Erik Kratz

This week's Phillies mailbag looks at the club's starting rotation, backup catching, and Scott Kingery's impending return.

Evaluating baseball transactions often becomes a game of sizing up each of a number of not so attractive options. So, just like we did after the Marlon Byrd signing, let's play the same game in the wake of Carlos Ruiz's reported three-year deal worth $26 million with the Phillies...

The Phillies have placed catcher Erik Kratz on the 15-day disabled list with a left knee injury.  Steven Lerud is up from Triple-A Lehigh Valley to take Kratz's roster spot. Kratz came up limping after he tried to beat out a ground ball to begin the ninth inning...

PHILADELPHIA—With his first step to first base after making contact with a 2-2 changeup in the sixth inning, Domonic Brown broke into a walk. At this point, he just knows what his home runs feel like. If the Phillies this season have a chance to learn how winning wears, it’s behind this guy...

Ryan Howard received a cortisone shot in his left knee on Sunday and Carlos Ruiz was diagnosed with a Grade two strain of his right hamstring and is expected to miss three-to-four weeks.  Plus, pitxher Mike Adams was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a right back strain...

The Phillies reinstated catcher Carlos Ruiz from suspension today, Humberto Quintero was DFA’d to make room on the Phillies’ active roster. It's been a major blow to the Phillies, who have come to rely on the veteran catcher's improved offensive production and handling of the pitching staff and threw out a career-best 34 percent of attempted basestealers in 2012...

Phillies (8-11) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (10-8) First pitch at 7:05 p.m.  The Phillies don’t exactly enter on a high note, but it could be worse. If not for last night’s gamesmanship from Ben Revere (eighth-inning go-ahead RBI single) and Erik Kratz (three-run home run the next at-bat), they’d have lost 7 of 9 games and 5 of 6 series...

PHILADELPHIA—It took just seven pitches. Staring a possible seventh loss in nine games and fifth series loss in six this year for the Phillies, Ben Revere and Erik Kratz punched their timecards for eighth-inning at-bats. Revere screamed an RBI single...

PHILADELPHIA—Erik Kratz couldn’t have been the problem on Monday. And Humberto Quintero wasn’t the solution. Roy Halladay, making his second start following an injury riddled season and question packed spring, lasted just 4 innings against the New York Mets in a 7-2 Phillies loss before the Citizens Bank Park crowd...

That Carlos Ruiz will miss the first 25 games of 2013 isn't what's most troubling about the announcement Tuesday that he was suspended for using amphetamines. Of those, 16 will be against non-2012 playoff qualifiers. Erik Kratz, the fastest catcher ever to hit eight home runs, is a more than capable spell for the meantime...