Mets at Phillies: April 8th to April 10th

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 7:05
Citizens Bank Park - Philadelphia, PA

Mets 4-2, Tied for 2nd Place in the N.L. East, 1 game behind the Braves
Phillies 2-4, 4th Place in the N.L. East, 3 games behind the Braves

Mets Probables:  Matt Harvey (1-0, 0.00), Dillon Gee (0-1, 1.42), Jeremy Hefner (0-1, 1.50)
Phillies Probables:  Roy Halladay (0-1, 13.50), Cliff Lee (1-0, 0.00), Kyle Kendrick (0-1, 7.94)

At the Ballpark:  All adults at the game tonight will receive an Opening Week T-Shirt.  Tuesday night is the first of many Dollar Dog Nights.

Phillies Leaders

Average:  Chase Utley - .391

Runs:  Chase Utley - 5

Home Runs:  Four tied with - 1

RBIs:  Chase Utley - 7

Stolen Bases:  Ben Revere and Jimmy Rollins - 3

Wins:  Antonio Bastardo and Cliff Lee - 1

ERA:  Cliff Lee - 0.00

Strikeouts:  Roy Halladay - 9

Saves:  Jonathan Papelbon - 1

1973 Topps #30 and #6

1973 Topps Flashback:  Today's flashback features another pair of players once traded for each other.  On December 3, 1974, the Phillies sent Mac Scarce, John Stearns and Del Unser to the Mets for Don Hahn, Dave Schneck and Tug McGraw.  In a bit of serendipity, today just so happens to be Scarce's 64th birthday.
    

In parts of three seasons with the Phillies, the southpaw Scarce went 5-18 with a 3.65 ERA in 141 relief appearances.  There's a fantastic detailed biography of Scarce over at the SABR Baesball Biography Project, so I won't recount his history here.  After going to New York, Scarce faced just one batter as a member of the Mets, surrendering a walk-off RBI-single to the Pirates Richie Hebner on April 11, 1975.  A few days later, he was traded to the Reds.  Scarce would wrap up his Major League career with 17 appearances with the 1978 Twins.  His only widely available baseball cards are in the 1973, 1974 and 1975 Topps sets.

The December 1974 trade between the Phillies and Mets definitely worked out better for the Phils, as McGraw would go on to help the team to its first World Championship in 1980.

1974 Topps #149 Mac Scarce

It's been a while since I've done one of these off-season player tracking posts, as things have been quiet on the Phillies transaction front since before Christmas.  Yesterday, we learned the team had released outfielder John Bowker to allow him to pursue an opportunity in Japan.  (He's been linked to the Yomiuri Giants, so he could be a teammate of Scott Mathieson again soon.)  I really liked David Hale's post over on his Philled In blog which informs us that Bowker's career offensive stats as a Phillie (0 for 13 with 7 strikeouts) puts him in dubious company.

In terms of Phillies position players, Bowker's 0-fer is second only to Fred Tauby who went 0 for 20 with the 1937 Phillies.  If you include pitchers, Bowker is sixth on the list, behind such notables as pitcher Mac Scarce (0 for 18 between 1972 and 1974) and pitcher Kent Bottenfield (0 for 17 in 2000).  For all these players, you could say that hits were . . . scarce.

Moving On

Dane Sardinha (10-11) 10/10/11 - Filed for free agency

Brandon Moss (11) 10/17/11 - Outrighted to Lehigh Valley and filed for free agency (Signed a minor league contract with the Oakland A's)

Brad Lidge (08-11) 10/24/11 - Team option declined

Roy Oswalt (10-11) 10/24/11 - Team option declined

Ross Gload (10-11) 10/30/11 - Filed for free agency

Raul Ibanez (09-11) 10/30/11 - Filed for free agency

Ryan Madson (03-11) 10/30/11 - Filed for free agency

Juan Perez (11) 11/2/11 - Became a minor league free agent (Signed a minor league contract with the Milwaukee Brewers)

Scott Mathieson (06, 10-11) 11/29/11 - Released (Signed with the Yomiuri Giants)

Ben Francisco (09-11) 12/12/11 - Traded to the Toronto Blue Jays for pitcher Frank Gailey
John Bowker (11) 1/10/12 - Released

Coming Back

Pete Orr (11) 11/3/11 - Re-signed by the Phillies as a minor league free agent with an invitation to Spring Training

Brian Schneider (10- ) 11/17/11 - Re-signed by the Phillies to a one-year contract

Jimmy Rollins (00- ) 12/19/11 - Re-signed by the Phillies to a three-year contract with a vesting fourth year

New Additions

Jim Thome (03-05) 11/5/11 - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Cleveland Indians

Jonathan Papelbon 11/14/11 - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Boston Red Sox

Ty Wigginton 11/20/11 - Acquired with cash from the Colorado Rockies for a player to be named later or cash

Laynce Nix 12/8/11 - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Washington Nationals

Dontrelle Willis 12/15/11 - Signed as a free agent formerly with the Cincinnati Reds

1975 Topps Mini Phillies Team Set - Completed!

Top Row:  1975 Topps Mini #118, #138, #162, #267 and #292
Bottom Row:  1975 Topps Mini #399, #444, #477, #501 and #527

I've already displayed one of the larger cards received in the Bounty from Burnell, so I thought I'd post some of the smaller cards received as well.  Burnell noticed within my 1975-1979 Phillies Wantlist that I needed the entire 1975 Topps Mini team set.  So he sent it to me.  Every single card.  Even the Mike Schmidt card and the two League Leader cards and the multi-player rookie card featuring Tom Underwood.  He completely wiped the 1975 Topps Mini Phillies cards off my Wantlist with one glorious trade package.  So thank you again, Burnell, and your package is (finally) going into the mail today.

I've displayed here several cards from the set that didn't make it into my 1975 Topps Phillies post from a few weeks back.

Vote:  Please take a moment to vote in the poll I've set up in the sidebar.  I've renovated the blog with a new look, but I can't decide on the appropriate background color.  This is a Phillies blog after all, so I thought a red background would be nice.  However, my wife Jenna prefers the blue background.  It's quite the quandary.