Pitchers' Civil War

One of the more interesting "Did we see the last start of Chan Ho Park's Phillies career?" stories was Jim Salisbury's column that suggests Park and the other struggling starters should be nervous about the fine season J.A. Happ is having.

He even likens Happ to a cattle prod to impose some urgency on the underperforming rotation.

He should have taken it a step further: The bullpen should be downright pissy with the starting rotation. And this could apply to both SoxandPhils.

The teams that are supposed to meet in the 2009 World Series (after the Rays botched the matchup in 2008) have two of the three worst starting staffs in baseball. Red Sox starters are 28th with a 5.76 ERA while the Phillies are dead last with a 6.35 ERA. (Each is more than a run worse than baseball's average; the Phillies are approaching two runs higher.)

But their bullpens have been pretty good. Red Sox relievers have been dominant - third with a 3.02 ERA while the Phillies are 12th with a 3.97 ERA. (Baseball's average is slightly less than 4.50.) And if you replaced Brad Lidge's awful line with an average reliever's - not even one of an elite closer - the Phillies' bullpen ERA would drop to 3.44.

Overall, the Red Sox are 21st with a 4.77 ERA (slightly worse than baseball's average) while the Phillies are 27th with a 5.39 ERA - almost a run higher than average.

Both teams expect to go far in the playoffs, but it's going to be hard with the starters pitching so poorly - especially when on paper each staff should be doing so much better.

Oops: Reading the box score yesterday, I didn't understand why Ramon Ramirez's run was unearned. The scorer has reversed it, so his ERA did rise to 0.86.