WESTWARD, OH NO

Of course, we lost. J-Roll made it interesting with a three-run homer in the top of the ninth (sorry about that "hits like Lauryn Hill" thing, Jimmy), but Pat struck out again with the tying run on base against Looper, as he did in game three. We're now a very ugly 12-17 as we escape the East for the Central like Steve McQueen tunneling out against the Nazis.

The Cubs are reeling right now, having lost Kerry Wood for at least two months, Nomar possibly for the season, and with many of their other hitters slumping. Unfortunately, we get their best pitcher, Mark Prior, this afternoon, although he's been scuffling a bit as well with minor ailments. We're countering with Lidle, who could be a few wind-blown homers waiting to happen. Corey has been eating innings, though, and keeping the ball around the plate at least. The weekend games have Lieber facing lefty Glendon Rusch and Myers facing Carlos (Don't Call Me Victor) Zambrano. We have to win those last two if not all three to have any hope of getting back in this race by June. Then we head off to face streaking Milwaukee, who has taken over second place in the Central. I wrote it earlier in the year and I stand by it: it's good to be Bud-free.

I stayed up and watched "Breaking Away" for the 348th time last night. It's definitely in the Pantheon, right up there with "All The President's Men", and the movie that gave this place its name, "Real Genius". The Phillies are looking like Mike after he bonks his head in the quarry swimming against the IU kid: bloody and sinking fast. We still have over two-thirds of the movie to go though.

BLOG ON THE FLY

Something different today: I'm going to jot down my immediate, visceral reactions to the Phillies lousy play as it happens! I have the ESPN Gamecast going as I write this. Looks like Padilla struggled in the second, giving up a couple of doubles and two runs, although the Mets ran themselves out of a bigger inning when David Wright was thrown at the plate by J-Roll. Jimmy then got one back with a walk, steal of second, steal of third, and a wild pitch by Kris Benson. Well, at least we can run, if not hit.

TOP FIFTH
Pratt bounces out. Padilla gets a rare hit. Jimmy singles him to second. Come on Chaser! Three-and-oh to Utley. Take a strike, Chase, Bobby's on deck. OK, 3-1. Walked him. Bases juiced for Abreu. Just noticed: how could they sit Floyd for this game? He popped it up...dammit. Ok, Pat, it's on you. You love this place. Now is the time. It hit him! Tied up at 2-2. That'll do it for Benson. He'll hit the showers, along with three hookers the grounds crew planted so that Anna Benson will make good on her pledge to have sex with the whole team, including the grounds crew, if Kris cheats on her. Aaron Heilman comes in.

Ok, Bell is in there. He and his whopping .216 average. Comebacker. Nice job, Dave. Well, we tied it up, anyway.

BOTTOM FIFTH
Beltran in against Vicente. Ground out to Big Ryan. That'll bring up Piazza. Base hit up the middle. Pizza-boy is a hitting machine. Mike Cameron steps in. Again, where the heck is Yukon Cornelius? Maybe he's hurt. I'll have to research that. Doh! Double by Cameron, Piazza to third. Way to keep the momentum going, Padilla. Minky is walked to load the bases for D-Wright. We need a DP grounder bad here. Nope. Another double! Two runs are in, it's 4-2, Minky heads to third. Ok, Charlie, I think the Flotilla is taking on water. Diaz is walked to load them again. Hey it worked once. Heilman the pitcher is due up. I guess they'll bat him now that he has a lead. Ryan Madson comes on to try to stanch the hemorrhaging. Polanco replaces Bell for the double switch.

Heilman is taking his hacks. Heilman is caught browsing. Nice job, Ryan. That'll bring up Reyes, bases still loaded. Good morning, good afternoon, good night. Struck him out. Madson is clutch as usual. Ok, not too terrible, only two runs. At least Padilla actually made it out of the fourth today. Maybe by July he can pitch long enough to get a win.

TOP SIXTH
Big Ryan up. Big K. Marlon Byrd makes an appearance. He even has a hit already. And another! Marlon heads for second on Cameron's error. Pratt's up. Pratt K's. Polanco, hitting in the ninth spot, tries to get a big two-out hit. Not happening. Bouncer to third. Still 4-2.

