SPLITSBURGH

Disappointing. Very disappointing.

When you play a team that's reeling, is throwing a rookie starter, and your guy gives up only two runs, you have to win. Despite six extra base hits, somehow the Phillies didn't win. On top of that, Joe Table himself came in to finish off the Phils in the ninth for the 2-1 final. Very, very disappointing.

Brett Myers had poor command, walking four and running the count to three balls on several other occasions. One of those was to Humberto Cota, who drilled a 3-1 fastball into the left field seats with a man on to provide the Pirates' only runs. Still, Myers worked out of several jams of his own making, and did more than enough to win this one. Once again, the Phillies could not provide enough clutch hits, going 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position, the one being Chase Utley's eighth inning RBI single. Michaels and Bell fronted the lineup again, hitting a combined 3-for-9, but none of the hits were of any consequence in the outcome.

The Evil Spawn, turning on the evil full bore, swept the Cubbies and are now six full games ahead of us for the wild card, and are closing fast on the Nats to take their rightful place atop the division. We're in last now because of the Mets' extra-inning defeat of Washington. It's all starting to fall into place. Get the resumé ready, Ed.

BUC O

Not that I'm not appreciative, but where was that all season, Vicente? Sure, the Pirates anemic (or should that be scurvy dog?) offense helped, but still. We could sure use more of that the rest of the season. Padilla blanked the Bucs for six innings, and Mad Dog, Oogie and Daddy Wags all posted zeroes for an inning apiece to complete the 5-0 shutout. The Braves game was rained out, dropping the wild card deficit to 4.5 games.

Jimmy Rollins' late hand injury forced Manuel to make the move he needs to make permanently and put the Lofton/Michaels platoon in the leadoff spot. Facing lefty Mark Redman, Michaels got the start last night, although his personal liberty is in dire jeopardy after last week's pop-a-cop incident. I also thought it was remarkably prescient of Charlie to put David Bell in the two hole. Bell is killing lefties this season, and with his lack of power he's not doing much good in the seventh spot. As it turned out last night, Michaels and Bell went a combined 1-for-10 with 1 RBI, but I think Charlie has finally arrived at a lineup that will work. Against righties, he should lead off with Lofton and bat Rollins second. Rollins has an almost acceptable .739 OPS batting left-handed. Nobody really fits well in that two spot against righties, to be honest, which is part of the Phillies' problem. Even with Manuel's stubborn insistence on batting Rollins leadoff, the Phils are still fourth in the league in runs. The team ahead of us in third, however, is the team we have to catch, Atlanta, and more runs is always a good thing. Giving up less runs would be even better, but the prospects there aren't good. We're in 12th place in the NL in ERA, and both Florida and Atlanta are giving up close to a run fewer per game than we are.

The Bucs' series culminates tonight with Brett Myers facing the very studly-named 22-year-old Texan Zach Duke. Duke, another lefty, pitched reasonably well in his Major League debut start against Milwaukee, surrendering three runs with 9 K's in seven innings in a 5-3 loss. Duke was rated the Pirates' number one pitching prospect heading into the season by the highly respected minor league guru John Sickels, even ahead of Ian Snell, who they recalled a week earlier, and John Van Benschoten, who debuted last season and blew out his shoulder in spring training. It'll be interesting to see if Bell stays in the two spot even if Rollins plays.

WELLS DONE

Kip Freaking Wells. Let's go to the stats.

as of 7/4/05:

Wells, Kip......99 IP, 98 H, 61 R, 51 ER, 15 HR, 53 BB, 73 K, 4.64 ERA

This guy pitched a four-hit shutout? Against the fourth best run scoring team in the National League? Preposterous.

And now, finally, my McAfee Coliseum photos! They weren't worth the wait.

WHA' HOPPENED?

Quickly for the record, here is a rundown of the games I missed while vacating in Kollie-forn-e-a:

June 24th: Red Sox 8, Phils 0. Tim Wakefield's knuckler was knuckling.
June 25th: Red Sox 7, Phils 1. Whatever Padilla's pitches were supposed to do weren't doing it.
June 26th: Red Sox 12, Phils 8. The Phils battled back from 8-1 to tie it at eight, then Cormier gave four right back.
June 28th: Mets 8, Phils 3. Robbie Tejeda had a rare bad outing, and Geoff Geary made it worse.
June 29th: Phils 6, Mets 3. Thank God for Cory Lidle.
June 30th: Mets 5, Phils 3. Pedro, Pedro, Pedro!
July 1st: Braves 9, Phils 1. Smoltz toyed with us again.
July 2nd: Phils 6, Braves 3. Myers went eight and change, nearly blowing a 6-0 lead, but Wagner closed.
July 3rd: Braves 4, Phils 3. Heartbreak. The Phils lost in the ninth after leading 3-0 on Ryan Howard's homer in the fourth.
July 4th: Phils 12, Pirates 1. Finally, a laugher. Bobby got voted to the All-Star team and hit a slam.

Ten games, 3 wins, 7 losses. We're now 42-41, 8.5 games back of T.F.N. and four games out of the wild card, now held by the Braves. Florida is also standing between us and the wild card. When I left, we had the wild card lead by a half game. I'm going to upstate NY in three weeks for a weekend with my high school friends. At the rate my vacations are going, we should be buried in last place by the time I get back from that one.

It isn't completely over yet, but it's getting very close. These last two series before the break could determine a lot. If the Phils continue spanking the Pirates like they did last night, and carry that over against Washington at home, we still have a shot. If they revert to recent form, the season is done. You really can't expect them to make up 12 or 13 games (7 or 8 on the wild card) without Thome and Wolfie and with Padilla stinking up the league. Any shot of trading Howard for a starting pitcher is toast, not that that's such a bad thing. A healthy Howard should be able to outperform an obviously useless Thome, which may be the permanent state of things as far as we know. Had Wade dealt Howard for someone of the caliber of Barry Zito, we'd really be in trouble.

About the only chance we've got is if 1) Howard plays about as well as his AAA numbers suggest, 2) either Gavin Floyd or Cole Hamels comes up and pitches well, 3) everybody else plays about the same as they are now (except for Lieberthal, who needs to pick it up), 4) Charlie permanently fixes the leadoff spot by using Lofton and (if he stays out of jail) Michaels instead of Rollins, and 5) the Nationals collapse as expected and we help them do it.

It would be nice if Wade could swing a deadline deal for a starting pitcher, but we all know he won't deal Hamels or Floyd, and he can't deal Howard, and nobody wants anything else we have. So everybody, don't be bitching when we wake up on August 1st and Wade hasn't made the transactions wire. It simply isn't going to happen.

Photos of McAfee Coliseum are coming shortly. Or, more precisely, when I get off my ass. They aren't that impressive anyway, believe me.