Miley Cyrus ?

Okay, so it’s not about Miley Cyrus, but as she progressed from Hannah Montana to the big leagues of music, so Wednesday night Dominic Brown entered the world of big league baseball and like Miley he did it with some pop, his was in his bat though not his song choice.

Brown has been the Phillies untouchable prospect in all the trades over the last few years, he is a skilled outfielder, with lots to learn and a bat reminiscent of that from Ryan Howard when he made his debut as a rookie. He helped the Phillies last night and proved that he can swing the bat, he just has to learn to run hard from the hit and not assume it’ll go out of the Bank, his running speed could have got him a triple last night but he ended with a double, regardless he still came into score in the inning.

Well the Phillies landed Oswalt. It seems the local Houston Fox station laid it’s claims and scooped the deal claiming it was all up to Oswalt to accept or decline, that was yesterday, today Oswalt accepted the deal and told Amaro Jr that he would be available to pitch against the Nationals on Friday in Washington.

For some unknown reason there are still people out there that don’t pay attention to things unless the media highlights it, so the repetitive question of “Why trade Lee and now get Oswalt “? has become as repetitive as Two and half Men re-runs, the question has been asked and answered a number of times, so I would suggest all those still in the dark about Lee being traded, do your homework before trying to re-hash this same old question.

Further claims that the Phillies front office and Amaro Jr’s in-experience is driving the Phillies into oblivion or at best a status currently reserved for the Mets, is nothing more than the bull sh-it Mets fans seem to be knee deep in at CitiField, just because the over-hyped Mets team is starting it’s now all familiar season ending collapse, doesn’t mean other teams will do the same.

The Phillies move within 2.5 games of the Braves as we approach August, last nights win gave the Phillies an 8 game win streak and an 11 game home win streak, plus it’s 3rd home sweep in succession. Today the Phillies take the show on the road to Washington, where Roy Oswalt will take the mound for the Phillies, hopefully Philly fans will make the quick trip to DC and give Oswalt a home feeling in an effort to help him keep the winning streak alive.

Just a distraction and a face saver for Bautista a Nats pitcher, Miss Iowa will throw out the ceremonial pitch before tonight’s game, she is definitely much better on the eyes than either Bautista or the guy he replaced, Strasburg, and if you know the story she apparently has a great sense of humor too.

 Useless stats 101 – Last year in August the Phillies acquired Lee which gave them a rotation with Lee, Hamels, Happ and Moyer, 4 lefties in the rotation, this August the Phillies now have more Roy’s in the rotation than lefties.

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Tire Kickers ….

Phillies Outside

Anyone
who has participated as an exhibitor at a trade show of some kind will be all to
familiar with Tire Kickers’, although not specific to
trade shows, since it’s origin is from used car lots, it is where we have seen the most concentration
at
any given event over the years. I am sure, some will disagree and claim they have seen
more together in one place somewhere else. In the grand scheme of things, the fact that ‘Tire Kickers’ exist
everywhere is enough.

This time of year baseball has it’s own brand of ‘Tire Kickers’,
the front office people for some clubs transform into these at this time of
year. All the ranting and raving as fans will change none of
that, yes we are all armchair GM’s at some time and we all know what
is best for the teams we help through the season by cheering for them relentlessly
regardless of how they actually perform.

Not every team’s front office can legitimately transform, the Phillies
front office has transformed and can on occasion be seen ‘Kicking Tires’ in
places like Houston, Arizona, Pittsburgh, Washington, and rumor has it even
Florida.

The Phillies of recent years have done relatively well by
‘Kicking Tires’ till the deadline makes them transform back to actual decision
makers, lets hope this year is Werth the wait. There are those Phillie fans who
think some players are Werth keeping, regardless of performance or contribution,
I think this year the Phillies should make a stab at a good starting pitcher to
assist the teams continued run at post season and if the offer a Werth-while
everyday player then so be it.

