Pat the Bat

My brother has been asking people for days – do they keep Burrell if he hits the GW, series clinching HR in walkoff fashion?  Some said no.  Wed night everyone he asked (he was at the game) said yes – just trot him out there every game and get cheered forever.  “Came close to actually happening.  Wish it were a homer,” he said.

 

He further reports there were “great “Charlie” chant after game.  Seemed very loud.  Definitely best chant, the boos for Selig were good too.  Burrell also got lots of love.  He seemed to really enjoy the moment –he spent more time than anyone high fiving fans as team went around the park with trophy.”

 

That ties in with some interesting comments by Burrell after the game about how he thinks he, more than any of the other players, now understands the Phillies fans.

 

It was a great article too, as whoever wrote it reviewed the excitement about Burrell’s great initial promise, the huge contract, the underperformance, the boos, the solid numbers and the grudging acceptance of the fans.

 

I think too he understands that he’s not going to be a Phillie next year and he got what will probably be the biggest hit of his entire career Wednesday night.  So I think he also understands that he’s going down in Phillies lore.

 

How crazy would the stadium have gotten if he had actually hit it out?

 

My opinion is that I think I want Pat Burrell to leave now. Go get another 8 figure contract with another team, probably in the AL as a DH, with my blessing.

 

What I don’t want is for you to be in a slump next August and hear the boos after you strikeout swinging with the patented “Pat Burrell ass-out flailing whiff.”

 

No, what I want is for the longest-tenured member of the 2008 championship team, the once promising hitter turned veteran slugger with bad feet, who put up with more than his fair share of abuse over the years, to be fondly remembered and wildly cheered every single time he steps foot in Citizens Bank Ballpark for getting the big hit that was the winning/clinching run of the world series.

 

 

A Winner

This email included in Rich Hoffman’s column today sums up so much about the Philly fan experience and captures a lot of my own feelings as well. It actually kind of misted me up.

 

"My uncle, who worked for KYW-1060, took me to my first game back in '85 just after my father passed away. I was 7 at the time and still remember the red and yellow seats at the Vet. Little did I know or understand that then and there I'd become a Philly fan. I now reside in Chicago and have put up with massive amounts of crap because of my sometimes painful loyalty to teams that don't pull through. But now that's different. As of last night, with the Phils winning, I now know what it's like to root for and feel like I'm a part of a winner."

   - Brendan

 

Hallelujah!!!

HALLELUJAH!!!!

 

 

MLB scheduling

Weirdly, MLB has scheduled game 6 - if necessary - for tomorrow night but is still listing game 7's date as "TBD."

Strategery

Kind of interesting strategy tonight.

who will be the Phillies first pinch hitter? I'm thinking Greg Dobbs, their best lefthanded bat. Will Maddon allow the right hander Balfour pitch to him and then Rollins (switch), & Werth (r) before bringing in a lefty to pitch to Utley and Howard?

Or will Maddon burn a lefty first (not Price)?

with the Rays pitcher up fourth in the next innning, i don't think they will bring price in till after they get their ups in the top of the 7th. They are still too high in the order for a double switch in the bottom of the 6th, the most likely candidate being Baldelli i would guess, but he will be up in the 7th. It will be important for the Phils to set them down in order in the 7th but by then they could do a double switch.

Knowing Price will be pitching in the later innings and not in the 6th makes me think Dobbs will be the call at that point. I checked some stats and Stairs has 2 strikeouts and a sac fly against Balfour this year so don't think i will be him.

If Burrell gets up in the 6th it means they've scored so I think Bruntlett probably comes in as a defensive substitution in the 7th.

who will pitch the 7th for the Phils? I hope it is Eyre. Durbin was shaky against them earlier. Ideally, they get out of the inning and can pitch Madson in the 8th and Lidge in 9th. i would hold Romero in reserve for any needed tough outs  - like Pena. If

this short game sucks, but it is kind of interesting strategy-wise.

BTW, my brother is  going to the game - again - tonight. 6 rows back in leftfield. He's been up in Philly all day on business. says it is misting rain right now and that there were patches of snow in Doylestown this morning.