BOTTOM SIXTH
The blogger repairs to the facilities...Kaz bounces out. Beltran out swinging. Pizza-boy gets another hit. Cameron hits into an FC. The score remains 4-2.

TOP SEVENTH
I wonder if Heilman will stay in, or if they have a setup guy they like to use. I guess it's Heilman. J-Roll leads off. Is it me, or is J-Roll a dead ringer for Lauryn Hill? Hits like her too. One out, on strikes. The Chaser is up. Ground out to 1B. Now Abreu. K me. So, so quiet. Stretch time!

BOTTOM SEVENTH
Minky grounds to second. D-Wright K's. Diaz bounces to third. Madson mows them down again. Let's get some runs!

TOP EIGHTH
Pat The Bat starts us off. Heilman still dealing. Burrell out on strikes. The pitcher's spot is due up. Offerman will pinch hit. Jose is aboard with a bases on balls. It's about time somebody got on. Ryan is up. Now's the time, rookie. Double play. That's not what I meant. Still 4-2, and time is rapidly running out. Looper is probably getting warm.

But I'm serious, J-Roll and Lauryn Hill could be related...



BOTTOM EIGHTH
Tim Worrell? Oh no. That lead will soon get bigger. Marlon Anderson leads off, base hit. Reyes up. Sac bunt, Anderson to second. Kaz is the hitter. Grounds to second, moving Anderson to third. Any other reliever gets out of this, but Worrell will find a way to allow that runner to score. Beltran is up. He walks on four straight. Piazza must be salivating. He's already 3-4. And there it goes! Three-run blast. 7-2. Drive safely folks. Thanks, Timmy. Have a nice life pumping gas or selling real estate. Cameron doubles for the exclamation point. Come on Minky, put us out of our misery. He popped up to second. God, we suck.

Well, I gotta run, kids. I'll add a post-mortem tomorrow, and a preview of the Cubs series, if I really feel depressed.

SO CLOSE, YET SEO FAR

Remember what I said about Brad Wilkerson? It goes double for Cornelius "Cliff" Floyd. Now there's a name I can ridicule. COR-NEEEEELL-YUSSSS!!! God, I hate that guy. He continued to kill us in every way possible last night, hitting another monster homer and robbing J-Mike of a tater, which ended up being the difference in the game. And who the hell is Jae Seo? The Mets are on the verge of sending this guy down to Norfolk, and he throws eight shutout innings. Unfathomable.

The game started out well enough. Wolfie looked pretty good until I left the game in the top of the third, otherwise detained. Soon after I stopped listening, Victor "only hits against us" Diaz homered. Yukon Cornelius singled in a run in the third, and then hit his ninth homer, seemingly his ninth off Phillies pitching this year, in the fifth to make it 3-0. Meanwhile, Seo was meeting little resistance. I know Thome and Lofton are out, but geez, guys, can't anybody here play this game? They managed a David Bell single and two Bobby Abreu walks until I picked the game back up in the top of the ninth. Braden Looper came on to close, and he's had a shaky history against the Phillies, blowing several games last season. Rollins was retired quickly, but the Chaser worked the count to 3-2 on a few close pitches the Mets fans were hollering about. Finally, Looper grooved one, and Utley clobbered it over Diaz for a home run to right. OK, that's one. Bobby followed with a blast on a 1-2 pitch to almost the same location to make it 3-2. Yes! Comeback! Looper is toast! Not so fast, little one. Burrell took a called third strike, and J-Mike was completely overmatched, going down on four pitches. Fuck me. Hello 12-16.

This afternoon's tilt doesn't look any more promising. Vicente Padilla, still in Spring Training mode, goes for the Phils against Kris Benson, who was just activated off the DL. Guess who made room for him? That's right, Mr. Expendable, Jae Seo, who the Phillies hitters just treated like he had the Marburg virus. Thank goodness we're getting out of this division after today and heading to the increasingly Friendly Confines, although we'll probably make the Cubs look good the way we're going. Marburg, anyone?