In an effort to curb some disdain by the fair weather booing fans, or just to
show they are action minded, they decided Milt Thompson should join the over
crowded list of unemployed in this country. In just the few days since this
occurred the ever drivelous incoherent commentator booth add on of Gary ‘Sarge’
Matthews has pointed out pertinent hitting features for players that apparently
weren’t there two or three days ago, after weeks of telling us what they were
doing wrong at the plate, yet insists he doesn’t want another hitting coaches
job. If you’ve been watching the Phillies for a number of years now you’ll all
remember similar style of added information from non other than Joe Kerrigan
when he was on the Comcast post game show, right before he weaseled his way into
the pitching coach job for Bowa.

Since I’ve missed a few days or more, the Phillies, after the
ASG break have….

….given 3 out of 4 to the sCrUBs and given 3 out of 4 to the
Cards, while on the road, back at home they currently have won the first 2 of a
4 game set against the Rockies with game 3 being played today at CBP. They actually
managed to knock Ubaldo Jimenez out of the game in 2 plus innings, but
today is another day and it all starts again, especially for JA Happ who is back
with the club, his last start was in April and has been on the DL, rehabbing and
just plain getting back into the swing of things.

Just a Thought:

If a player can have specific balls put into the game when
it’s his at bat, what stops teams from rotating balls in and out for home team
hitters and away hitters. I know a ball is a ball is a ball, but if the Rockies
can process their balls to reduce flight, why can’t teams do that for visiting
teams and process for increased flight for home hitters. I know many will
dismiss this as just another conspiracy with no substance, but isn’t anything
possible in this day and age, and won’t teams grab every advantage they can fair
or foul…. the big prize seems to cloud the judgment of people in and around
sports, no matter what the sport.


Visions Part Deux …..

The National League managed an upset of the American League by taking the All Star Game victory, because of recent history showing the dominance of the American League this is a good way to move forward into the second half of the 2010 season for National League teams.

At the beginning of the season I laid out how I thought the season would progress and how teams would position themselves for October baseball, with just over half the games played it’s a good time to reflect and update my season ending visions.

The American League has shown some surprises, out West the Mariners have not faired as I thought so this has left the Rangers and Angels duking it out for a post season place. In the Central the Indians are not performing in the manor they could have been and in the East the top 3 are as expected, but the Jays are doing better than I had thought, as a mid way summary I now have the following possible outcomes.

AL WEST

Angels…………..88-93 wins

Rangers………..86-91 wins

The A’s will hover around the .500 mark and the Mariners will finish below .500 with about 70 wins.

AL CENTRAL

ChiSox… ……..84-89 wins

Twins …………..81-86 wins

Tigers …………..81-86 wins

The Royals and the Tribe will fight, but fail to reach .500 this year.

AL EAST

Yankees ………..93-98 wins

Rays ……  ……..92-97 wins

BoSox…… ……..90-95 wins

As you can see this could be any of these, I had considered the Yankees breaking 100 wins again, but recent history shows last time they had 56 wins in the first half they had a dismal second half with only 33 wins, so the Yankees number is a crap shoot, the Jays should end around the .500 mark and the O’s will probably break 64 wins, but no more than 70 wins.

 

The National League has also given us a couple of surprises, the Padres are the biggest one for me, kudos to them, I thought they would struggle to be a .500 team this year, but they proved me very wrong. The Pirates are more disappointing than anything, I really thought they could be a above .500 team this year, but not going to happen, the Reds are better than expected or are the Cardinals not as good as expected. The East is as expected a 3 horse race and will continue through season end.

NL WEST

Padres …………..85-90 wins

Rockies … ……..84-89 wins

Dodgers … ……..83-88 wins

Giants …… ……..79-84 wins

Arizona will struggle to reach 70 wins this year.