Rain delay

What absolutely galls me is that Selig is somehow getting credit for making the call to suspend the game when he, once again, is a profile in cowardice.

1)      The game should not have been started.

2)      Selig is lying when he says forecasts indicated the game could be played

3)      Really the game should have been stopped in the 4th inning but I'm guessing Selig didn't want the heat for actually having to cancel a World Series game and have to make it up.

4)      If I heard once, I heard a thousand times in the lead up to Saturday's game that the overriding concern of baseball when it comes to inclement weather in a post-season game is that they don't want to stop a game once it has already started.

5)      Monday night's conditions were completely unworthy of a championship game

6)      This whole thing about how selig let both teams know the game would not be called is kind of shady. It seems that neither Maddon, Manuel, or any of the players knew this. Gillick and the Rays GM never communicated it to their teams or managers? That's kind of strange.

7)      I don't know what input the rays or Phillies had in the ultimate decision to play, but it is in the end the commissioner's call. And he blew it. I also think it telling that the Phillies are furious at the whole situation - which is why you didn't see Manuel or any other phillie in the post-game press conference.

Thoughts on the Suspended Game

Ultimately they did the correct thing - in stopping the game - they didn't have much of a choice given the weather, but fundamentally, that game should not have even started last night. Selig is lying through his teeth when he says the weather reports suggested they could get the entire game in. That's what absolutely galls me.

And really, if the game was never going to be called -  why didn't they suspend the game an inning or two earlier?

Selig's Folly

The Washington Post's Dave Shenin neatly captures the essence of Bud Selig's leaderlesship and the countless questions that remain from his decisions/nondecisions on Monday night:

While Tuesday provided a day of rest and a chance to plot strategy for Wednesday night's resumption of play, it also invited further scrutiny of what occurred -- and what almost occurred -- during the extraordinary events of Monday night.

Much of the criticism of MLB's handling of the situation focused on the timing of the stoppage, in the middle of the sixth inning -- shortly after Carlos Peña's RBI single tied the game. Playing conditions began to deteriorate rapidly beginning in around the fifth inning, at which point, had it been a regular season game, play almost certainly would have been halted.

However, if the game had been halted in the bottom of the fifth or top of the sixth, with the Phillies ahead by a run, Selig -- who had already decided the game would played to completion, no matter what, and had conveyed that intention to both managers before the game -- would have been forced to utilize his vaguely outlined "best interests of the game" powers to suspend a game that, by rule, would have been over, with the Phillies claiming a rain-shortened victory.

But neither manager informed his players of Selig's intentions to play nine innings regardless, which, in the case of the Rays, had them playing the top of the sixth inning as if it were the ninth, with the possibility of elimination bearing down on them.

"We thought we had to score," Rays left fielder Carl Crawford told reporters. "We thought we'd better do something, or that was going to be it."

Ump

Oh yeah. And that was an atrociously umpired game last night. Between the baldelli strike out cum walk and Rollins hit batsman, it was not a major league umped game.

 

 

Rain?

I gotta think the Phillies will push to have game 3 postponed if there is the slightest bit of rain. Then they can pitch Myers in game 5 at home rather than game 6 back in Tampa.

 

Weirdly, the decision – which is MLB’s – may come down to tv ratings and their concern that the already low viewership could be decimated by people in the Philadelphia tempted to tune in (or not come back to the game after a rain delay) to the Penn State-Ohio State game which will air head to head with the world series tomorrow night..

 

Pk, your plan can still hold – just doing it on Sunday and not Saturday…though it will make for an exhausting Monday morning.

 

As bad as last night was – could you ask for more than sending both Utley and howard up as the tying run in the 9th?

 

Werth’s first inning error was the difference in the game.

 

Ruiz and victorino need to be moved up in the order. Even feliz is producing more than the top of the order.

Factoid of Interest Only to Me?

All of the Phillies World Series losses have been to every other team in the AL East.

 

 

Game 1, Con't.

