2010 Topps Pro Debut #329 Jarred Cosart

Marlins 6, Phillies 1
Game 15 - Wednesday Night, April 22nd in Philadelphia
Record - 5-10, 4th Place, 7 games behind the Mets

One Sentence Summary:  The Phillies let this one get away as they dropped the second game of the series to the Marlins 6-1 due to shoddy defense and quiet bats.

What It Means:  It's going to be a long season.

What Happened:  The game was actually closer than the final score would indicate.  The Marlins broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh and a costly few errors in the eighth (from Chase Utley and Odubel Herrera) led to four unearned runs.  The sole Phillies run came on a Cody Asche home run.

Cole Hamels pitched six innings in the no-decision, allowing one unearned run while striking out five.

Featured Card:  Jarred Cosart got the win for the Marlins in his first game pitching in Philadelphia.  Cosart was one of the club's top prospects until he was traded to the Astros in the July 2011 Hunter Pence deal.

Transaction:  Starting pitcher Sean O'Sullivan was placed on the 15-day disabled list with left knee tendinitis and relief pitcher Hector Neris was recalled from Lehigh Valley.

2011 Bowman Chrome Bowman's Best Prospects #BBP54 Jonathan Singleton

Mets 11, Phillies 2
Game 55 - Monday Night, June 2nd in Philadelphia
Record - 24-31, 5th Place, 6 1/2 games behind the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  The Phillies lost badly to the Mets, 11-2.

What It Means:  I'm not going to lie to you here, folks.  It's not a fun time to be a Phillies fan.  The floundering team went 4-7 on this 11-game homestand and they're a league worst 9-17 since May 4th.

What Happened:  This game was already pretty much out of reach when Phillippe Aumont entered the game in the eighth, walked the first batter he saw and then allowed a grand slam.  Aumont's ERA is now 21.60 after his first two games of the season.

The offense went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position.

2011 Bowman Chrome Prospect
Autographs #BCP87

Featured Cards:  In a seemingly strange move, the Astros yesterday locked up prospect Jon Singleton with a five year, $10 million guaranteed contract despite the fact that Singleton had yet to play a single Major League game.  The contract has three option years, meaning the deal could reach eight years in total.  He was promoted to the Astros following announcement of the contract.

Singleton was hitting .267 with 14 home runs for Triple-A Oklahoma City at the time of his big signing and it will be interesting to see if other teams follow suit in an attempt to lock up more minor league prospects.

It will be interesting to watch Singleton's development alongside former Phillies prospect and current teammate Jared Cosart.  Singleton, Cosart, pitcher Josh Zeid and outfielder Domingo Santana were shipped to the Astros in July 2011 in the deal that brought Hunter Pence to Philadelphia.  Zeid and Santana are both in Triple-A right now, and it's not too far fetched to envision a scenario in which all four of the players are helping the Astros win ballgames in the not too distant future.

At least the Phillies hauled in a nice selection of prospects in July 2012 when they flipped Pence to the Giants.  Oh bugger it all.

2011 Topps Opening Day #22

2011 Topps Heritage Minor League #89 Jarred Cosart

Astros 8, Phillies 3
Spring Training Game 1 - Saturday Afternoon, February 23rd in Clearwater
Record - 0-1

One Sentence Summary:  Sweet glory hallelujah, baseball is back!

What It Means:  See the One Sentence Summary above.  Also, it was the first game for the new American League Houston Astros.

What Went Wrong:  The gloves (four errors) and the bullpen looked a little rusty.  On a positive note, Cole Hamels pitched two scoreless innings, Chase Utley played his first Spring Training game since 2010 and collected an RBI-single and Ben Revere looked good on the base paths.  Pete Orr hit the team's first home run of the spring with a solo shot in the eighth.

Featured Card:  Former Phillies prospects Jarred Cosart and Josh Zeid (traded away in the Hunter Pence deal) and Jonathan Villar (part of the Roy Oswalt deal) appeared in the game for the Astros.  Cosart pitched two perfect innings and there's a good chance he'll head to Houston to start the season.  He received a handful of Phillies cards in various 2010 and 2011 Topps and Bowman minor league sets.

Camp Head Count:  61 minus 3 = 58.

A few weeks ago, I put together a post listing the 20 non-roster invitees scheduled to be in camp this spring with the Phillies.  Two of those 20 players are already gone.

Right-handed reliever Juan Cruz was the first to go, and he never even made it to camp.  Following the signing of Chad Durbin, Cruz had second thoughts about his chances to make the team's 25-man roster and he opted out of his contract.  (Some reports indicated that he had never finalized his contract.)

2013 Chachi
Transactions #17

Yesterday, infielder Andres Blanco was released.  Seems odd to invite a guy to spring training in December and then release him before the first game of the spring, but such was Blanco's fate.

This afternoon, the team parted ways with reliever Michael Schwimer.  Schwimer was traded to the Blue Jays for first base prospect Art Charles.  The righty reliever twice earned the ire of Phillies brass last season.  The first time came when he tweeted a few transactions early in the season that had yet to be made public.  The second time came when he refused to report to Triple-A Lehigh Valley following a demotion, insisting he was injured.  Schwimer had Phillies cards in both team-issued releases last year as well as a card in Topps Series 2.

Charles' first card came within last season's Bowman Chrome release.  He was a 2010 draft pick by the Blue Jays and he has yet to play about Low A.

(And in case you're wondering, I went with option #2 from my last post in order to create Schwimer's Chachi Transactions card.)

The Newest Houston Astros

2011 Bowman Prospects #BP87, 2011 Topps Pro Debut #27 and 2011 Multi-Ad Reading Phillies #24

Former Phillie GM and current GM of the Astros Ed Wade may be on his way out in Houston, but that didn't stop him from continuing to stock-pile players from the Phillies system.  Three of the Phillies top prospects are now scattering to join their new minor league teams in the Astros organization as Hunter Pence figures out what number he'll wear with the Phils.  (Domonic Brown wears #9, the number Pence had worn with the Astros.)

Pitcher Jarred Cosart, selected in the 38th round by the Phillies in the 2008 draft, returns to his native Texas.  So far with High-A Clearwater this year, Cosart was 9-8 with a 3.92 ERA.  He had 43 walks to 79 strikeouts in 108 innings pitched.

First baseman Jonathan Singleton was selected in the 9th round of the 2009 draft.  Also with Clearwater, Singleton is hitting .282 with 9 home runs and 47 RBIs in 92 games so far this year.

Pitcher Josh Zeid was selected right after Singleton in the 10th round of the 2009 draft.  He's been with Double-A Reading this season, where he's 2-3 with a 5.65 ERA.

The Astros will chose a player to be named later from a list of Low-A players.

I'm not going to attempt to profile these guys in depth, especially since the fine folks over at Phuture Phillies have done such an excellent job of profiling all three players and completely analyzing the deal.

My gut reaction?  I like it.  We needed a right-handed bat and the Phils want to win now.  They have Pence under team control through at least 2013, and Domonic Brown can head back to Triple-A to get the additional seasoning and at-bats that everyone seems to think he still needs.  It is indeed an exciting time to be a Phillies fan, and I can't wait to see Pence make his Phillies debut.