Phillies Foul Balls

The Phils made a roster move today that has me scratching my head a bit. Not all of it, just part of it. The part that’s not surprising is the fact that Eude Brito got sent out. The writing was fairly clearly on the wall in the comments in the paper this morning. Personally I’m not real thrilled about two start snapshot evaluations, but it’s true that those two starts were not in the least bit impressive. If you phrase things as “did he do anything to convince the Phillies to keep him around?” the answer would very clearly be no.

The confusing part of the move is who came up. The Phils brought up Chris Roberson. Now I get the reasoning for a non-pitcher. With the off-day on Monday, they don’t need a fifth starter until next Saturday, and an 8-man bullpen is overkill at this point, and if they did want another reliever, Brian Sanches couldn’t be brought back up yet and no one else on the 40-man roster makes sense.

But why Roberson? Right now outfield is the area where the Phillies have the most depth with three solid starters and two reserves who are more than capable of starting. In fact I’d argue that one of them should be starting, but that’s a subject for another post.  With Lieberthal still not back in the starting lineup wouldn’t it make more sense to call Ruiz back up so they wouldn’t have to start Sal Fasano every single game? They could also start Chris Coste of course, but they seem bound and determined not to give him a start for reasons I don’t quite understand. If they don’t want to bring Ruiz back, how about trying to find something to do about the reserve infielder situation since Abraham Nunez has returned to the pumpkin he was before last year?

Ah well, it’s probably a moot point since Roberson will likely get about 2 plate appearances at most in the next week and then disappear when the need for a fifth starter forces the issue. Still, it’s odd.