A friend writes:

 

what a win.

I watched it in a suburbia Detroit office park shopping center bar, without sound. After Chase's homer, I decided I couldn't leave until we were behind. Couldn't do anything to change the momentum. Sure enough, we never fell behind.

That said, I've no clue what McCarver and Buck were saying but a big World Series moment came in the bottom of 5th -- because the game was in Tampa, the 9-hole slot came up and their guy got a hit, their PH guy. Then stole a base, and then the damn Japanese guy slapped another single.

If it was in Philly, if it was an NL game, Kazmir would have come out for a PH -- in which case we get to their pen earlier -- and we would have gotten to their 'pen earlier.

As for how bad we were with men in scoring position, yes, it sucks. We were terrible. Howard was the worst he's been, just about all year. Might have been his worst game of the season. But, we won. Which is better than being down 1-0 and hating how Howard played.

Now, on to something else that I never realized until tonight, until I had the time to really bear down on these Rays. They're a good team, but not a great team. There's not a single guy in the lineup who hit .300 for the season in their lineup.

Also, as for power, it's just Pena (31 HRs in about 140 games) and Longoria. Mr. Desperate Housewife is gonna be great, and I don't doubt that. But he hit just 27 HRs in about 130 games he played. For the season, he has the power equivalence of Burrell/Utley.

Again, this Rays team is really good, but go back and look at their season-long stats. (Not the post-season stats, the reg season.)

They aren't great. We aren't facing the '04 Red Sox or the '00 Yankees.

Game 1

Whew. 1 down, 3 to go.

 

Howard looks just totally lost at the plate, especially last night. Hopefully he can hit a homer that gets him back in his groove.

 

Hamels just gets better and better. Madson too. For a guy that was mediocre for the phils for a long time, he’s really found his niche as Lidge’s set up man. Both teams’ relievers throw heat.

 

I really wish Fox would show each players season stats when they’re up at bat and not just the post-season ones so you can see what the guy has done over the course of 162 games and not just 10. That said, the Rays had a huge power surge vs. the red sox but they’re not that much of a power team – as Pk pointed out.

 

Still don’t know how I feel about victorino tagging from third. It definitely shifted the momentum the rays way after that. could werth have knocked him in? it wasn’t that deep a flyball and upton has a good arm. On the other hand, even with a perfect throw and tag Victorino was only out by a 8 inches.

 

Phils got a lot of breaks last night on calls. Especially victorino not getting called out on the pick off at 2^nd  and the Hamels non-balk.

 

In the early innings I thought all the stranded runners meant the phils were putting constant pressure on the Rays – and being aggressive on the bases. In the later innings, I was afraid the phils were going to blow the game and look back at all the missed scoring opportunities.

 

Did you notice Maddon’s lineup was lefty-righty-lefty the entire way through?

 

Play of the game: Feliz’s spear of the liner and double play with the bases loaded.

Honorable mention Utley’s 2 run homer

Red October Likes and Dislikes

What i don't like - the team sitting around a whole week with no games to play. especially a team that was so hot sitting around just cooling off.

 

What i do like - maybe the rest will have done ryan howard some good. he couldn't be any worse in the world series, could he?

 

What i don't like - the rays are riding high

 

What i do like - Cole Hamels starting in game 1. the key to the whole series might be getting the phils back into the swing of things quickly. a hamels’ game 1 win would go a long way toward that. (as stark pointed out, sort of like the white sox contreras winning game 1 for a team that had sat for a week.

 

What i don't like - homefield advantage to the rays and brett myers not getting a home start in the entire series

 

What i do like - the rays barely beat a red sox team that doesn't have half the talent the phillies do right now.

 

What i do like - all the interest and predictions are for the rays. gammons was the only one of the espn baseball experts to pick the phillies to win the series and he was the only one who thought it would go past 5-6 games.

 

 

 

shocking stat of the day

Courtesy of Jayson Stark

 

Another August trade (in 2006), another trade for a player Gillick went way back with, to their days in Seattle. Moyer was 43 when the Phillies traded for him and was viewed by some folks as being close to the end of the trail.

