Phillies Take D-Backs to School….
Posted: July 28, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: Arizona, D-Backs, Feliz, Garland, Halladay, Hamels, haren, Howard, Lidge, Madson, Moyer, Park, Philadelphia, phillies, Roberts, Rollins, Utley 8 CommentsPhiladelphia, Phillies showed the D-Backs how to play professional baseball last night in Arizona.
Yes, this may seem harsh, but the Phillies took a clear advantage of the D-Backs errors, errors which would have been hard to find in a triple ‘A’ game, and there was Jamie Moyer, who pitched himself into trouble twice in the first 3 innings,
loading the bases at one point, with nobody out, his experience, his self control and excellent defence, from his infield that knows no limits and definately knows how to support their team mate in times of trouble got him through the struggles.
Moyer, moved on from his struggles and pitched with control and poise through another 3 2/3 innings, shutting the door on the D-Backs. In total Moyer pitched 6 2/3 innings, giving up 6 hits, 4 walks and striking out 5, giving him his 256th career win and closing out July with a 3.30 ERA his best month this year.
Side Bar: During this ‘will he, won’t he’ couple of weeks on Halladay, it has been noted that a number of people have been commenting on blogs, calling for Moyer to retire, last night was just another reason why he shouldn’t, right now he’s pitching very well, and he’s got 10 wins on the year, giving him 13 seasons with double digit wins, I know wins dont mean anything in a pitchers stats, but as I’ve said before, it’s wins that get you to the post season. (end side bar).
D-Backs defense for 8 innings looked like a group of guys on a Sunday morning throwing a ball around not really caring where it went, or if someone could catch what was thrown at them. With Feliz on 1st, (now you have to understand Feliz has 0 (zero) stollen bases this year), the pitcher, Garland, is acting like it’s J-Roll or Victorino over there, so he ends up throwing the ball past the 1st baseman which ultimately puts it up the right field line, Feliz, who seemed like a diferent person on the bases last night, ended up going from 1st to 3rd. Another one was, Utley on 1st a base hit fumbled in the shift off of Howards bat, allowed Utley to get to 3rd, after beating the 3rd baseman in a foot race to 3rd base, that should have been a double play or at least got Howard at 1st. There were other simple plays in the infield that should have resulted in outs that didn’t and although the Phillies played hard last night, those infield mistakes are the main reason for 4 extra runs the Phillies scored. Of course the ‘Howard Homer’, a 2 run shot in the 4th was all Howard.
So having seen all that go on imagine the surprise when in the top of the 9th a bloop hit, which had it been earlier in the game would have scored 2 runs, is caught by Roberts with a spectacular dive to end the inning.
The Phils bull pen went to work in the 7th inning Park came into the game in releif of Moyer and got the 1 guy he faced, 8th inning Madson came in, experienced some struggles, gave up a couple of runs on 3 hits, and struck out 2. Lidge was set to come in for the 9th, a non-save situation, so there was obviously a few nerves, but Madson had struggled so maybe Lidge would be okay, well he was, 3 up, 3 down, with a strike out thrown in there. Phillies end up taking the first of three from a struggling Arizona, 6-2.
Room for thought: Why did Charlie use Bruntlett in the 9th and not Dobbs, that confused me, tonight we do it all again Hamels vs Haren, now I know Haren has a pretty good contract with the D-Backs, but could it be possible when the Phillies go to San Francisco that Haren goes with them…..
Phils take series finale from Cards 9-2, Jays reject Phillies counter offer…
Posted: July 26, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: Arizona, Blanton, Cardinals, Cleveland, Halladay, Holliday, Howard, Ibanez, Indians, Jays, Lee, Lugo, News, phillies, Pujols, Rollins, Trade Deadline, Utley, World Series 10 CommentsFor me the important part of today was another win, which in reality is what gets you to another post season, and without getting to the post season you can’t win another World Series.
