Full Moon or Just Weird….

– PhilliesOutside –

The weather in Colorado wasn’t quite the weather one would expect for May
time baseball, so we still have one make up game to play after splitting what
turned out to be a 2 game series with the Rockies. Roy Halladay didn’t get
his
homecoming/birthday win, I am sure the weather being the weather he and all the
Phillies
players are happy to see Colorado disappear as their plane
climbed to
altitudes worthy of leaving Colorado.

I started this post on May 11th, then changed it and changed it and on May
13th got a little further, it’s now an hour before game time on the 14th, so we
are going to change some of the future, present and past tense expressions so
that I can keep most of the post, at least the next 3 paragraphs, after that we’ll try
and jump to current thoughts and hopefully have this posted by
midnight or early Saturday morning.

The Phillies have arrived in Milwaukee for the weekend  and a 3 game series
against the Brewers, at Miller Park, a stones throw from the
Harley museum, a
hop skip and a jump from Chicago or a good 9 to 10 hour drive from me, and yet I
am still not going, sigh!

The first game tonight sees Jamie Moyer take the mound for the Phillies, on a
little extended rest, and a former
Phillies favorite Randy Wolf for the
Brewers. This will either be a pitchers duel in slo-mo or a home
run derby, neither guy has dominating stuff, but when location is close to
perfect either can be un-hittable, unfortunately if they are missing their spots
or if the offense is on key then the ball will be flying everywhere and we could
see, if not both one team hit double digits in runs or at least hits. I guess
this we will see before the nights out, since they are due to start in about
55 minutes at 8:10 pm (EST) or to those 24 hour clock buffs, 20:10 hrs (EST) or
if your adventurous and dealing in global military time then 00:10 hrs Zulu, or
if you were being military and local to the game it would be 19:10 hrs Sierra.

Not sure how I got onto time zone ramblings then, but there does seem to be
some things that just aren’t right with the world as we think we know it.

The
British elections ended in what can only be described as a ‘hung
parliament’
,
not going to explain that one, so google it, but make sure you read the right
answers if your really that interested, cause there are some US American takes
on what it means that are not very accurate.

Some US sports analysts, on the upcoming FIFA World Cup, think that
David
Beckham
has been aligned with the England team to help them defeat the
US squad.
Guys, Beckham is one of the best England players to have graced a soccer field,
if not for his injury, he would more than likely be on the England squad as an
active player, his presence alone will help the team, however, I am not sure his
purpose is to give England an advantage over the USA on June 12th, because quite
honestly if they can’t beat the USA, then they don’t deserve to be in the
tournament.

More natural disasters have occurred in the first 4 months of this year than
I can remember, with earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes and volcanoes all causing
more than enough destruction to last us the year.

Even baseball has some freaky things still going on even as we come to the
end of week 6 of the season, so tell me how do these things happen and it not
cause us to wonder if something weird is happening this year to everything.

How does the St. Louis Cardinals get swept at home by the
Houston Astros, who
had this seasons worse start of the year, when they went 0 – 8 and ended the
first 10 games 1 – 9.

The Los Angeles Dodgers managed to scrap together enough wins to reach .500
and still could drop below .500 before the weekend is over, as they play 3 in
San Diego
.

The New York Yankees are playing second fiddle to the
Tampa Bay Rays, who
have the best record in baseball at 24 – 10 as they finish the week out at home
to Seattle.

The New York Mets, Florida
Marlins
, Atlanta Braves are all left in the dust
as they trail the Washington Nationals, who
have managed to match the Phillies
with 20 wins at the start of Friday, and while the Mets
and Marlins go at each others throats the Nats
are in Colorado hoping for no postponements. 

Chicago looks as though it has a double curse, with the White Sox struggling
to have as good a record as the Cubs, who themselves are one of the few teams
living up to expectations, or down to them.

The BoSox, but for the O’s would be the laughing stock of the
AL East, except
they have been making an effort and are now above .500 and a good weekend could
make them challenge for 3rd place, if Toronto continues to suck at home,
especially as the Texas Rangers are in town and riding high a top the
AL West.

Well it’s almost game time so now I’ll watch the Phillies and
Brewers, before
completing this post….