TRANSITION GAME

I actually sat down and tried to watch this game from the beginning. Pat Burrell rewarded me with a three-run dinger off Tom Glavine in the first inning. Glavine just isn't getting the corners any more. I'm not sure if it is QuesTec, or Sandy Alderson and his new union-busted umpires getting back at him for being such a big union guy, but that pitch five inches off the plate that used to be rung up with regularity is nearly always called a ball now. Bobby Abreu took advantage of a couple of Glavine-former-strikes to work out a walk ahead of Pat, and he later singled in a pair of runs in the second inning to make it 5-0.

As we've all heard, Jim Thome and Kenny Lofton (big surprise) are on the 15-day disabled list. The Phils called up Ryan Howard and Marlon Byrd from S/WB to fill their spots. Howard was in uniform for the game last night but did not start, because of the lefty Glavine. In my opinion, this can only help in the short term. Thome was slumping badly, probably because of his back injury, and Howard's bat should be an improvement. Byrd and Michaels probably won't be much different than Lofton and Michaels, especially if they just give Michaels the centerfield job full time. He's earned it.

The Phils tacked on three more in the fourth. Abreu drove in two runs with another single and scored the third one on a David Bell single. I hope Bobby's out of his reality-TV-induced funk. Glavine couldn't make it out of that fourth inning, and the rout was on. Cliff Floyd hit another huge home run in the bottom of the fourth to make it 8-1, but the Mets never threatened. The final was 10-3. Tim Worrell managed to raise his ERA to 8.10 by giving up a run in the ninth. He and The Thing need to seriously consider another line of work. If only Wade had the wherewithal to find better alternatives.

Now, I tried to watch this game, but Comcast refused to let me. Since the Sixers were busy getting pantsed by the Pistons, Sportsnet wasn't carrying the Phillies game and Comcast instead had switched it to CN8, their penny-ante news channel. I have the High-Def DVR box on my downstairs TV, and CN8 was working fine there. I decided to catch the end of the game in bed, and upstairs, we just have the usual Low-Def Digital cable box. No CN8. No UPN either, which, coincidentally is the other Phillies station but had nothing to do with the Phillies last night. Weird. I rebooted the cable box, but that didn't help. With the score 8-1 at that point, I was hoping to enjoy a nice leisurely blowout of the Mets, but since the game was in hand, I decided to watch the end of the Kevin Spacey/Danny DeVito film "The Big Kahuna". If it had been close, I would have stayed downstairs. Really, I would have.

Wolfie takes on Jae Seo tonight at Shea. Wolfie pitched great against the Mets earlier this season, taking a shutout into the ninth. The Marlins and Braves have given him plenty of trouble, but that's to be expected. The Phillies are still four and a half behind Florida, who pounded Atlanta last night. Still plenty of time. Go Big Ryan!

CAN'T TRUST THAT DAY

Golf: no. Great pitcher's duel at Shea: yes, after I went to bed. Terry Adams getting his pink slip: I hope so.

Obviously, I missed the whole thing. It started raining as I left work, and it was far too cold and windy anyway to hit the little white ball. The game was on Rain Delay (a gripping Fran Healy interview with the immortal...Gary Sheffield?) until I packed it in at 9 PM, ailing from pollen overload. It looks like Lieber left after six innings with the score tied 1-1. Manuel called on the only righty he had left after yesterday who could pitch middle relief, The Thing, Terry Adams. As many other Phillies bloggers have wondered, why does Ed Wade keep giving guys like this second and third chances? He bombed out in Boston, failing to make their playoff roster, but now somehow he's good enough for the Phillies. Well, good enough for Carlos Beltran to smack a three-run shot to deep right off of him. Nice job in talent evaluation, boys. The Phillies never recovered, and lost 5-1.

Tonight it's Brett Myers vs. Tom Glavine. If we're lucky, Glavine will be too concerned with Bud Selig's latest steroids plan to concentrate on the game.

Welcome to the world my new grand niece, Anna Michelle (photos not immediately available)! Thank goodness you're a Red Sox fan.