In a game that had a freaky 1st inning, yes for me it was freaky, it’s not often you see the top of the 1st score a run and move a runner from 1st to 2nd on a fly ball, well it happened, but that wasn’t the freaky part, the bottom of the 2nd, it all happened again, exactly the same, it was like one of those if you can do it so can wee things from the movies. it looked as though it would be a very nail bitting game, by the end of the top of the 5th inning. It was just 3-2 Phillies, but the bottom of the 5th inning produced the 2nd 2 run homer from the Phillies by way of a deep to centerfield shot that hit the top of the center 
field batters-eye wall from Ryan Howard, at that point I felt with Joe Blanton on the mound the Phils were on there way to a victory. The game had the Phillies hitting 4, 2 run homers from Utley, Howard, Rollins and Ibanez….coupled with the first inning run it gave the Phillies another hard hitting win.
Even with the long balls and the double plays, for me the guy that made today was Joe Blanton he came into todays game with an ERA of just 0.83 for the month of July, and today he showed us why, he continued to get his pitches in the right location, keeping hitters off the bases. He went a solid 8 innings, giving up just 7 hits and 2 runs, while walking 1 and striking out 6…. The last 3 batters he faced just put an exclamation point on his perfomance, striking out in order, Lugo, Pujols and Holliday to end the top of the 8th. This is the type of trade deadline acquisition that has helped the Phillies. He’s not a media man, he’s not a look at me type guy, he goes out there and gets the job done and he works hard between his starts. I am not saying he’s better or worse than anyone else, my point is as far as acquiring someone, this guy was one of the better mid-season acquisitions the Phillies have made over the past few years. Well Done Joe keep it going through August….
So the Blue Jays turned down the counter offer the Phillies made for Roy Halladay, that is understandable, you see there are other teams still making offers and they want to get the maximum they can for him, the fact is other teams now know what they won’t except, so they have a lead role to offer something better than the Phillies offered. There are also reports that the Angels recieved a list of demands from the Jays for Halladay to go to them, it is reported that they like the Phils believe the asking price is too high.
I have read a lot of comments on blogs lately regarding this subject, me personally I am at the point where I say if they don’t like what we are prepared to give then walk away from the deal. Lots of people think Halladay is going to bring us another World Series, well he won’t, it’s a team thing, yes he does have the stats that say he will help the Phillies in acheiving that goal, but for me any trade is risky, regardless, some say the risk is minimal for the Phillies, on paper that maybe, but in reality, no one knows for sure, because there are no guarantees.
It would be nice to add to our starting rotation, in a manner that will improve it, not just add to it with more #4 and #5 rotation pitchers. I would like to see a serious consideration given to Lee at Cleveland, no he’s not Halladay, but he’s more affordable and would still increase our chance of another World Series.
So for all those commenters on the Halladay stories that say the Phillies blew it by rejecting the Jays outlandish request, I say this —- now you’ve got more days to whine, complain, attack management and continuously comment as if it was your discision and that you believe you are the almanac and crystal ball of baseball, and when others dont agree with you, you still have time to turn your frustrations out on them and start bad mouthing each other in the comments of a news story that most people have read and moved on from, sometimes days, but definately hours before you’ve started insulting each other.
It’s off to Arizona for the Phillies, and then onto the west coast for a road trip that will take us into August and past the trade deadline, so who will join the Phillies on the road, anyone or no one???
Phillies go NINE straight, Cubs get cooled off…
Posted: July 20, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: 9 straight, Batman, Chicago, Cubs, Durbin, Homer, Hot, Howard, Howards Homer, Ibanez, Jack Nicholson, Lopez, Phanatic, Phillie Phanatic, phillies, Piniella, RBI, Rollins Utley, Ruiz, Superman, Victorino 7 CommentsWell the HOT Chicago Cubs found out tonight how HOT, HOT really is when the Phillies put 10 runs on the board, via 3 home runs and a couple of RBI hits.