NL CENTRAL

Cardinals …………..85-90 wins

Reds ………… ……..85-90 wins

The Brewers and Cubs will struggle stay around the .500 mark on the year, the Pirates and Astros will have chance to play spoiler or helper in September as the Cards and Reds are on target to give us a game 163 this year, but as the Astros and Pirates play out the year they’ll both struggle to get over 65 wins.

NL EAST

Phillies …………..90-95 wins

Mets ……………..88-93 wins

Braves …………..87-92 wins

Still a close 3 team race and could go to any of the 3, it’ll be up to the Nats and Marlins to play spoiler, since both those teams wont even be knocking on the .500 door.

 

So these are my mid-term visions as far as the divisions are set, as for Phillies players and that dreaded date of July 31st, where teams negotiate to the wire to get the best possible deal, or they think is the best possible deal. The past few seasons the Phillies have faired pretty good at the trading deadline, this year I would say look to see Jayson Werth end up with one of 3 teams, Astros, Pirates or even the Reds, also movers could include, Dobbs, Castro or Ransom and maybe even Kendrick or Happ, I do not think anything major will occur, it is possible we could get Oswalt, but no breath holding here, or even one of the Reds pitchers, it maybe that the Dodgers decide they can lose Broxton, so the Phillies can lose Lidge, but that’s as farfetched as a straight trade of Pujols and Howard, or Werth and Ethier, dream on people ESPN’s got no inside track and the second half is just beginning. So tighten that safety belt, keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times and enjoy the ride, don’t forget to scream and raise your arms at the appropriate times, but most of all have FUN.


Triphillieslugas Walkoffhiticus

Making history in Philadelphia again, in all the years the Phillies have been a baseball team it is hard to imagine they have never had walk off’s in extra innings in three consecutive games, it’s hard enough getting three consecutive extra inning games at Citizens Bank Park….

triplewalkoff.jpg

….Thursday we saw Brian Schneider the back-up catcher hit a walk-off home run, then Friday it was Ryan Howard swinging the big bat, going deep for a walk off home run, then Saturday it was Jimmy Rollins who drove in Carlos Ruiz from second to score the winning run.

All 3 games have been tight finishes and some freaky things have been happening, Thursday and Friday we saw 9 inning heroics to drive the games into extras, and Saturday we saw a pitchers duel go all 9 innings, in fact Halladay I am sure was seeing himself way back in 1998, when in just his 2nd major league start he went 26 outs with a no hitter, before it was broken up with 2 outs in the 9th inning. It was eerie how similar the effort from Travis Wood was, his 3rd major league start, went into the 9th inning, nobody out before Carlos Ruiz broke up his no hitter, however as a young rookie he can be proud in the knowledge he went pitch for pitch with one of the best in the business.

Other Stuff

Cliff Lee is in Texas, who’d of thought that the city of New York could miss out twice in one week, for top trades in a sport. Just when everyone thought Lee was going to be a Yankee, after being beaten to the draw last year by the Phillies for Lee, this year it was a matter of tradeable merchandise, it didn’t pass inspection.

Then we had to endure what was created, when for a few years the media force fed everyone about how great someone is, and constantly fed that persons ego, add to that huge amounts of wealth and you crown yourself King then hold the sports world ransom for your own egotistical endeavor to spit in the face of the fans you spent so much time ripping off with your over priced merchandise.

The Yankee way of life rubbed off on at least one of it’s players, who managed to buy his way into the All Star Game, or so it would seem with all the advertising purchased etc, and yet you have to wonder, who would they have got to fill the Home Run Derby spot if he hadn’t made it.

One game left for the half way break, and time to reflect on how teams have done and how they may do in the second half, or rather the 74 or 75 games that fills the 2nd half.

 


Migration …

This is a short post, as I do not know when I will be back at this fully, soon I am hoping.moyer-24yrson[1].jpg

My graphics computer decided to make all sorts of demands about getting assurance that it wouldn’t be traded before season end, I wanted more work out of it, faster processing and a smoother online experience and had over the years managed to maintain a healthy upgrade process to keep him and the team happy. Mr. XP to me is kind of like Jamie Moyer to the Phillies, you know sooner or later something’s going to give, but you just keep hoping it won’t be today, well my hopes ran out. 