BECKETT PLAY

The Phillies were not waiting for anything against Josh Beckett yesterday, certainly not me. By the time I tuned in, in the car on the way to the driving range after listening to Harry Shearer's "Le Show", the Phils were ahead 5-0. Bobby Abreu, who we'll discuss later, hit a three-run shot before Beckett had retired a batter, and super subs Tomas Perez and Todd Pratt added RBI singles. The Marlins made a game of it while I was warming up with my second-hand "Senior" Calloway driver (if the driver fits...) at the Ed "Porky" Oliver Golf Course. Now, if a guy raises to the level of having a golf course named after him, wouldn't his family insist that the "Porky" part be left off? This once again illustrates that Delaware is a southern state, or at least something "other" than Pennsylvania or New Jersey. Oh yeah, baseball. The Fish drew to within 5-3 in the third on an Alex Gonzalez homer (he now has one more than Bobby again) and a Carlos Delgado sac fly of the D Train, who had gone into pinch hit for Beckett and singled.

Two was as close as Florida would get today, though. Lidle was fairly sharp, not overpowering but generally in command, with no walks and 5 K's. Ryan Madson bailed him out of a sixth inning jam and pitched a prefect seventh before giving way to the rapidly declining Tim Worrell. Those two may be flip-flopping roles very soon, or at least should be. Worrell only managed to get one out while leaving the tying runs on for Daddy Wags, who was once again forced to try for a save of more than three outs due to Timmy's ineffectiveness. Not to worry, at least not yet. Wags arrived to the usual strains of "Enter Sandman", and immediately induced Mike Lowell to bounce into an inning-ending DP. Billy mowed 'em down 1-2-3 in the ninth for an 8-6 final and his sixth save, and has yet to allow an earned run. We'd be in deep shit without him, to put it bluntly.

Meanwhile, this morning, I read a possible explanation for Bobby's horrid (only 1 HR) April: his former Miss Universe fiance was caught fooling around with some guy on a Venezuelan reality TV show. He's managed to avoid the press in Philly, where the fans couldn't find Venezuela on a map if you spotted them the continent, but he's expecting a crush of media when the Phils head to New York today. Apparently, it's huge news in Latin America, where Abreu is something of a superstar. He should be a superstar here, but he has doggedly refused to improve his English, and his easy-going style translates to lackadaisicalness with the overheated knuckleheads who have WIP on speed dial. Bobby is a great, great player, and I hope he manages to put this behind him. Plus, I need him to get hot for my Strat team next year.

Two aces go tonight at Shea: Lieber vs. Pedro. The weather looks good for golf, too. Not bad for a Monday.

RAIN, MAN

We went to the Blue Rocks game with the sky still looking threatening and a few drops of drizzle coming down. We figured we'd either see a game, or at least pick up our rain checks at the Will Call window. Surprisingly, the parking lot was jammed, and we picked up our tickets and sat down in our box seats along the third base line. It started pouring worse than ever right about at game time. A grade school marching band played the anthem while I ran out to the car to grab the free Blue Rocks umbrellas we got last year. The grounds crew was putting the tarp down as I got back, and we sat desultorily for about a half hour under the umbrellas. Finally, the rain abated, they pulled off the tarp, and it was time to play ball.

That lasted about one half-inning. After the Winston-Salem pitcher completed his warmups in the bottom of the first, the rain started up in earnest again, and the umps called everyone in after Rocks shortstop Iggy Suarez hit a groundout. We sat for a few more minutes listening to rain-themed pop songs blaring from the loudspeaker, and then went home.

The Phillies fared a little better, or worse, I suppose. They started on time, and got a few innings in before their first rain delay. The bottom of the Marlins order conspired for two runs in the second on a LoDuca walk, a Lowell double, and a Gonzalez 2-run single. We got one back in the fourth when Gonzalez blew a double-play ball by Thome, allowing Burrell to take third. Lieby then bounced into a fielder's choice to score Pat. Then some more rain.

They played the fifth, and were delayed again, and by then it was 10 PM, so I went to bed. Apparently they also played the sixth before finally deciding to call it at 2-1. Another loss. So, like the little league team we are, we lose in six innings. I hope they got some ice cream.

Today's matchup as we try to avoid the sweep is their ace, Josh Beckett vs. our number four, Cory Lidle. Lidle's been OK this year, and Beckett, though often overpowering, doesn't win as often as you would think. I'll be out hitting golf balls getting ready for the golf season, which starts tomorrow in our work league. I'll catch as much as I can on the car radio. We need this one bad. Six games out on May 1st is a lot worse than four games out on May 1st. Ok, both are terrible, but you have to have some hope.