With all the sucking the Phillies have been doing lately, it’s kinda hard to pinpoint one sucky player as the reason for their recent downfall. Jimmy Rollins is 0-for-his last 27 with four walks since the 19th of June, Ryan Howard has just one home run in his last 15 games, Pedro Feliz had himself a nice 1-for-23 streak going on up until this week — and that’s not even mentioning any of the shiteous outings from our pitching staff during that time.

Well, all but one. The guy 95% of Philadelphians were ready to anoint as the new closer as soon as Brad Lidge started fucking up, Ryan Madson.

For some reason, ever since our eighth inning specialist was handed the closer’s role after Lidge landed on the DL with a “bum knee”, Ryan Madson been getting knocked around the park like he has “#57 Taschner” on the back of his jersey.

Check out his line since he blew a save against Toronto on June 16th (and I swear to God if any of you fucks talk about a small sample size, I’m gonna track you down by your IP address and punch you in the neck):

6 games, 0-2 record, an NL leading 3 blown saves (in six appearances!), 7.94 ERA, and a little over three baserunners allowed PER INNING. Meanwhile, opponents are batting .346 against him with a .485 OBP, .731 SLG%, and an insane 1.216 OPS.

The question remains though — WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?

There are plenty of theories floating around, but if you ask me, Madson has to stop relying on his fastball so much — ESPECIALLY that cutter that hasn’t been cutting since the first month of the season — and get back to throwing the pitch that got him a spot on a major league roster to begin with, that beautiful changeup of his.  I mean, you have a pitch in your arsenal that was the most swung at and missed pitch (percentage-wise) out of any major league pitcher in 2008, and instead of putting hitters away with it, you choose to throw that flat fastball over the middle of the plate to say, a Brian Roberts (hypothetically, of course) with 2 outs and a runner on base while you’re up a run in the bottom of the ninth.

As a matter of fact, I’m sure that’s the reason.

Take a look at this little statistical nugget dug up by Jayson Stark courtesy of those pitch-tracking geeks over at Inside Edge:

Ryan Madson hasn’t gotten a single swing-and-miss on his fastball since Lidge was placed on the DL.

Read that again.  NOT ONE. That’s kinda pathetic.

So Ryan, pretty please, with a fucking cherry on top, start throwing more changeups and stop throwing so many cot damn fastballs.

Your pal,
meechie

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