It was invest more or move newer talent into the front line, unfortunately Mr. XP has been the heart and sole of all my imagicalating since the conception of XP, until know I have resisted moving my imagicalation software bundles from Adobe over Mr. W7, mainly because that costs more than the computers. My long time friend and holder of my total software solutions Mr XP, decided to tank and will only perform basic functions for me at the moment, I am keeping him alive by way of careful data management and a lot of curse words. Now I have no alternative but to migrate as much of my work load to Mr. W7, it will just take a little more time to completely acquire my full range of imagicalating software packages and make Mr. W7 fully integrated into the prime function slot.

This will hopefully have no adverse affects on the Phillies performances or the outcome of the ASG, it will just place some added pressure on the relationship with team Adobe cause they are very demanding about getting paid for stuff.


Phillies going to Vegas ….

– PhilliesOutside –

The popularity contest is over, NL and AL rosters are set, okay not entirely,
there is still the opportunity to vote the final spot on each roster, my choices
are Votto (CIN) in the NL and  Konnerko
(CWS) in the AL, as for who
should be there and who shouldn’t it’s all about personal choice so now it’s set
the managers have to make the best of it.

The hype around  Strasburg continued, you have Charlie Manuel on national television and the best first
question you can come up with is “did you consider Strasburg an option” or words to
that effect. If you have any ounce of intelligence and slight knowledge of baseball,
you know the kid has made 6 starts is not going to the All
Star Game when so many other pitchers have accomplished so much more this
season. To those who claim his 100 mph fast ball is worth him being there, bullsh-it,
after seeing him against the Braves and the Mets, I am convinced the Strasburg
Hyper Interest Tension Syndrome
will dissipate
and die before the season ends, he will be ‘the kid that threw really hard’
for a season and a half maybe, who knows his agent may even be able to swing a
movie about him, cause he has obviously worn out his knee pads convincing the
media sheep to hype this kid up. Kevin Kaduk of the Yahoo Sports Blog “Big
League Stew”
is one of those who plays the reporter hidden inside a
blog, is a prime example of over hyping Strasburg, telling us ‘MLB is
missing out’
, this probably wouldn’t be so laughable if you weren’t actively
promoted by Yahoo as an authority on the MLB and sports.

The media sheep, they get one or two reporters to write it, the rest follow
and there go the bloggers
too
. Of course you have the bias
media
, yes that’s you Fox Sports, who will tell you that the AL won
the ASG voting because of who the fans selected, then there are those who have
chosen to publicly
mock Charlie
for a couple of his picks.

Lets see, Ryan Howard, yes we all know Votto has better
numbers, but he has better numbers than Albert Pujols too, and aren’t the
managers selections there for his amusement, to appease players on his team, after all
Joe Girardi chose A-Rod. Then we have Omar Infante and yes
on first glance I had a dazed look on my face and said “WTF!” then I
saw Chipper Jones’ comment about utility players never get selected, so
good for Charlie for doing his homework, now when a manager has spent
most of the first half of the season relying on utility players to maintain
contention in the division, then this choice makes sense, if indeed this game
does go the extra innings, he now has a player he can use when and where he
wants.

Inside sources, who do not wish to be named, said, the Phillies
organization is close to a deal with a large hotel consortium to appear in Las
Vegas
during the All Star Break, it seems they did such a good job
making the Pittsburgh Pirates look good over the weekend, the
Treasure Island Hotel Casino would like to use them to help increase awareness
of the Treasure Island pirates.

 


WTF Award for June goes to …..

