Classic

Middle of the 8th inning, the Washington broadcast feed (MASN) shows the Philadelphia skyline (btw, on an earlier re-entry shot of City Hall I used the view as a "teachable moment" for my daughter and taught her that the name of the man-statue on top of city hall is named, "Billy Penn." My five year-old then explained to me that "city hall" must be called "hall" because of all the halls, which she knew, she explained because of all the windows on the building, suggesting rooms and, thus, halls. She's a freakin' genius I tell you, certainly smarter already than Charlie Manuel).

Anyway, the 8th inning shot shows the PSFS building with the text scroll on the very top of the building spelling out the.......the Eagles' fight song. Classic! The Phillies in a must win game/series vs. the Nationals and the Eagles to draft in 96 hours, and the focus is on the .... Eagles. Thank you Bill Giles! Your baseball acumen has turned the 5th largest city into a FOOTBALL TOWN.

You can bet that with the Phillies inimitable timing that if they were swept this series (or even lose it) the thousands of TVs in the Delaware Valley would be metaphorically switching to Eagles training camp and to hell with the May and June Phillies.

Speaking of which, congrats to the Phils for putting up a 3 spot in the 8th to break open a tie game. That is putting the hammer down on a weak team.

Now maybe this is sacrilege in the wake of the win, but with Utley on first and no outs in a tie game and the Nats so overplaying the Howard shift to the point where the 3B was playing SS, would it be totally out of the question for your clean up hitter and reigning NL MVP from dropping down a bunt down the 3B side to advance the runner. Does it matter that Howard has a gimpy knee? Does it matter that he is only hitting .211? Or is that just not done? Cause his "psyche" is so fragile that public acknowledgment that his best contribution to the team at the moment is a sac bunt is the best play? Let him swing away for a strikeout.

Relatedly, Nunez batting .143 pinch hit for the pitcher in the 7? to be fair, it was a nice bunt that advanced the runner, but if i were manager all my pitchers would be bunt proficient so i wouldn't have to waste position player on bunting to advance a runner.

BTW, i've had 4 sierra nevada's (thanks TD) and half a bottle of wine. so my posts tonight may be a little skewed.