Kuzul

After weeks of speculation and predictions, the Philadelphia Phillies have officially set their Opening Day roster and determined which players will be charged with making the 2012 season a distant memory and 2013 a return to the postseason. According to Ryan Lawrence on Philly.com, the Phillies have chosen Phillippe Aumont, Jeremy Horst, Raul Valdes, Ender Inciarte and Humberto Quintero to fill out the 25-man roster. The Phillies starting staff has been set since before spring training began, with Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Kyle Kendrick and John Lannan opening the season in the rotation.  Hamels has been chosen as the team’s Opening Day starter and will take the mound Monday night against the Atlanta Braves. Hamels finished the spring with 15 strikeouts in 19 innings and a 0.95 ERA.  Halladay remains as the only question mark in the rotation to start the season, health wise, but is currently scheduled to start the ...

Roy Halladay's 2013 spring training performance has been just shy of disastrous.Halladay was cuffed around again in his most recent trip to the mound, a four-inning, 81-pitch seven-hit slog against a lineup comprised of Triple-A hitters, per Jayson Stark of ESPN.com.How bad was it? He only retired seven out of 18 batters. One of the innings was halted by Philadelphia Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee with the bases loaded and two out—presumably because the Phillies did not want Halladay rearing back to get out of the exhibition jam only to hurt himself for real.Take a minute and think about how desolate things have become for Halladay when his corner man has to temporarily stop the fight against a Triple-A lineup.This was hardly the step forward Halladay or the Phillies were hoping for, following consecutive appearances that saw Halladay touched up by the Detroit Tigers and then removed after one inning ...

A lot of questions confronted the Philadelphia Phillies as they headed into spring training.  Would their aging stars bounce back from long stints on the disabled list and regain their effectiveness?  Would those who had avoided the DL be able to avoid Father Time for one more year?  Would youngsters come up and fill voids left by core players departing?With Opening Day less than two weeks away, the answers to those questions are going to finally start being answered.  Some are already sharpening into focus.This weekend, my girlfriend and I have jetted down from the New York Metro area to Clearwater, Florida, to soak in some spring matchups.  Here are some eyewitness takes on some of the team's biggest issues after Friday's win against the Braves, from the health of men like Ryan Howard and Chase Utley to general news and notes.Begin Slideshow

With April 1st and the start of the 2013 baseball season just a few short days away, the Philadelphia Phillies have checked off quite a few items on their offseason to-do list and are closer to figuring out what their roster will look like for the regular season.The team took care of a few housekeeping items by naming Cole Hamels the Opening Day starter, and by demoting Darin Ruf, it got a few steps closer to figuring out the outfield situation.But for all of the things the Phillies did this offseason, there still remains open positions left to be filled and tough, unanswered questions that include:- Which guys in camp will make the bullpen?- Who will bat leadoff this season?And, what are they to do with Ender Inciarte?So with the start of the season just a few days away, here are the four toughest questions that are still facing the Phillies. Begin Slideshow

If it became a movie, Cliff Lee's Philadelphia story would be a romantic comedy with scenes of brilliant light and unbearable darkness.The first time the Phillies dealt for Lee, in 2009, the deal was viewed as "adding another top starter to join Cole Hamels," per ESPN.com.No one could have known, though, that it would be Lee and not Hamels who would be the unhittable one in the 2009 playoffs.In five postseason starts, Lee went 4-0 in 40.1 innings pitched. He gave up seven earned runs in that entire postseason.So, naturally, the Phillies did what any sensible club would do with a pitcher who had done what Lee just did.They traded him to Seattle.History has proven this trade to be as dumb as it seemed at the time. None of the pieces the Phillies received in return (right-hander Phillippe Aumont, outfielder Tyson Gillies and right-hander Juan Ramirez) have the look of ...

Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay has been one of the majors' best pitchers in the past decade. Unfortunately, his 2012 season mirrored the Phils' '12 campaign as the team dropped from 102 wins in 2011 to 81 last year. Halladay struggled with an 11-8 record and an ERA of 4.49 (his 11 wins were the fewest since he had eight in 2004; his ERA was the second worst of his career). The 2012 season was only the second time in Halladay’s career where he did not have a complete game (he did not have a complete game in 2000 with Toronto). This broke Halladay’s streak of 11 straight seasons where he had at least one complete game. It was also rare considering that Halladay had been the league-leader in complete games for five consecutive years (two with Philadelphia and three with Toronto). Halladay leads the majors with most complete games in this ...

As the calendar turns to March, we are approaching the one-year anniversary of a pretty monumental day in the history of American professional sports.One year ago Thursday, Peyton Manning was released from the Indianapolis Colts, the organization by which he was drafted first overall in 1998 and was with for 14 seasons. During that time, he became arguably the best quarterback of his generation and put himself in with the top 10 players to ever play the position. The term "face of the franchise" has become a cliche in professional sports, but it was an unadulterated reality in Manning's case. He truly was the Indianapolis Colts.But alas, after a bizarre neck injury caused Manning to miss the entire 2011 season, subsequently contributing to the Colts going 2-14 that season and earning the top overall pick in the 2012 NFL draft, he suddenly became expendable. With the shining blue-chip Andrew Luck ...

Remember last month when the possibility existed that the Philadelphia Phillies could use a double-platoon for their corner outfield spots, rather than naming a starter at each position heading into spring training? Although the eventual signing of Delmon Young made it appear as if the Phillies had their candidate for an everyday right fielder, left field was still a mystery.  And following news from Jim Salisbury on CSNPhilly.com that Young could not only miss Opening Day, but also much of April, it appeared as if both corner outfield spots were back up for grabs. That is, unless Domonic Brown continues with his strong early showing. The Phillies have only played four spring training games, but manager Charlie Manuel recently spoke on the outfield situation in an article by David Murphy on Philly.com, and made sure he mentioned Brown’s name when it came to which players could claim spots early. We’ve got 10 outfielders, and ...

Headed into the 2012 season, nobody expected the Phillies to be anything less than a playoff contender, let alone struggle mightily as they did. By the all-star break, the team’s postseason aspirations had faded, and a few weeks later they began clearing house by moving both Hunter Pence and Shane Victorino at the trade deadline. However, while their overall season was a disappointment, they did add a few nice pieces to their severely depleted farm system in Ethan Martin and Tommy Joseph. Furthermore, pitching prospects such as Jesse Biddle, Adam Morgan and Jonathan Pettibone all took steps forward in terms of individual development, while Maikel Franco and Roman Quinn established themselves as young, high-ceiling talent. As you will see, their top 10 has a much different look than it did a year ago.Begin Slideshow

Straight up front, please save your "it's only one game!" remonstrations. Of course it's only one game, and of course it's only the preseason.Know how you know that preseason results are meaningless? The Philadelphia Eagles went 4-0 in the preseason in 2012. And you know how that turned out.So, yeah, right, it's ridiculous to take anything away from a preseason game in February (even one against the terrible Houston Astros) where Jimmy Rollins sat and Cole Hamels left after two strong innings. You're right.Yeah, but still.If you wanted to look for concerns following the ugly 8-3 loss to the Astros, the box score is rife with them.Consider:—Golden boy prospect Darin Ruf went 0-for-3, but his error on a routine single that put runners on second and third (rather than first and second) was more troubling than his inability to get a hit.The double play was no longer in order, two runners ...