RYAN EXPRESS

Well, that was unexpected.

Ryan Howard ended a tense affair with the Dodgers in the bottom of the 10th inning with an emphatic two-run homer over the Lukoil sign off LA closer Yhency Brazoban to give the Phils an improbable 5-4 victory.

Prior to Ryan's blast, it looked like another heartbreaking defeat for the Phils. The game had been a close, back and forth contest all night. Mexican League fill-in Oscar Robles hit his first major league homer off Brett Myers' fourth pitch of the night to stake the Dodgers to a 1-0 lead. A J-Roll triple and an RBI grounder by Lofton tied it up in the bottom of the inning, and Pat Burrell put the Phils on top 2-1 with a long home run to lead off the second. Los Angeles rallied in the fourth to go up 3-2 on a Hee Choi single and doubles by Jayson Werth and pitcher Brad Penny. Chase Utley re-tied the game in the fifth with yet another clutch two-out RBI hit to score J-Roll, who had doubled. The bullpens took over in the seventh and neither staff allowed another run until the tenth.

In the top of the tenth, Billy Wagner, working his second inning of relief, issued a one-out walk to Jeff Kent. Mike Edwards then drove a fly to deep right field that Bobby Abreu should have caught. Instead, Bobby overran the ball and made an ill-timed leap as it sailed past his glove and off the wall for a double. Once again, Abreu demonstrated that he has no feel for how close he is to the fence and that he tends to panic when he gets close to the barrier. Somebody needs to spend an afternoon hitting fly ball after fly ball off the wall so that Bobby can better gauge how close he is and whether or not he has to jump or can stay on his feet and under control. I don't know whether he's not interested in improving this aspect of his defense, or if the coaches don't push it, but his poor play on balls near the wall has contributed to several Phillies losses over his career and should be addressed. This is not to take anything away from his hitting and his overall contribution to the offense; I'm a big Abreu supporter. It just seems like this is something he can learn how to do, so why not try to improve?

With runners on second and third, Jason Phillips was intentionally passed, and Wags began to extricate himself by striking out pinch hitter Antonio Lopez. Werth then stood by as Billy missed the plate badly on four straight pitches, walking in Kent for the go-ahead run. Wagner recovered to get Jason Repko to bounce back to the mound, but it seemed as though one more game that should have been won had slipped away.

Then came Pat Burrell and his blazing speed. Burrell led off the bottom of the tenth off Brazoban with a deep drive to left just over the glove of the 6'5" Werth and off the cement part of the wall just above the out-of-town scoreboard, about one or two feet short of going out. The ball ricocheted back toward the infield, and Burrell scampered as fast as his leaden legs could carry him. As Larry Anderson mentioned, he "hit a wall" at second base. By the time Werth tracked down the ball, he had a relatively short throw to third, and from what I could see on TV, he nailed Burrell sliding into third. Thankfully, third base ump Joe Brinkman missed the call. That set up Howard, who clobbered the first pitch he saw to deep left center to secure his date with Tomas Perez' shaving cream-laden towel.

The Nats got another strong game from John Patterson to shutout the woeful Rockies, but the Braves lost a late game to the Giants to lower their wild card advantage over us to 3.5 games. Tonight, Corey Lidle tries to recover from his poor start versus Florida against the inconsistent Derek Lowe. Lowe's ERA has been climbing steadily all season, and he's given up 144 hits in 127 and one third innings. His July ERA is 9.22 after enduring pummelings by Arizona and San Fran. We may as well not fight the trend.

A GIRL, SEVERAL IDIOTS, AND A SEARCH ENGINE

No, "Monk" fans, I don't have any photos of Traylor Howard nude either.

Now to sit back and watch the hit count go up for "Traylor Howard Nude". That was "Traylor Howard Nude", I said.

D-RAILED

I tuned in to Friday's game for one pitch. It was from Tim Worrell, and it was hit out of the yard by Paul LoDuca to give the Marlins a 9-4 lead. That was all I needed to hear, and was pretty much the story of the game. Corey Lidle was mercilessly pounded by Florida for seven runs on eleven hits in three and a third innings. The bullpen allowed two more, which ended up being the margin of victory in a 9-7 Marlins win. There were some good hitting performances by several Phils, but it wasn't enough to overcome Lidle's execrable outing.

Saturday was a better day. Marlins starter Scott Olsen didn't make it out of the second inning as the Phils scored six early runs on an Utley 3-run homer, a Pratt solo shot, and a Burrell two-run single. There was a rain delay, and then the Marlins battled back to make it 6-4 off Jon Lieber before the Phils tacked on four late runs to pull away to a 10-5 victory. Once again, the offense clicked as every starter got a hit and scored a run.

