Phillies, Ph-ilet the Fish in Florida
Posted: July 16, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: Fish, Halladay, Hamels, Howard, Ibanez, Madson, Marlins, Moyer, phillies, Record, Romero 7 CommentsThe Phillies could not have wished for a better start to the second half of the season, it was a night when Jamie Moyer went 7 innings giving up just 1 hit and a walk, throwing 95 pitches, the bullpen continued what Moyer started, Madson threw a scoreless 8th inning and 
Romero threw a scoreless 9th inning, the pitches really were like a knife through butter, or in this case a filet knife through fish.
Keeping with the theme of things Ibanez and Howard homered into the SEA of empty seats, Ibanez hit a 2 run shot in the 2nd and a solo in the 4th, Howard became the fastest player in MLB history to reach 200 home runs with his solo shot in the 6th innning.
This win put Moyer at 9-6 for the year, the blogs and comments during the last week or so have been calling for the Phillies to acquire Halladay, I am all for this, however, more and more it has been written that Moyer should be the one to lose his spot, games like this are why we need to keep Moyer in the rotation. Currently at 9-6 for the year, games he has started the Phillies are 11-7, he is on his way to double figure wins again this year and can be a major asset in the clubhouse as well as on the mound, as the Phillies make a bid for back to back World Series wins. Just my thoughts to those who doubt Moyer has anything left to offer.
Howard reached his 200th homer mark in his 658th major league start, smashing the previous record held by Ralf Kiner who took just 706 major league games, hopefully Ryan is back on track to keep hitting the long ball.
RAUUUUUUL showed us that there should be no doubts as to whether he lost his timing at the plate during his DL period, with 2 long balls tonight he leads the Phillies with 24 homers, even after being out for those 20 games.
Can the Philles NET another win against the Marlins tomorrow, with Cole Hamels on the mound, in a fresh start after the break, he needs to put the first half games behind him and move onward and upward and start off with a solid outing of at least 7 innings.
Half Done, All Star Break to come…..
Posted: July 13, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: AL, All Star Break, Cubs, Feliz, Home Run Derby, Howard, Mets, Muts, Nats, NL, Pena, phillies, Pirates, Rays, St. Louis, sweep 8 CommentsSomething a little different today, don’t laugh my rhyming sucks……
Some slumps, some bloops, the first half is done,
It ends on a Felix grand slam home run,
Some Phillies are resting, this may seem sweet,
With the past weekend of a Pirates sweep,
Time to relax, whether your Muts, Nats or even Cubies,
Off to St. Louis, where rivals become buddies,
Watchin’, the Derby can be slow, but painless,
Who will win, my guess, Howard or Carlos Pena,
The Rays give the infield a new AL spin,
The Phils have the outfield and we’ll get an NL win.
So ryhming is not my best feature, but it’s the All Star break, so have fun
Would the REAL Cole Hamels Please Stand Up………
Posted: July 12, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: Bako, come back, double, Hamels, Homer, Homers, Howard, Ibanez, Joe Biden, ninth inning, phillies, Pirates, sweep 12 CommentsI have decide that Cole Hamels has an Alter-Ego that at any given moment will come to life, he has no control over this Alter-Ego, in fact the claims that he was working on mechanics in the bullpen this week was a disguise for, “Trying to control the Alter-Ego”. This Alter-Ego is none other than the “COOKIE CHUCKER”, for no 
apparent reason when the “COOKIE CHUCKER” rears it’s ugly head Cole will simply throw cookies down the middle of the plate to opposing hitters, thus allowing the homer to be hit. The “COOKIE CHUCKER” is the evil, hitter friendly pitcher trapped inside Cole’s body. Last night the “COOKIE CHUCKER” came out, without warning, with 2 outs in the bottom of the 1st inning and decided to stay around and play till the 3rd inning. You could see the look on Cole’s face in the duggout between the 2nd and 3rd inning where he was fighting to hide the “COOKIE CHUCKER”, it was the extra “bullpen” work that gave Cole the strength to bury the “COOKIE CHUCKER” back inside himself and keep it at bay till he left the game. So next time Cole Hamels throws one of those hitter friendly cookie’s you’ll know the “COOKIE CHUCKER” has reared it’s ugly head again……
RAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUL is back and what a night, 2 hits, 2 runs and an RBI, and that included the game winning run, more importantly his return saw the Howards Homer come back to life….
