee is still winless. You’re right that he hasn’t been unhittable, but it’s not like the guy has lost that much from a year ago. Afterall, he pitched a 10 inning game this year (and lost) so some things can’t be put completely on his shoulders. Many fans in Philadelphia have come to believe this is Karma turning on him for taking less money when he signed with the Phillies. I don’t know if there is some great Capitalist Buddha out there wishing Lee ill on the mound, but at some point his luck has to turn.

RK: Cole Hamels has been the one Phillies starter with a winning record, currently holding a 10-3 record to go along with a 3.25 ERA and a 3.23 FIP. We have heard that extension talks have not progressed as of yet between the Phils and Hamels. What do you think the Phillies will do with Hamels with one year left on his current contract?

ES: This is the big question on every Phillies fan’s mind. My personal views on Hamel’s contract situation have degraded progressively since the start of the season. The offseason was the best chance to take care of business, but the Phillies brass decided to gamble and drag out negotiations. Different reports have the length and money being the core of the debate, but Hamels is driving up the price with each passing start. The Phillies don’t have a long history of locking up players during the season, so I expect Hamels to finish the year without a contract. The way Hamels has pitched Ruben Amaro Jr. will have to swallow his pride and pony up, because someone is going to offer Cole an offer he can’t refuse on the open market.

RK: What are your thoughts on the Freddy Galvis situation? How shocked were you when he tested positive for PEDs?

ES: I just as shocked as most fans were when the news broke. Galvis has been one of the few bright spots on the team this year (prior to his back injury) and the news of cheating came completely out of left field. Whatever the root cause, intentional or not, Galvis has taken full responsibility for breaking the rules taking the classy route. He seems like a good kid, and should use this as a learning experience, but i wouldn’t put him in the category of “juicer” just yet.

RK: What has gotten into Carlos Ruiz? He has been arguably the majors best all-around catcher in the big leagues this season. Any chance he can sustain anything remotely near the 1.003 OPS and 170 OPS+ he has now?

ES: Everyone has been waiting for Chooch to come back down to earth, or at least his career averages, but it still hasn’t happened. Ruiz has been the team MVP so far this year, and its almost incomprehensible to think where the team would be without him. He has always been a stellar backstop, calling games and blocking everything thrown at him, but his hitting has gone to ridiculous levels this season. It’s a shame Ruiz most likely won’t get voted in as the starter for the all-star game, despite a heavy push from the team. He isn’t quite yet the national name that Brian McCann and Yadier Molina are, but he has been by far the best all-around catcher in the NL this year.

Everyone at RCG would like to thank Ethan, and I also answered some questions for Ethan as part of this post here.

Moore can't be happy about the way his season has started. (Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE)

The first thing to note of here is that the sample size is too small. To give an example, can you name one pitcher minimum 14 innings pitched who is in the top five in the major leagues in ERA? You would name Roy Halladay, Clayton Kershaw, Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia, Jered Weaver, and maybe even Stephen Strasburg but none of those would be right. The top five pitchers in baseball in terms of ERA are Brandon Beachy, Ross Detwiler, Jake Westbrook, Joe Saunders, and Matt Harrison. Would anyone like to argue that those are the five best pitchers in baseball? And if Moore is so bad, his ERA (5.12) is actually better than Sabathia (5.59)! Is Sabathia just that bad? Although the rest of the AL East and all of baseball wishes that was so, that is certainly not the case.

But I just used ERA for the example above. ERA has a lot of variability and luck involved, so it’s not always the best barometer of a pitcher’s true ability. Looking at baseball’s FIP leaderboard (FIP is a “true ERA” estimator based on the factors pitchers can supposedly control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed), we get much more recognizable names: Zach Greinke, Gio Gonzalez, Weaver, Veralnder, and Strasburg occupy the top five spots in baseball. Moore’s FIP is currently the 4th-worst among qualifiers, coming in at 5.64. Could Moore and the Rays have a real problem here?