It
came closer to a home run derby than a pitchers duel in slo-mo, with 3 homers from
the Phillies and 3 homers from the Brewers and it all started in the first
inning with 1 on and 2 out Howard hit a bomb deep to give the Phillies a 2 run
lead, after the Phillies scored again to
make it 3 – 0, it was the Brewers turn with
3 home runs in
one inning off Moyer to tie the game up, after that the Phillies never
looked back with Victorino on fire in the lead off spot and Ibanez and Utley
both going deep the Phillies took this first one by a final score of 9 – 5. We
do it all over today on Fox and tomorrow on ESPN, but they won’t be wearing the

70’s uniforms
. The only one who really looked at home was Moyer, who actually
made his major league debut against the Phillies when they were still wearing
this uniform.

 


Phillies Blast 10 against the Mets….

– PhilliesOutside –

It would seem that after my rants of a Phillies absent offense being on the
DL, that someone took note and decided to allow them a day out at CBP today, it
was as if someone had turned back the clock 2 weeks, the bats
popped and the
runners ran, in fact the only Phillie not getting a hit today was Polanco, who
still doesn’t seem right since he was dinged with a ball last week.

There was no need to worry about Manuel and his Dubee making the right choices on
who to relieve who, since there was only room for just one guy on the mound today. This was a game
of play by numbers and for the Phillies the numbers worked out just fine. After
a 10 run game yesterday saw them losing 9-1 today the 10 run game was a complete
reversal with the Phillies winning 10-0, shutting out the Mets on a day when
there was only 1 home run that scored just 3 of the 10 runs.

It was of course a ‘Happy Halladay’ in Philadelphia, the ‘Doc’
threw 118
pitches through 9 innings and allowed just 3 hits, a hit batter and a walk with
6 strike outs. This is Halladay’s 3rd complete game this season and his 2nd shut
out, it’s early in the season, but we all like percentages and right now he’s
throwing 50% of his starts for complete games and 66% of them are shut outs, but like the division standings
it’s going to all look different come September.

The Phillies offense managed to jump start off the glove of Reyes, it
couldn’t have happened
to a nicer guy, (he says in a very sarcastic tone), it was a play that
you would expect your shortstop to make, especially if your pitcher had a 27 inning
scoreless streak going, but fortunately for the Phillies, Reyes isn’t as good as
his hype or his own self image. This was followed by another blooper and
miss-play, this time by Cora and from there it went down hill for the Mets and
the Phillies looked like they did 2 weeks ago, they knocked Pelfrey for 6 runs
in the 4th inning, the final scoring play of the inning was a Victorino 3 run
homer, with 10 runs on the day in a Phillies game you’d expect more than just 1
homer, but that’s all it was 1 homer and that came off the bat of Victorino.

Some may say that Pelfrey got the short end of the stick here, with both
Reyes and Cora making bad plays to allow the Phillies to stretch the inning out,
but in reality the time was very limited for Pelrey to continue his scoreless
streak, after all his last outing on April 25th against the Braves was a rain
shortened game of barely 5 plus innings and he threw 106 pitches with 5 hits
then, so you knew someone very soon was going to knock him around, I am just
glad it was the Phillies who reaped the benefits.

Today is the rubber match, it would be nice for the Phillies to take
this and win the series at home against the division rivals, it’s still early in
the season so the rivalry thing is less emphasized, but still it maybe the one
that got a away that comes back to bite you in the rear later in the season. I
also just like to see Jamie Moyer win, so that all his critics will shut
the hell up.

April

The month of April has closed out what clubs are on the surprises list for
end of April…

American League:

Baltimore Orioles for having the worst record in baseball

Boston Red Sox for being worse than the Blue Jays

Tampa Bay Rays for being the best in the East

ChiSox for being the same or worse than the Tribe

Seattle for being the worst of the AL West

Oakland for being the best in the AL West

National League:

Washington Nationals for being good enough to challenge for the
top of the NL East

Atlanta for allowing a no hitter to be thrown in their ball
park by the visiting team in the first month of the season

St. Louis for being the team to let the Astros
break there ‘O’fer win streak at the start of the season

Pittsburgh for not being the worst team in baseball and for
there recent losing streak

Dodgers for going from best of the West in 2009 to the worst of
the West in 2010

San Francisco for not seeing your home town name spelled wrong
on the front of a players shirt

San Diego for being best of the NL West

 

If your team didn’t make the list that means they were doing what they were
supposed to do, either win, be average or just flat out suck. Here’s hoping May
brings out some element of normality to some areas of the game.

 

 


Vote…Vote…Vote… Who’ll be the first to 20…

philliesoutside 41

As we quickly skip over the fact that the Phillies lost yesterday to the
D’backs in a display of how to throw the home run ball, I am moving onto another
form of wins and loses.