 

Well, apparently not. Since then, he has exactly the same record (35-21) as Josh Beckett and Carlos Zambrano. In fact, only six pitchers in baseball have more wins than Moyer since that trade.

 

 

Football World Series?

Both USA Today and the NY Times play the Buccaneers vs. Eagles NFC Championship game angle in setting up the Tampa Rays-Philadelphia Phillies 2008 World Series Contest.

 

 

Out of the Hunt

Multiple wrong answers on Tony Hunt.

 

McCoy DUI

Matt McCoy gets a DUI. Can this guy do anything right?

 

Black Tuesday

The Cowboys do whatever it takes to upgrade their team by trading 1st, 3rd and 6th round picks for Lions' WR Roy Williams.

The Eagles wind up cutting Tony Hunt, last year's 3rd round pick and in the process highlight their gross misjudgement in draft picks. And it's not like Tony Hunt was a fluke. The Eagles cut their previous 3rd round pick, Ryan Moats, this preseason.

The difference could not be more stark. The Cowboys, already with TO at wideout, went out and landed a professional WR.

The Eagles with Hank Baskett and Reggie Brown at the top of the depth chart aren't willing to trade the Panthers' # 1 pick (or the Eagles' own #1) and Tony Hunt or Ryan Moats and a 6th round pick for Roy Williams. Simply incredible!

Are the Eagles really going to rely on kevin curtis fully recovering from hernia surgery done 7 weeks ago? Seriously? that's the game plan? With Westbrook currently out nursing cracked ribs?

Yes, WR take about 6-8 weeks to learn an offense. how perfect that Williams will be getting fully up to speed just in time for the playoff stretch drive. The Eagles certainly wouldn't want to make a 8 week investment in Williams that way - not the way they are currently doing with Abiamiri or Curtis.

Note to the Philly sports media that for months complained that a trade for Anquan Bolding, Ocho Cinco or Roy Williams was a fan fantasy and would never happen. Guess what? The fans were right.

Say what you want about Jerry Jones. And a lot has been said. But he gets things done. And closed a deal that improves his team. All while the Eagles dithered and couldn't make a move.

One team made a move to upgrade WR with TO on the team. The other couldn't part with a too precious 3rd round future pick while cutting a previous 3rd round pick that would have been the difference between Reggie Brown or Roy Williams lining up opposite rookie phenom Desean Jackson.

I'm disgusted. The Cowboys have their eyese on the super bowl. The Eagles have their eyes on the wild card.

So?

My brother writes:

 

Why is So Taguchi on the team?  It's like Andy Reid had some say in that personnel decision just worthless.  It's like Manuel doesn't care about righties off the bench (like Reid and punt returners and WR's).

 

Lefties - Jenkins, Dobbs, Stairs

Righties - Bruntlett, coste, taguchi

 

Unbelievable.

 

Special Teams Punishment

Eagles special teams have committed a third of the team’s total number of penalties (7 of 23) through five games, an astonishing number considering how few plays have the special teams on the field compared to the number of offensive and defensive snaps.

 

Just one more reason why Rory Segrest is a lousy special teams coach. His players are undisciplined and penalty-prone.

No 2nd Half Team

This article was written before the Redskins-Eagles game. Sadly, it still holds even more truth afterwards.

www.delawareonline.com/article/20081005/SPORTS02/810050375/1002/SPORTS

 

What happens to the Eagles offense after halftime? Or even the 2^nd quarter?

 

Angry

The Phillies NLDS win did not dampen my anger at the Eagles one bit.

I’m so tired and angry at Reid. It’s time people stop bashing McNabb and focus on the fundamental reason for this team’s offensive ineptitude and lack of success.

I’m angry at Reid’s lousy play calling. I’m tired of the questionable personnel acquisitions. I’m tired of their inability to get a real fullback or deploy a blocking tight end or to start WRs that were actually drafted by somebody. I’m tired of starting a season without a legitimate punt returner and having that simple fact cost us the Packers game last year.