The Phanatic was playing Batman for Jack Nicholson while Rollins and Victorino were doing there impression of the dynamic duo at the top of the line up, Victorino got an education on ‘where to’ and ‘where not to’ run when stealing a base, from the umpires.
Ibanez of course was playing superman again, with a 3 run homer in the 1st with 2 outs and 2 strikes on him. Even as cold as Ruiz has been at the plate, he felt the heat of the team as he hit a 2 run homer in the 2nd and then hit an RBI double in the 4th inning.
Rollins and Utley both picked up RBI’s in the 4th to make this a 9 run game.
Lopez did not have his best stuff tonight, was fishing around the strike zone, giving up 3 walks, even so, he only allowed 1 run through 6 innings of work and 1 extra base hit.
Howard not to be out done by Ibanez struck a typical ‘Howards Hom
er’ in the 8th inning to make it a 10-1 game.
Durbin came out of the pen in the bottom of the 7th to earn a save the old fashioned way, 3 innings of shut out work, even in a 10-1 game gave Durbin the save, and he earned it allowing just 1 hit in those 3 innings he gave the rest of the pen a night to rest up and have fun.
The Cubs looked like a team with a ‘For Sale’ sign hanging over them, even Lou Piniella looked as though he was in the middle of a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode, either that or someone placed a robot version of him in the Cubs dugout and forgot to read the warning label ‘Batteries Not Included’.
Phillies Offence WIN this one in extra’s……….
Posted: July 18, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: Blanton, bullpen, extra innings, Fish, Florida, Hamels, Hot, Howard, Ibanez, Johnson, Lidge, Marlins, phillies, rain delay, Rollins, Utley, Werth 8 CommentsUtley had a very good night from the start, others warmed up as the game went on, with J-Roll leading off in the first with a base hit, Utley went deep to give the Phils a 2 run lead, which they needed.
Hamels started off slow, gave you the impression that this was going to be one of those short games for him, after the first inning he settled in, it wasn’t a stellar performance, you just didn’t expect it to be a rain delay that knocked him out of the game. He went 5 innings giving up a solo homer in the first, along with 3 other hits and a walk in his 5 innings of work. We will definately need more from Cole as we get closer to post season play, the shame of it is, he works really hard and deserves better.
Werth started off the night as he had finished the day before, strugling to get comfortable at the plate, that changed as he warmed up, as if it wasn’t hot enough last night in Florida, picking up a couple of clutch hits, both drove in runs and more importantly the opne turned out to be the key insurance run the Phillies needed to win in the 12th inning.
Rollins has more than settled down now, on base a couple of times last night and each time he crossed the plate to score runs.
Howard and Ibanez were both continuing their, you throw it, we’ll hit it, campaign as they both picked up a couple of hits and scored a run each.
RAIN DELAY – During the 1hour 18 minute rain delay,
I decided to click around the other games on MLBTV, watched some of the Tampa Bay game, which the Rays looked as though they could come back, but weren’t quite doing it (they did in the end), had to have a look in at the Braves trashing the Muts (Mets), that was just funny, and since I am blacked out for the Tribe, I couldn’t see any of that game, but was dissapointed to see Huff didn’t get a win last night.
Rain delay over, no Hamels (understandably), so we went to the bullpen, which was back to full strength, unfortunately the continued strain that is being put on them showed last night, they allowed the Marlins to claw their way back into this game sending it to extra innings. Lidge came away with a save, but it was touch and go, as seems to be the norm recently.
Phillies Offence really gave us the win, back at it tonight, a little tougher game with the 8-2 Johnson on the mound for the Fish, but never fear ’cause Blanton is here, the Phillies work horse should keep it close and hopefully allow the Phillies get their 8th straight win….
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….