There are some teams that have surprised me this year, including the Oakland
A’s 8-4 success at home and Pittsburgh’s need to self destruct on the road. The
national League seems to be on course with the exception on the Dodgers still
trying to find a way to get above .500 and Arizona and we can’t forget about the
Mets, who claimed the injury curse as their demise last year, but are struggling
to prove last years team was any worse than this years (almost) injury free
team.

The team that stands out this year as being the team that are on schedule to
get their own realty TV show, because that’s what happens to losers, they get
given air time by NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS or some off the wall station that’s funded
by one of the supposed big 4 names. This team is the Baltimore Orioles, a team
that has been a mediocre average team in a division that has them surrounded by
teams that are self proclaimed awesomeness teams, and the Tampa Bay Rays, who
seem to manage to prove the point that you can compete without breaking the bank
as long as you have some baseball sense, which by the way isn’t very common,
hence I didn’t call it common sense, as that would be an oxymoronic occurance.

Anyway I have again digressed from the point of this post, it is of course
the number 20, be it wins or loses who will get there first, normally it is all
about reaching 20 wins, but this year the O’s, (aptly named) are on the brink of
reaching 20 loses before anyone gets 20 wins, so I just wanted to see if anyone
thinks a 20 win is possible before the 20 loses of the O’s.

 

Vote now:

Who will get to the magic #20 first?customer surveys


MLBlogosphere – Latest Leaders – March 2010

Did I miss this or did it not get promoted..? am I allowed to do this..? is it updated or is it still being worked on..? all questions I can’t answer… oh well, with a day off yesterday and not winning the cookie contest, (sob, sob), things are slow so here is the list that I missed, how about you..?

MLBlogosphere Latest
Leaders – March 2010


I’m thinking maybe our illustrious leader Mark is working on that wish list, or more importantly my visitor magnet, so people just come to my blog.

Thanks to all who read by the way, I did make #26 on the list…

Although I need one that will stop people like the dude from this post ‘Real Men of Genius’ write stuff like this: “I don’t care about your Phillies and your crappy blog.” compliments of

Phillies, Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Blue Jays, Orioles, Twins, Tigers, White Sox, ChiSox, Indians, Royals, Angels, Rangers, Mariners, A’s, Athletics, Marlins, Braves, Nationals, Nats, Cardinals, Red Birds, Brewers, Reds, Astros, Pirates, Dodgers, Rockies, Giants, Padres, Diamondbacks, D’Backs, Arizona, San Diego, San Francisco, Colorado, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Houston, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Washington, New York, Atlanta, Florida, Philadelphia, Oakland, Seattle, Texas, Kansas City, Cleveland, Tribe, Detroit, Minnesota, mini-soda, Baltimore, Toronto, Canada, Tampa Bay. Boston, BoSox

Jimmy Rollins could be on DL from today, so the great dilemma will be who to put on the bench instead of Castro, while he fills in at shortstop…. how about Brown, I know most think he’s not ready and it could hurt him sitting him on the bench for 2 weeks instead of daily play in the minors, but I say, he’s paid to do a job let him do it….

 


Real Men of Genius….

We’ve all heard the Bud Light radio commercials making good humor of certain creativeness of over zealous guys, if you haven’t listen up…..

http://www.soundboard.com/sb/playerskins/singleTrackPlayer3.swf?&txtColor=0xFFFFFF&trackURL=http://www.soundboard.com/mediafiles/MzQxODcwMzM0MTg0OA_f9FbqYeM_2fRo.mp3&vol=70&action=start&title=Over%20Zealous%20Foulball%20Catcher&photo=http://www.soundboard.com/memberphoto/7286703728681.gif

Well here’s a couple of Real Men of Genius….

wade-mills.jpg

….who continued with the Budweiser advertising theme last night. At the start of the game which continued for just 2.2 inning, these Real Men of Genius in actions alone said to the Philadelphia Phillies….

budnorris.jpg

….‘This BUD’s For You’, and the Phillies soaked it up for 3 runs in the 1st then continued to hit, but for the saving grace of this lone Astro on more than one occasion….

bourne.jpg

….the Bourne Supremacy, the Phillies would have probably scored well into double digit runs last night.