I’m angry at having the “largest offensive line” in the league be blown off the ball near the goal line and on short yardage downs. I’m tired of the offense’s inability to gain 3 yards when they really need it. I’m tired of all the freakin’ pass plays. I’m tired of 3rd and short being a passing down – the resulting incomplete or 2 yard swing pass – and a punt.

I’m infuriated at the sheer incompetence of clock management and replay challenges – he doesn’t challenge plays he should and does plays he shouldn’t.

I’m tired of hearing how Reid and Mohrninweg split the playcalling, just like I was tired of hearing how Reid and Childress split the playcalling. I’m tired of a head coach who was never anything more than a QB coach, be so involved in calling the plays. I’m tired of those plays being so predictable that even I can figure out what is coming (i.e., a running play on second down after a 1st down incomplete).

I’m tired of this defense having to carry the team and overcome the offense’s deficiencies. Quite honestly, if there were another head coach and Reid were the offensive coordinator and Jim Johnson the defensive coordinator, Reid would have been fired several years ago for not holding up his side of the bargain and a new offensive coach brought it.

Unfortunately, Kevin Kolb will not address any of Andy Reid’s fundamental flaws as a coach. they will still be there and we will have to continue to endure them.

The only good news is that while the Eagles have dug themselves a quite a hole for themselves in the first five games of the season, there are still plenty of games to play and their schedule really eases up.

Beat the Niners, bye, beat the Falcons, beat the Seahawks. All extremely winnable games against inferior opponents.

5-3 going into the November 9 Giants game. That is the game of the season, the one that will likely determine the Eagles fate.

Burt Hooten = CC?

A friend asks:

 

Did yesterday's game remind anyone of the infamous Game 3 against the Dodgers in '77 when the Vet fans just took over the show and completely dominated an opposing team's pitcher?

Maybe I'm overstating it, but the entire fate of this series was all wrapped into that 1st Myers at bat. The crowd was sorta in the game, we'd been hitting CC -- 3 doubles at that point -- but he still looked dominant against most batters.

Then, 0-2, Myers hits the foul ball. The crowd went crazy. A couple more foul balls and a couple balls, the crowd goes crazier. By the time he got the count to 3-2, CC was completely rattled. You could see it, he'd been squeezed on 1 or 2 pitches, but he was baffled. As I think Smoltz said, I've never seen a walk that didn't directly score a run draw that kind of reaction ever from a crowd.

At that point, CC was toast. A 4-pitch walk to JRoll, and the crowd was in a pandemonium. You could almost feel the grand salami coming.

Anyway, it was Hooton (or Hooten?) all over again. Except this time we kept our cool and slammed the door.

 

 

To which my brother, who was at the game yesterday, concurs:

 

I was sitting in row 29 parallel with 3^rd base.  My buddy leaned over after the inning (the 2^nd) and said he honestly felt crowd got to CC.  the Myers at-bat was AWESOME.  It is no accident that he walked Rollins next (I believe on 4 pitches).  There were some serious CC sucks and CC (drawn out) chants during both at-bats.  Myers was down 0-2 and after the first foul people started getting really into it.

 

Fact – I know this because I was watching CC’s pitch count half the game hoping to get him out of there – by the time CC went through the order twice (in the 4^th).  He had 82 pitches.  19 of them to Myers.  Think about that.  It’s unbelievable.  Especially considering Myers batted .069 for the year.  After Myers 2^nd at-bat (10 pitches) Rollins hit a double.

It's LJ's Back

This story is the first I’ve seen in the Philadelphia media that actually specifies what kind of injury LJ Smith has. The ambiguity of Smith’s injury has been surprising. In his last two Monday afternoon press conference when he updates the injury status of his players, Andy Reid has not identified the location of Smith’s injury, only that he was healing.

 

Deep in Les Bowen’s story we learn LJ suffered a back injury in the 3^rd quarter against the Steelers.