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
BLANTASTIC, Phillies SWEEP Mets
Posted: July 5, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: All Star Ballot, All Star game, All Star Team, All Star Voting, Blanton, bullpen, Chan Ho Park, Cora, Fans, Feliz, Hit by Pitch, Howard, Ibanez, Mets, phillies, Reds, Rollins, Romero, Shut Out, sweep, Utley, Victorino, vote, Wright 2 CommentsBlanton surpassed all the hopes and expectations of the Philly fans just dreaming of a sweep, he pitched a good seven and a third shut-out innings, having good command of his fast ball and change-up, he kept the Mets of balance and guessing wrong, he gave up just 4 hits and walked 3 and set the phillies bullpen up nicely to clinch the win and the sweep.
The bullpen was again outstanding, not body likes to see a player get hurt and nobody wants to see an extra guy on base, but admit it, when Romero hit Cora I am sure there were a few fans thinking, ‘wish I could have done that’, so that set up Park to come in and get a double play, which just left the ninth. The commenators seemed confused as to if Lidge would pitch or not, then it was confirmed he was stretching in the pen, just 14 pitches today to go 1, 2, 3 in the ninth, was definately scenes from Lidge of ’08.
Rollins has surely quietened down the sceptics just a little, a lead off homer gave the Phillies an early lead, having another multi hit game Rollins is either back or just really likes to stick it to the Mets.
Utley, Mr. Second-Base God, hits another long ball to give Phillies a two zip lead and that’s all they would need, the defense was outstanding, turning double-plays when they were needed, Howard showed his fielding skills and that all the extra pre-season in-field training has paid-off.
With a home stand start like this I find myself looking forward to the next game, in anticipation of what extraordinary feats the team will show off next, bring on the Reds.
Congratulations go to Utley and Ibanez for making the All Star starting line-up and congrats to Howard for making the All Star team.
I realise it is fan based voting, but why wasn’t it a closer race between Feliz and Wright, Feliz is a better defensive third-baseman than Wright and has been above average with offence this year, just a thought.
Don’t forget send Victorino to the All Star Game as the 33rd man voting is open so get to it he deserves to be there: VOTE NOW
Phillies beat up on Mets
Posted: July 4, 2009 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: 4th of July, Homers, Howard, Jamie Moyer, Lopez, Madson, Mets, Myers, phillies, Rollins, sweep 1 CommentYou all knew at some point the guys were going to have a game like this at home, and it just happened to be the Mets on the recieving end, couldn’t have happened at a nicer time or against a better opponent. With the traumatic road trip and the recent sweeps against the Phils, this was what the fans needed, no time for the boobirds to anounce themselves, straight out of the gate players were swinging and hitting an opposing starter. The free for all ended when the Mets bullpen took over, but even so some nice encouraging things were seen.
Rollins was swinging good aswell as being patient about what pitches he chose to swing at, okay 2 games of hits doesn’t always mean the slump is over, but he looked comfortable at the plate for the first time in a long time, it was like his season was just begining.
Lopez, under what must have been a stress filled day of returning to the majors, gave an excellent performance, while pitching strikes and keeping the hitters of balance, the type of game you hope you are going to get from all your starting rotation, now if he can produce that performance again and again, then maybe we have found a fill-in for Myers.
It was good to see Madson have a relaxed 9th inning, hopefully it will help towards getting his confidence back and giving us the same type of performances we enjoyed last year.
As much as I would like to think it was a dominant Phils team that put the Mets and their fans into a silent stuper, I have to admit that they themselves did everything they could to help the Phillies and the Philly Fans enjoy a long awaited win at home, so for that we should thank the Mets and hope they continue to be supportive in todays game.
The only thing I am still waiting for is Howard to start hitting long balls again, maybe he needs a clubhouse vacation like J-Roll got recently. So today we hope and prey that Jamie Moyer has another good start and goes deep into the game, keeping the Mets off balance and swinging through his off-speed pitches and completely missing his slow/fast ball.
Lets make this a happy 4th of July with another win against the Mets and then maybe we can dream of a sweep of our own.
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