The Phillies bats have been alive from day one, there was just one guy who was on a 3 game slump, and he managed to pop a couple of big hits last night…

ibanez.jpg

…so, welcome to the list of hitters Raul Ibanez. The Phillies in just 4 games have managed to send 151 hitters to the plate, who have produced 32 runs on 52 hits. Only 4 homers so far but they have 29 RBi’s covered 81 total bases, walked 26 times and more surprisingly they have only struck out 18 times.

As they remain in Houston over the weekend, tonight the ageless wonder, Jamie Moyer, takes the mound for the first time this season.


Inside Washington…

Washington is still in turmoil and has been exposed in a similar light to the outing of J. Edgar Hoover, yes I can confirm from ‘inside sources‘ that more cross dressing is going on in Washington than you think. This time it’s not some guy that has similarities to that of Adolf Hitler, just with different hatreds, yet weird secrets. It’s not some super scoop of President Obama in the First Lady’s, closet playing dress-up, this my friends is a simple cross dressing in plain sight, like that of Milton Bradley in a Mariners uniform instead of a Cubs uniform, it is non other than the leader in Washington

nats-riggleman.jpgRiggleman, dressed as a manager with his friend and cohort John McLaren dressed as a bench coach, yes these two are playing role reversal and they still can’t produce a winning team.

While the Atlanta Braves and the media hype around them promote the newbie Heyward to heights of greatness that he’ll never live up too, the Washington Nationals and it’s media barely make a ripple over the existence of the short stop Ian Desmond….

nats-desmond.jpg

…and while they don’t give this kid more national coverage he will be in danger of loosing out in a fight for the Rookie of the Year purely because of media hype and coverage.

This however is not uncommon in Washington as we have seen in the past and continue to see as they play down one of the best 3rd basemen in the National League…

nats-zimmerman.jpg

Ryan Zimmerman. This maybe Washington’s way of hiding the facts so they don’t lose the fight, had this been any other town then Zimmerman would have been in a different uniform by now gathering the glory of at least some post season games, instead he has to sit back and accept that quietly he will get his ‘Silver Slugger’ and ‘Gold Glove‘ awards without any national media coverage.

What else was uncovered in Washington this week, yes more role reversals, an unusual one this time involving Ryan Howard. The normally over-bearing size and height of Howard makes others feel and seem somewhat miniature in stature, however at first base this week…

howard-dunn.jpg

Adam Dunn gave Ryan Howard a small glimpse of that same feeling.

The Phillies are set to finish a 3 game stand in Washington today and hopefully continue the onslaught of runs, with 19 in 2 days it’s looking like a fruitful road trip has begun well for the Phillies. They will move on to Houston Friday and face a demoralized Astros, who were taken apart by the Giants over a 3 game set this week.


A New Begining….

It’s finally here. Spring is Sprung…

springavatarBYEBYE.jpg


…all the cheap shots at the American League teams are out of my system, until something really horrendous happens, it’s time to focus on the task at hand, supporting the Philadelphia Phillies through thick and thin, taking all the abuse other fans can give, and giving it back in the same good humored rivalry it is all meant.

Accepting that when my team does something, which to the average human, is totally off the wall and far out there, they are doing it for the best interests of the club and not to spite the fans.

Everyone gets a clean slate, even umpire Ed Rapauno, gets a fresh start and can step out without fear of humiliation in Philadelphia, until that first call anyway. It’s a time when Jimmy Rollins and Jose Reyes have the same number of stolen bases, or a time when even Brad Lidge is no longer a…

kloser.jpg


…loser.

It truly is a special time, the Cubs have the same record as the Cardinals, Milton Bradley has as many RBI’s as Albert Pujols, and any player can claim to equal Ryan Howards home run quantity.

The time has come to start waving those towels, the time has come to grill in the parking lot, the time has come to never be short of beer, the time has come to start screaming LET’S GO….


PHILLIESRED.jpg – peter



So It Begins….

Sunday evening is the opening day game for the 2010 season. The New York Yankees visit Fenway Park to take on the Boston Red Sox. There is so much wrong with the opening to this years season, it’s the 30th time these 2 teams have played the opener.

First of all the current reigning World Series champions open the season on the road, it wouldn’t be so bad if it was a team that had little or no fan base, even with the hyped up pricing at Yankee stadium the fans do splurge for special occasions and attend games, so that’s not an excuse, but we have heard Yankee fans whine before and this will just let them whine some more.

The game is in Boston, okay so this is purely an observational comment, that unfortunately I have no substance to back it up with hard facts, I could maybe invent an inside source, but that would just be playing like the media boys and being a politician about it, anyway back on point, during the off-season there appeared to be an inordinate amount of subliminal promotion of the Boston Red Sox.