– PhilliesOutside –

June the month of ‘VOTE FOR ME‘ is finally over and July the month of
WE WANT HIM‘ begins, it’s also time for the June 2010 WTF Award.
I had already given my we wants back in May, to close out a post entitled ‘Weekend
from Hell’
, all of my suggestions are still viable options.

The group of Mr. Popularities
will all gather in Los Angeles in a few days and pretend like they give a sh-t
about each other, for some it’s more a time of networking, a time they can meet
those that may be able to mention their name to the right person that may give
them a shot at getting on a post season team, for others it’s another chance to
screw the fans out of more money.

Mr Selig,  different twist for next years All Star Game,  consider
this, the NL manager
selecting the AL starting lineup
and the AL manager selecting the NL starting lineup, with obvious restrictions
like the player has to have had so many starts in that position during the
season, this would truly make the managers work on selecting the players
they would want to face and then have to work with players that may not be the
very best of the best and may not be very popular either, they would have to
select 1 player from each team. The pitchers could be selected in a similar way,
not only would this, I think make things a little more interesting it would give
some of those less popular players a chance to be in the camera eye and have a
national stage.

I hope everyone has used up those 25 votes per email address and if you have
the time you can get more email addresses. I also wonder why we don’t have text voting yet, you know text such ‘n’
such
number to this number if you want to vote for so ‘n’ so. They
could again restrict it to so many votes per mobile number per player.

This may seem like a post about prompting you to vote, but actually deep down I think the popularity contests should be reserved
for beauty pageants, dog shows, celebrity apprentice and American Idol, since
the voting is always fixed (according to my secret sources) it shouldn’t
matter to them how the voting goes.

Unlike the WTF Award, where the voting is fair, it’s uncomplicated, there is
no room for cheating, and everyone has an even chance of winning.

WTF Award for June 2010, nominations are:

Jim Joyce is nominated, not because he made umpires seem almost
human by showing tears in his eyes, not because he stood up like a man and said “I
got it wrong”,
the nomination for Jim Joyce is based
purely and simply on the fact that he F-CKED UP.

New York Mets Front Office for those who are thinking, what the
hell did they do to make the list, well it could be that despite having all the
Miller Highlife removed for abusive pricing they still manage to have patrons consume
huge amounts of adult beverages, no that wasn’t it, it is of course the giving
up of Jerry Seinfeld’s personal box to Lady GaGa.

Adidas, if you’ve seen any of the news you’d know that
Adidas
re-invented the ball, as with every World Cup anything new everyone has
to have their say and the complaints of the ball not moving right or flying
through the air like it’s a drunk driver, truth is if your a professional a ball
is a ball is a ball, get over it, Adidas however, well done on
adding to the world a perfect round spherical object that people kick.

Detroit Tigers what other team could say that the last call of
2 different games in one month were totally wrong, yes the game against the
Indians should have
been a no hitter and the game against the Braves should have gone to extra
innings, but nothing in the world of baseball is really perfect, which is why
when this happens we say WTF.

Florida, the whole damn state, why, because only Florida as a
state could have it’s baseball teams in the media for being no hit 3 times, for
firing a manager, and site searching for new ball park locations, yet a tourist
map giving a sporting look at Florida doesn’t show anything remotely
related to baseball.

There were a few others that could have been on the list, but the final
winner of June 2010 WTF Award, goes to an individual who, during June took his
life to a new level, showed everyone he can be more than anyone ever thought
possible, in an instant this person stepped up and became a man in front of the
whole world, he’s by no means the first to show everyone what he’s capable when
it’s needed, this person could be a true great friend to those that need one,
this person went above and beyond their normal routine, this person made me
say WTF.

….you guessed it, RSBS co-host
Allen Krause, who during the
month of June came out of the closet and showed everyone he does know how to use
the comment feature at MLBlogs. You can see how I originally reported the incident
here
, or alternatively you can visit the actual WTF happening here
and scroll down to the 5th comment.

The image with Al accepting his award, was stolen from an RSBS
video
and imagicalated by moi.