As it turns out, Moore is a slow starter. Moore had a 6.75 ERA through his first three starts at Double-A in 2011. In his first three High-A starts in 2010, he had a 5.56 ERA. Apparently, it takes Moore a little while to get going. But wait a second! In his first three starts of those two years, Moore had a 3.65 FIP and a 2.94 FIP respectively! That’s not nearly as bad as his 5.64 FIP in 2012! But FIP does not account for how hard balls are hit. Maybe everything works out over larger sample sizes, but especially in small samples we see pitchers strikeout a lot of guys and not walk very many, but they still have bad outings. From watching Moore right now, we know that he’s been struggling with command. That could very well have been the case in 2010 and 2011. But the problem is that we don’t know for sure. So we have two possible proofs to why Moore is fine: sample size and that he’s been a slow starter the past couple of seasons. But both of those proofs have their problems. Is there some perfect proof to prove unequivocally that Moore will be fine in 2012? I’ll say yes: his Pitch F/X data from thus far this year. Even if Moore is struggling, his pitches should be moving as good as ever if he really is fine. Let’s compare Moore’s Pitch F/X data from 2011 to 2012, courtesy of Brooks Baseball, displayed on one of my Pitch Movement graphs. We’ll say this: if the movement on his pitches is close to or better than the movement on his pitches from 2011, he should be fine. If it’s worse, we may have a problem here. Let’s see what the data shows us.

(For a general explanation of the topic of Pitch F/X and specifically how to read this type of graph, please click here.)

 These graphs look awfully similar, and the movement on Moore’s pitches in 2012 is arguably better. Looking at the key, we see that Moore has used his pitched somewhat differently, and we also see a general downtick in velocity. It makes sense that his velocity is down because a good amount of his Pitch F/X in 2011 came out of the bullpen, and it makes sense that he’s used his secondary pitches more as a starter- but wait a second. We see in the key that the blue line in the graph is Moore’s fastball while the purple line is his sinker. Both of those are varieties of fastballs. So in 2011, Moore threw a fastball 72% of the time. But in 2012, that number has actually gone up to 74% despite the fact that he’s now starting games every time out. What could that mean?

Pitches are forced to throw more fastballs when they get behind in counts. That is what has been occurring for Moore in 2012. Just 58% of his pitches have been strikes compared to his 64% mark in 2012 and the 63% mark the last two seasons. Even though Moore has gotten better movement on his pitches, he has not yet been able to use that to his advantage. Instead of Moore’s pitches starting off the strike zone before hitting the corner or starting at the strike zone before disappearing out of zone, Moore’s pitches are either moving off the plate or moving right down the middle where they have become hittable. This also has to do with the lack of some velocity. We know that pitchers gain velocity as the year progresses and we should see Moore get his average fastball velocity up before the year is through. With less velocity, the ball tends to move more. That’s what is happening. Moore is expecting his pitches to move a certain amount, but instead they’re moving too far. Moore wants to hit the outside corner with his fastball, but instead the ball ends up right down the middle. He want to land his curveball at the hitter’s knees for a strike, but instead it’s going too far down. The additional movement is not a bad thing- but Moore has to get used to it.

We see that the past three years, Moore’s FIP in his first three starts has gone up, from 2.94 to 3.65 to 5.64. Why? Because hitters at higher levels punish mistake pitches more. The same thing is happening every season with Moore’s velocity being a tick lower to begin the year and his pitches moving a little bit more, but now major league hitters are able to expose it much more than High-A or Double-A pitchers could.

Matt Moore is having no problems with his pure stuff. He’s throwing plenty hard and getting tons of movement. He just has to acclimate to his current velocity and movement on his pitches and he’ll be fine. Moore has gotten off to a rocky start. But he has the potential to turn his season around and be the type of pitcher who the Rays will have a postseason start. We knew that there would be growing pains in Moore’s rookie year. However, his struggles thus far this season and nothing that won’t naturally be resolved. It may not be pretty to look at Matt Moore’s ERA up on the board right now, but don’t worry. He’ll give us plenty of reason to be excited the rest of the season.