I guess giving up a ton of runs to the Minnesota Twins may cause a team to really examine themselves. Reports have the Phillies among four teams that scouted pitcher Ben Sheets this week. Sheets has pitched less than 200 innings since 2008 but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Once considered one of the best up-and-coming pitchers in baseball, Sheets had Tommy John surgery in 2010 after suffering two flexor tendon tears. It’s a safe bet he is not even close to the pitcher he once was, but the Phillies are looking to do just about anything right now. They have fallen 10 games back in the division, and with Roy Halladay still months away from a return, they may need to take a chance on a player like Sheets. At the beginning of the year, nobody would have thought that by June, the Phils staff would consist of a slumping Cole Hamels, a winless Cliff Lee, and Joe Blanton, Vance Worley, and Kyle Kendrick. This is like a bad nightmare for any fan of the team.
Over the past month, the Phillies have gone from a team that couldn’t score a run to a team that cannot hold a lead. The bullpen has been horrible. The starting pitching has started struggling with the ace on the DL. Signing Sheets definitely will not fix everything, but the one positive sign in this is the Phils are looking for help. God knows they need it. It’s only June, but if Washington’s division lead gets much larger, you may start to see big changes to this roster.