HANDS-UP how many people were convinced the Phillies had lost this one, before the bottom of the ninth came to life…. own up…. thought so…. have faith…. even Joe Biden and his wife knew it wasn’t over, else why would they have stayed…. it was none other than a Vice Presidential Order, the Phillies had to win last night at all cost….
I am sure by the time the bottom of the ninth came even the Pirates fans thought they had this one in the bag, it was without any doubt the come back of the year, so far, for the Phillies, as I said Howards Homer came back to life to tie it up, then a Ibanez started the 1 out bases loading actions, till Bako hit the game winning drive….
Lets make it a HAPP-y sweep today….
Pitchers Duel goes to Philadelphia…
Posted: July 10, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: All Star, Blanton, Duke, Homers, Lidge, Philadelphia, phillies, Pirates, Pitching, Pittsburgh, Romero, Trade, Utley, Victorino, Werth 8 CommentsIt was nothing more than pure speed on the mound tonight, as both Blanton and Duke were quick through each inning, Blanton pitched 7 1/3 innings giving up a solo homer in the first, he allowed just 3 other hits keeping the Pirates bats quiet.
Duke pitched an outstanding game for the Pirates giving up just 3 runs, in 8 innings, all the Phillies runs came in the 3rd inning, the only Phillies batter that seemed to be consistent against Duke was All Star, Victorino who tapped him for 3 hits. Both Utley and Werth got a hit each off Duke during the three run 3rd.
Romero came in to relieve Blanton and got the 3 batters he faced, setting it up for Lidge to get the final 2 outs in the top of the ninth.
Lidge again made the fans sweat and their hearts race, needing just 1 out in the top of the ninth, he gave up a solo homer to Moss, then a single to Wilson and somehow still managed to get the PH to swing through and get himself out, it took Lidge 20 pitches to save the game and a lot of stress and worry for the fans, who went from cheering to crossing their fingers.
I don’t normally single a player out as a player of the game, but today I think I have to give this one to the Pirates pitcher Duke, that was a tough one for him to lose. Imagine what his stats would be like behind the offence the Phillies can produce….. just a thought, while we’re looking for starters…..
The Phillies are an All Star Team……
Posted: July 10, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: All Star game, all star votes, blogs, Charlie Manuel, Halladay, outfield, phillies, Todd Zolecki, Victorino, Werth 3 CommentsWell 5 of them anyway, so Jayson Werth was selected to go by Charlie and the league agreed, I’m with Todd Zolecki on this one, Todd wrote: “Wow.”
I am very surprised, Yes i know i said earlier that I thought Kemp should be the pick, still do truth be known, but when you have your favorite team being represented by 5 players at the All Star game, that’s special.
So now it is posible for the NL All Star Team to have the Phillies outfield on the field all at the same time, will that happen, we’ll have to wait and see if Charlie can pull that one off.
Now all the claims of having an All Star Outfield are fact not fiction or pipe dreams, another day the Phillies have something to be proud of….
With what seemed to be an unfair quantity of blogs about how Victorino should NOT have won the final vote, I am sure this news will resenate through and cause more unrest towards the Philadelphia Phillies, maybe this is the year, maybe we will get Halladay too.