The teams themselves have what is probably a fan base that consists of arguably the highest percentage of arrogant fans in baseball and probably the world of sports, not only do both sets of fans believe they follow the greatest sports franchise that was ever created on this planet, they also believe that they are the only fans to know the facts, that they are the only ones to see the truth in plays, when the team has a call against them that is seen as an injustice to the whole concept of baseball. They will also feel that anyone who dares to write or speak any kind of non-supportive words or sentences will be a premeditated, merciless intent of attack against them personally and therefore will not find any element of humor of any form in such types of communication, and thus will feel to enter into a communicative exchange or even make comment on such a expression, would be seen to actually accept that there maybe an element of truth in what was communicated or that not everyone believes these 2 teams are the be all end all of sports franchises, thus they stick with communicating among themselves, unless they sense a turncoat that they can easily convert.

So, having said all that, not all fans of these 2 franchises are like this, just enough to warrant the expressive terms used to identify either of these clubs.

Little known things – fact or fiction 

Boston Red Sox was known as the Red Stockings, Stockings was changed to Sox to eliminate the growing belief that many Bostonian fans were cross dressing transvestites.
‘Red Sox Nation’ was originally a derogatory term, inferring the fans were a group with an imaginary history or goal.

Yankees – Yankee was originally used to reference people from the Boston area, descendants of the English.
Yankee or Yank is commonly used to refer to anyone from the United States by other countries, sometimes but not always a derogatory inference.

Evil Empire, derogatory term, now embraced by many Yankee fans, also has been used to describe, USSR, British Empire, Xerox, Kodak, Walmart, Microsoft, all things or companies that either no longer exist or have self destructed from arrogance and are reformed in a smaller dose, or are on the verge of self destruction from internal arrogance with a GOD complex.

Now I have suitable provided sufficient data to ensure zero comments from either sets of fans, for the rest of us mere mortal baseball teams the season really starts on Monday and it will be a beginning of who knows what, it’s the start of a season of unknowns, all we know for sure is that our teams will participate and our support for them will not falter. No matter how good or bad they perform we will continue to publish post that ultimately support them to the end.

philliesvariety.jpg

 
 


N. L. West Crystal Ball…

NLwestcrystalball.jpg

The National League West is probably the hardest of the divisions to predict a winner and loser, not because the teams are so good, more because the teams are more evenly matched than the other divisions or in technical terms ‘more sucky’. So with this in mind, the division can change on the win or loss of a couple of key games or even players hitting the DL, or hitting something other than a baseball this year.

The San Diego Padres fans, like most in this division don’t need to spend much this year, but….

petcopark.jpg…should enjoy what they have, while they’ve got
it. Who knows how long PetCo Park will actually be PetCo Park, and lets
face it there is not much going to happen here over the next few years,
with Jeff Moorad needing another $145 million in 4 years to secure
ownership, he and his financing buddies will have essentially spent $290
million to own a $200 million debt that has almost no chance of winning
anything anytime soon.

The San Francisco Giants fans, should also enjoy more time at home this
year and do nothing but…

sanfran.jpg…try and enjoy the sounds and sights of your town and be thankful that Alcatraz is no longer operational, otherwise that’s where you’d have to go to watch games, because this year it’s going to seem like the Giants players and organization are nothing more than criminals taking your money for no return, the biggest disappointment for these fans will be the lack-luster performance of their star freak, Lincecum.

The Arizona Diamondbacks fans, should like so many others…

grandcanyon-2.jpg

…stay close to home, go visit the Grand Canyon if you haven’t already, because by the end of the season it’ll feel like the D’Backs have left a huge gaping hole in your life with the almost but not quite season.


The Los Angeles Dodgers fans, are going to have to spend the most in this division and trust me when I say you’ll need to find the perfect…

therapistcartoon.jpg
…therapist. The reasons will become many and varied as the season progresses, but at the start of the season you are going to need a therapist, to get past the waring parents of the Dodgers as they go through a bitter divorce knowing the only ones to suffer are the kids or in this case the fans, then the fact that knowing you have another shot at the post season, by way of the ‘Wild Card’ spot, so you can be counseled for what can only be described as ‘PhilliePhobia’, the undying need to lose to the Phillies in post season play, and of course the Manny virus will hit this year and fans will need therapy to maintain there undying love for a guy that is trying to get his bobble-head night changed to a male version of Raggedy Ann dolls…


The Colorado Rockies fans, need to take lots of pictures so they can…

mountains.jpg

…enjoy their trip to the top of the (Rocky) NL West Mountain this year, because the trip on this rocky road to the top of the division will result in a long hard fall early in post season play.

any sarcasm is not meant to offend,
unless it does, then consider the possibilities of more during the
season.

