BITTER BREW

Another weekend of lost opportunity. The Brewers took two of three from the Phils at home at a time when home games are dwindling to a precious few. On Friday, Ben Sheets was his dominant self, as feared, ceding only an eighth inning homer to Bobby Abreu over nine innings. Corey Lidle matched the big righthander, giving up one solo homer to Geoff Jenkins over eight innings. With the Swingin' Bullpen Trio gassed from overuse, Charlie was forced to employ first Frenchie Cormier, who negotiated the ninth, and then Geoff Geary, who was not as fortunate in the tenth. Bill Hall led off the inning with a single, and was doubled to third by Damian Miller. Bobby made a poor cutoff throw to Utley, allowing Hall to score, and then Utley threw one in the dugout trying to get Miller heading for third, awarding him home plate as well. The Phils got the first two runners on in the tenth, but then Jimmy Rollins, Jason Michaels, and Utley went quietly against emergency closer Matt Wise for a 3-1 final.

Saturday was a laugher against lefty Chris Capuano and reliever Rick Helling. The Phils chased Capuano after five innings with homers by Todd Pratt and J-Roll, and then scored three runs off Helling in the sixth before he could retire a batter to put the game out of reach. They added another run in the seventh to make the final score 8-2. Jon Lieber was sharp, allowing seven hits and one walk in seven innings. Russell Branyan hit a monster blast into the visitors (or upper) bullpen in the seventh in garbage time.

Sunday was another one of those games when I really question why I've been wasting my time on this maddening bunch of malingerers. The immortal Tomo Ohka took the mound for Milwaukee, sporting a mediocre 4.07 ERA against the rest of the league and working on his second team after being traded away by the Nationals. Ohka proceeded to completely baffle the Phillies for eight innings, getting them to swing at slider after slider on their shoetops. Adjust, dammit! Vicente Padilla was pitching almost as well, having made one terrible pitch to Rickie Weeks, who smacked it to deep left center to score the only two runs of the game. 2-nuthin. 2-nada. 2-zip. 2-oh(ka). Oh damn.

With the Astros win Sunday night, we're back to 2.5 games out of the wild card, trailing both Florida and Washington, who are now tied at two games back. Florida starts a four game set with the Rockies today with a day/night doubleheader at Coors Field. The Nats and Astros duke it out in Houston for three starting Tuesday. I guess we have to root for Washington to take two of three there, since they are closer to us. We wouldn't want them to sweep or else they'd have the wild card lead, and we'd have no way to make up any ground on them. Then again, none of it matters unless we sweep the Dodgers. We were supposed to get the same pitching matchups as we had at the Bank, when we lost two of three, but the Dodgers moved Brad Penny back to game two and will start rookie D.J. Houlton in the first game tomorrow night. Houlton didn't become a starter until June, and he's been so-so since moving to the rotation, which is an improvement on the downright awful he was in the bullpen. He's certainly a more appealing sight out there than Odalis Perez, who made the Phils look foolish in recording the only 1-0 victory by an opposing pitcher in the history of Citizens Bank Park. In any event, it's getting to the point where I look forward to off days. That can't be good.