Phillies take series from Reds, set new club record
Posted: July 10, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: All Star game, All Star Team, Beltran, Brad Lidge, Chan Ho Park, Ibanez, Jamie Moyer, Jayson Werth, Kemp, Lidge, Moyer, Park, Philadelphia, phillies, Pirates, Pittsburgh, Raul Ibanez, RBI, Record, Reds, Shane Victorino, Utley, Victorino, Werth 2 CommentsJayson Werth went deep to record his 20th home run of the season making him the 4th player to be on 20 home runs or more before the All Star Break, a first for the Phillies franchise and only the second MLB team to accomplish this feat. Werth has put up impressive numbers in the first half of this season and has more than proved that he can be an everyday player, I personally thought he would struggle as an everday outfielder, so well done Jayson, you are on a season setting personal best. Jayson’s name has been thrown in the mix for the All Star Game, since Beltran is injured, is Werth worthy of an All Star pick, well he has certainly put up the numbers, however I believe there are others who are a little more deserving, if it’s an outfielder they need then I would have to go with Kemp, he has better numbers this year, if it’s just any position player then there are a number to choose from and everyone will have there own personal favorite.
Chase Utley, in a ball park that is suposed to allow almost anyone to go deep, showed everyone last night that you dont need to hit the ball over the fence to get a home run, his second inside the park home run against the reds. This one came in the 3rd inning and it was Utley’s 20th homer of the year, although there wasn’t a play at the plate this time, he needed some recovery time to catch his breath, who wouldn’t.
Jamie Moyer pitched through 5 innings giving up 6 runs on 8 hits, since the offence took the lead in the bottom of the 5th Jamie was the pitcher of record giving him, his 254th career win. Jamie gave up two home runs, not unusual for Jamie, all in all a good outing for him.
Chan Ho Park gave another stellar performance from the bullpen, 3 scoreless innings, giving up 1 walk, with 4 strike outs.
Brad Lidge continues to make everyone nervous in the 9th inning, after getting the 1st two batters he gave up a walk, but came back nicely to close out the game with a scoreless inning.
Even though the Phillies have taken six of seven in this home stand, they still have a below .500 record at home this season, a sweep of the Pirates would put them still 1 game shy of the .500 mark. We all know that sweeping the Pirates is a huge task, they have played well against NL East teams this year, I for one am glad we have Blanton, Hamels and Happ to face them this weekend.
Victorino won the vote for the final spot on the All Star team, he is more than deserving of his place, he again last night picked up a couple of walks, a hit and a couple of RBI’s and continues to play gold glove quality defense in the outfield. Well Done Shane!!
To the Pirates, welcome to Philadelphia, the in state rivalry isn’t quite as intense as some would think, but still it will make for a good weekend, especially if the Phillies keep up this excellent home stand performance.
RAUL IBANEZ will he return today or will they wait till tomorrow, I think he will probably be here today, but my gut tells me they should probably wait till tomorrow.
Victorino gives, NOW give back to Victorino
Posted: July 9, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: AL, All Star Ballot, All Star game, All Star Team, All Star Voting, Chan Ho Park, Detroit, Lopez, Madson, MLB Network, NL, Philadelphia, phillies, RBI, Reds, Romero, Sandoval, The Pen, Tigers, Umpires, Victorino, vote, Walk off, Werth 4 CommentsThe headlines around MLB say it all, the race for the #33 All Star pick is a tight one, since Victorino and Sandoval are playing cat and mouse in the NL ballot, the campaigning is reaching new heights never before seen in an All Star ballot.
Victorino added to his case last night with a walk off RBI to give the Phillies a 3-2 win over the Reds, this was definately the highlight of the game.
Lopez, had another good start, although he only went 5 innings, due to a sore shoulder (last reports), his pitch count was low and he held the Reds to just 2 runs on 5 hits. Rest up Lopez your fast becoming an asset in the starting rotation.
BullPen was again outstanding last night, Madson’s speed was up, location was good, both Durbin and Romero also had good outings. Although for me the best activity from the bullpen was without a doubt Chan Ho Park, the sandwich boards campaigning for Victorino votes, was terrific, I wonder if he lost a bet or won a draw to do that, hopefully we’ll find out on The Pen on MLB Network, whenever that returns.