Uh-oh

Brian Westbrook’s brother, who plays for the Redskins, is quoted in today’s Washington Post as saying that his ankle injury is more serious than the Eagles are letting on.

Phillies Talking Points

From Slate Magazine's Playoff Primer:

After a slow start, Ryan Howard led all of baseball with 48 home runs and 146 RBI—including 10 homers and 28 RBI in September. Nevertheless, the Phillies are the only playoff team in recent memory that's built around its middle infielders. Lucky for the Phillies, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins are really, really good—Utley hit .292 with 33 home runs and a .380 OBP while Rollins, although down from his usual numbers, nonetheless hit .277 and stole 47 bases. It doesn't matter that the outfield is mediocre or that the starting staff gets battered after Cole Hamels and Jamie Moyer. As long as Utley and Rollins are in, you can't count the Phillies out.

Historical context: Just like in 2007, the Phillies came from behind in September to take the division away from the New York Mets. Unlike in 2007, it didn't feel like a fluke this year. And also unlike 2007, the Mets will never, ever, ever have the chance to win a playoff game in Shea Stadium again and will send that stadium to its grave not in a spirit of celebration but of defeat. Eat it, New York City! Eat it, Mets! Philly! Woooo!

Thank You Dale Sveum!

For your incredibly boneheaded decision to start CC Sabathia in game 2 today on three days rest, again. Your decision-making is positively Bud Selig-like and may well hand the NLDS to the Phillies.

 

Sabathia may pitch effectively for 7 innings today. But there is a greater likelihood that Sveum has gone to the well once too often with Sabathia on short rest during the Brewers stretch drive and he will pitch about as well as Ben Sheets did on 3 days rest last Saturday, lasting just 2 1/3 innings. What then for the Brew Crew?

 

Sveum is pitching Sabathia today so that he can pitch again in a game 5 if there is one. Trouble is, that would also be on 3 days rest. The chances are even greater that Sabathia will be ineffective on Tuesday (if needed).

 

Aren’t any of the Brewers other fully rested starters better than an exhausted and overused Sabathia? Sveum obviously doesn’t think so.

 

What would have been the smarter play on the Brewers part would have been to pitch their 3^rd starter in the rotation (now their 2^nd guy after Sheets was left off the playoff roster) and try to steal the game today versus Brett Myers. That way, the Brewers get to rest Sabathia and pitch him on Saturday in game 3 with an extra day of regular rest.

 

If the Brewers win today, they would then get to pitch their ace in game 3 that could put them one win away from winning the series and really ratchet up the pressure on the Phillies.

 

If the Brewers lost today, they would still get to pitch their ace in game 3 to stave off elimination.

 

I suppose some of this was dictated by yesterday’s result. Maybe Sveum would have had second thoughts after a win and moved Sabathia back a game in the rotation. Obviously, after the loss he doesn’t want his team to go down 2-0 in the series.

 

The problem is that game 3 is the pivotal game, not game 2. And don’t discount how demoralizing it would be for the Brewers – and what a momentum builder it would be for the Phils – for their ace to lose and be on the brink of elimination with little left to backstop Sabathia in the rotation.

 

My guess is that Sabathia doesn’t last five innings today. And the Brewers will find themselves in a 2-0 hole with no help on the horizon headed back to Milwaukee for the pivotal game 3 that could very well decide the series.

 

 

148!

First Phillies playoff win since game 5 of the 1993 world series when the Phillies beat the Blue Jays 2-0 and Curt Schilling threw 148! Pitches.

Sinking feeling

Yes, he’s still a perfect 42 for 42 in save opportunities this season, but Brad Lidge is getting less and less dominant and struggling more and more for each save.

 

Why do I have the sinking feeling that Lidge’s first blown save of the season will come in game 7 of the NLCS or the World Series.

Perfect Ending

How appropriate that the decisive division-clinching double play that won the East title involved the entire bedrock foundation of the Phillies’ roster: Rollins, Utley, and Howard.

 

How ironic that the heart of the Phillies order more known for their offensive punch made the difference in the field and not in the batter’s box.

 

Go Phillies!