Other News:
A-Rod once again managed to avoid the face to face with the FBI, by ‘mutual’ agreement, yeah okay that’s about as believable as that other New York teams Reyes having a magical quick recovery from the thyroid imbalance or did that HGH just get flushed from his system.

trademarks,
trade names,
copyrights and patents are the property of their respective owners.


Cap Tip, Double Take, Spotlight and More…

 

In a week when individual
sports showed how easy it is to lose just because of a temper tantrum
and the NFL got underway with the first week of games. Well done to the
Eagles.

Cap
Tip…

Pedro Martinez has
put in 2 very good performances back to back, I for one am very
surprised. He has come close to self destructing each outing in the
first few innings, but he has got through it and gone on to pitch well,
Sunday night against the Mets especially. Pedro went 8
innings, at least 6 of them were showing a slight resemblance of the 29
year old Martinez, throwing 130 pitches on the night he
struck out 7 and walked 2, he only gave up 6 hits… so well done Pedro…

 

 

Double
Take…

The Phillies played
the Nats last week and the Nats played the spoiler
in 1 game, but the double take was when the Nats
played one of the emerging stars to be from the Washington organization,
a little known short stop named ‘Ian Desmond‘, who has some
pretty big shoes to fill, not because he’s destined to replace a great Nats
player, but because he is being highlighted in likeness, actions and mannerisms
to another short stop in the majors….the player they are a likening
him too reached his own milestone this week…. if you didn’t guess this
one then where have you been this weekend, cause lets face it sports
media has really only talked of one short stop…now you’ve got it…Derek
Jeter
…Who became the new Yankees most hits record
holder… well done Jeter, the Yankees
actually kept a player long enough to achieve this, so well done Yankees
too…but I digress, the look-a-like, act-a-like Nats
upcoming short stop Ian Desmond and Derek Jeter, you
decide….

 

 

The
Spotlight…

The Phillies
starting pitchers do well, they get the glory and the win, the pitchers
from the pen get a hold or a save they get the glory, but what of the
guy behind the plate calling the pitches, or blocking that one in the
dirt, giving the pitchers a target to throw at, or saving a stolen base
with a throw. The catcher, where’s his glory, okay so a catcher has
stats like all players, but mostly if the pitcher throws the ball where
the catcher sets up he doesn’t get smacked around, and in the case of
the Phillies the man behind the mask is Carlos Ruiz. Obviously
not all catchers are equal, some are hitters, but cant throw very well,
some aren’t that good at calling a game and get the signs from the dug
out, some just cant throw very well, and some cant block a really good
slider in the dirt. Ruiz I think is good at all the roles
a catcher plays and yet is in the shadow of the starting rotation or pen
most of the time. So here’s my way of putting the spotlight on one of
the best unsung hero’s the Phillies have on the team and without
question one of the best catchers in the NL…

 

 

and
More…

Streaks… the
only real streak going on this week is that of the Tampa Bay Rays
and unfortunately it’s a losing streak, so my hopes of a repeat of the
2008 World Series clash has been dashed, even if they win every last
game the hopes that the other teams in the Wild Card race would lose
enough to enable them to make it are slim to none.

Spoilers
the O’s have taken a couple from the Yankees… the
Nats
took a couple from the Marlins… the Jays
took a couple from the Tigers… the Braves took 3 from
the Cards… the Padres took a couple from the Rockies
most of the other teams destined for the playoffs only gave up 1 loss to
non-contenders.

Race… the
tightest race is still the NL West, although the Dodgers don’t
seem to be giving any ground and maybe the Rockies peaked
to soon, with the Giants and Rockies getting ready
to play each other, the Dodgers get a chance to extend the
lead by hosting the Pirates…

 

My choices at this time
will put the Angels and the Yankees in the ALCS and
the Cards and the Phillies in the NLCS.

It is September ball and we
all know that can change in a matter of a week….

For the
Phillies it remains the same for this guy…

…make the right choices and
the Phillies can be in the post season shooting for a repeat, the
wrong choices and the season ends October 4th.


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