The Phillies have teamed up with the Detroit Tigers to try and double the voting capacity for each of our respective players, wow, politics in baseball, colaborations between parties, who’d have thought it would come to this, who knows next year they may have to call in the people from American Idol to get telephone voting too.
The only soar note on last nights game was the strike zone, seemed to be a little too flexible when the chance of a called third strike loomed, maybe the home plate umpire was auditioning for an upcoming movie, or maybe a chance to grab a headline and get himself noticed.
All that really matters is that Victorino gave to us last night with the walk off RBI, now it’s our turn to give back and vote him in the All Star game. Voting ends at 4pm EST today, hopefully we will be celebrating during tonights game and Detroit will be celebrating too, which will just go to show the NL and AL can work together for the good of the fans.
Could Halladay join the Phillies?
Posted: July 8, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: AL East, Blue Jays, Halladay, Jays, Jon Heyman, phillies, Red Sox, Roy Halladay, SI.com Daily Scoop, Trade, Yankees 4 CommentsI guess the answer is unknown at this time but, the chances may have got better today, from a story on SI.com by Jon Heyman, Daily Scoop, he lists the possibles for Halladay, showing the Phillies as number 1 contenders on his list, he also reports that the Jays would prefer he goes out of the AL East, so that could cancel any thoughts for the Yankies and Red Sox. You can read the story yourself and make up your own mind, do the Phillies have the players the Jays would want and would the Phillies give them up? : Full Story
Phillies give it up in the Ninth
Posted: July 8, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: All Star game, Chris Welsh, Fox, FS Ohio, FSN, FSN Ohio, FSOH, George Grande, Happ, HK, Howard, Jeff Piecord, Jetter, Lidge, Madson, Marty Foster, Mets, Muts, New York, Philadelphia, phillies, Phillips, Reds, Umpires, Utley, Victorino, Yankees Leave a commentIt was the inevitable anti-climax, a roller coaster coming off it’s tracks at the high point, and then there’s the ‘what if’s’, like they had got the Mayberry call right.
So I watched the game last night with the Reds TV or FSN Ohio or FSOH, something like thatit’s one of those low budget Fox Sports things, here’s hoping noone gets offended, cause lets face it, the Reds don’t have the market other teams do, and that’s why it’s a lower budget station. I am going to be brutally honest here, it was somewhat dificult to follow and I don’t remember the commentators names, so I cheated and looked them up, George Grande and Chris Welsh and I can tell you the pre game show was done by Jeff Piecord. I am not going into the blow by blow of how they did it, and these events may not be in order.
As a general rule they were very complimentary of the Philly players and staff, and the pre game show did part of an historical tour of Philadelphia and a spot remembering HK. They were amused that we refer to the Mets as the Muts even in the press.
1st Inning, Taveras on first, they comment on Taveras being so fast he can leave with the pitch and never get caught, – what happened thrown out, I simpathise since the consistant replay showed him safe, they did make comment about the umpire and connected him to the umpires in the Yankees game and reference Foster telling Jeter, you don’t have to be tagged if the ball beats you to the bag, or something like that –
Top 1st, Utley gets caught stealing, no replay, no analyse to see if he was safe or not straight to commercial.
They were surprised at how good Happ pitched, and they were saying Harang was the Reds ace and he needed to do this and this with the ball, then Phillies went back to back and they analysed, did freeze frames of the ball hitting the bat that is, just to show that Harang didn’t hit his spot with the pitches.
I did notice what seemed to be an air of resentment that Chase Utley had been selected to go to the All Star Game, the inference was that since he played infront of 40,000 fans every night it was easier than for say, Phillips who only gets and audience of say 20,000, it’s a popularity contest. They also complained that he didn’t make the top 4 player voting to go, you just have to look at what he has done is about what they said, then there seemed to be a sequence of events where Utley made some gold glove plays, then Utley hit a ball hard straight at Phillips and it hit off his glove, did he chase it down, no he let it trickle into the outfield, consequence, Utley’s on second, I thought that’s why Utley’s an All Star and Phillips isn’t.
Like I said I found it pretty hard to follow with these guys, and I think that is nothing more than familiarity, they had inside jokes and such like, if I watched them everyday I would understand and be able to follow along better.
Then we had the Mayberry out at home, they were so joyous they showed the replays to see how the great a defensive play it was and then you saw it the catchers tag was kind of late, Mayberry’s hand was in and on the plate, Mayberry was safe, silence fell on the commentators and then commercial break, after the break the only that was said I think the Reds got away with one then.
So thats about it really, yes I know they were over joyed that they scored a run off Lidge and won. The almost refused to mention the 22-1 the night before.
You’ll never guess what the Aflac Trivia Question was: okay here goes:
What is the largest margin of victory the Reds have had in the franchise history?
Well I didn’t see that coming.
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The game, was without adoubt a game of missed chances, too many missed opportunities with runners in scoring position and less than 2 outs, we cant blame the loss on the umpires for a couple of bad calls just because we couldn’t deliver.
Yes we got a couple of homers and we got at least one run home from third, but it doesn’t excuse the 1 for 12 with RISP
Happ had another outstanding start, Madson delivered in the 8th and somehow Lidge had a location problem in the 9th.
I almost forgot in all the excitment, Howard broke his homerless streak, way to go Ryan.
So today is another day.
VOTE VICTORINO
Phillies make Reds History
Posted: July 7, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: 22-1, All Star Ballot, All Star game, All Star Team, All Star Voting, bullpen, Cincinnati, Citizens Bank Park, Cole Hamels, double, Home Run Derby, Jayson Werth, Jimmy Rollins, phillies, Raul Ibanez, Reds, Ryan Howard, The Pen, The Reds 5 CommentsYou must have been on another planet or at best somewhere remote outside of the baseball world if you haven’t already heard of the 22-1 win the Phillies posted against The Reds last night. History in the making, the Phillies gave The Reds the largest deficit loss in their club history, it wasn’t just that they sent their ace starter to the dug out in two thirds of an inning, nor was it the fact that the Phillies were well on their way to batting around twice in the first, it is the things that in a different game would have been the headlines.
Cole Hamels went seven innings giving up 3 hits and 1 run throwing just 92 pitches with 61 of them for strikes. He must of been feeling good, at the plate he had a double, a single, 2 RBI’s and scored 2 runs, a week ago Jimmy Rollins would have killed for those in game stats. – Well Done Cole.
The Reds pitching staff threw more pitches in the first 3 inning than Hamels threw for seven, in total The Reds pitching staff threw over 200 pitches combined, with only about 60% of them for strikes. You know a pitching staff is having a tough night when they throw **** into pitch the 8th inning.
Jayson Werth hit a grand slam, okay so it was off the SS pitching, but even so it’s still a stat and would have been a headline in any other game.
Jimmy Rollins went 3 for 4 with 2 walks, with Jimmy’s first half slump, I think worthy of a headline.
Ryan Howard homerless again, it’s nice that he is in the Home Run Derby, but I would much prefer him to hit homers in games that count, maybe the possible return of Raul Ibanez this week will inspire Ryan to go long.
Phillies BullPen threw 2 scorless innings to close out the game, again with their performance over recent weeks this would have been a headline in a diferent game.
With all this in the first of 4 games against The Reds you have wonder if they can keep it up, I am sure The Reds are wondering what they can do tonight, they face the 5-0 Happ with a 2.96 ERA, I am not sure there is light at the end of the tunnel for The Reds at CBP.
For a diferent point of view I have decided to watch tonights game with The Reds commentary, just to see how they feel about a Phillies team that really showed no mercy last night. Lets hope the Phillies didn’t blow a weeks worth of offense in one night.
Almost Finally, in case you hadn’t noticed I added the word Phillies to my Blog name just so those who haven’t read it know it’s about the Phillies.
And Finally VOTE VICTORINO
Phillies Outside Archive Vault 