On Sunday, the D-Train and his 13-4 record pulled into the station against the suddenly effective Vicente Padilla. Vicente himself started off the scoring in the second with an unlikely triple to score Michaels and Ramon Martinez. Utley knocked in a run in the third, and then J-Roll smacked another triple to score a run in the fourth. Lieby, still looking Abreu-ish, homered in the sixth to make it 5-0, and Tomas Perez doubled in two more later in the inning to knock Willis out of the game. Utley plated Perez to saddle Dontrelle with a total of eight earned runs in five and two thirds innings and his fifth loss. The Marlins added four quick runs in the ninth off Worrell, who may as well go back on the DL, before Oogie came in to finish them off. Padilla was fantastic, lasting seven innings for the first time all season and allowing only two hits and two walks. More performances like that would be a huge lift, but Padilla's been anything but consistent in his Phillies tenure.

Today's an off day, and then the injury-plagued Dodgers stop by for three. The NL West leading Padres finish off the homestand over the weekend. The series win over Florida puts the Phils at 48-45, 5.5 games back of the Nats and four out of the Braves' wild card lead. We keep looking superlative at home, but have yet to show any road ability. Unfortunately, we've played six more home games than either the Braves or the Nats, and they both have a better home record than we do, which makes the remainder of the schedule a double-whammy against us. We're either going to have to play even better at home, or finish with a winning road record to catch either Atlanta or Washington, unless they both collapse, which is unlikely. Baseball Prospectus has our playoff odds at 21.6%, and predicts that we'd need to go 42-27 the rest of the way just to win the wild card. I hope Ed's cell phone plan has a lot of minutes.

CHARLIE AND THE POP-UP FACTORY

So, it takes Mike Lieberthal, what, eight years to decide that maybe he should try to emulate Bobby Abreu? Quick thinking, there, Lieby.

Lieberthal, looking much like his new mentor, laced a pair of home runs, and the rest of the Phillies hitters even shot the (Randy) Messenger as they romped to a 13-7 victory at the Park last night. Pat Burrell added two very long home runs of his own, and Ryan Howard hit another blast. The key play in the game took place in the fifth with the scored tied 4-4. J-Roll walked (not a typo) and moved to third on Kenny Lofton's single. Chase Utley then managed to hit a ball that nearly bounced to the plate just over pitcher A.J. Burnett's head to the second baseman Luis Castillo. With the Fish conceding the go-ahead run, Rollins scored and Lofton moved to third, scoring later on an Abreu sac fly. This sequence gave the Phils a 6-4 lead and helped to knock out Burnett, whose replacements were downright awful. Chris Resop (read that name backwards) surrendered Lieberthal's second homer, and the aforementioned Messenger gave up Burrell's second shot. Mad Dog, Oogie and Cormier cleaned up, although only Oogie managed to not allow any runs.

Cory Lidle throws tonight against Brian Moehler. Moehler's ERA has gone from 1.97 on May 27th to his current still respectable figure of 3.27. He's won his last two games, against the Mets and Brewers, barely going the minimum required five innings each time, and relying on good run support. Lidle, meanwhile, hasn't failed to get to the 8th inning since June 6th, winning three of those six starts.

The Braves and Nats both lost, putting the Phils into third place, 6.5 out of first and four back of the wild card. The Marlins dropped into a last place tie with the Mets at 7 games out.

I'm probably going to miss tonight's game, instead opting to take in "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory" with my wife.

Oompa Loompa Doomp-a-dee Doo,
I've got a perfect question for you.
Oompa Loompa Doomp-a-dee Dee,
Charlie had better listen to me.
What do you get when you bat J-Roll first?
His on-base percentage is nearly the worst.
You've got Mister Lofton just sitting right there.
J-Roll is fast but he swings...at...air.
Let's give him forty million.
Oompa Loompa Doomp-a-dee Dah,
If you take walks then you will go far,
And you will live in happiness too,
Like the Oompa Loompa Doomp-a-dee do!

EYES WIDE ... UH, OPEN

Day three of Phillies withdrawal.

In the AP report of Michelle Wie's match play victory over Will Claxton of Auburn University in the US Amateur Public Links Championship, they previewed her second round match today vs. C. D. Hockersmith of Richmond, IN. They mentioned that Hockersmith has a rare condition in which he "sleeps with his eyes open."

Number 1) Why does C.D. go around advertising this? Number 2) Why does the AP report it? And most importantly, number 3) WTF? He sleeps with his eyes open? (comical shaking of the head with the mouth making a bubbling sound) Huh?

I KNOW NOTHING!

Many of us in the blogosphere (How do we know it's a sphere? Maybe it's an oblate spheroid. Or a torus. Or even a Taurus. Yeah, that's it, it's an '88 Taurus SHO, with a 3.1L V6, a compass in the dash and this thing that tells time) (Please don't write me to say that the '88 Taurus didn't have an SHO model or that it didn't offer a 3.1L V6. I don't care, and get a life) (Yes that was an "A Christmas Story" reference at the end there. Maybe I should get a life, too) (Ok enough parentheticals. What was I talking about? Oh yeah) have taken the opportunity of the All-Star break to either grade the Phillies first half or preview the second half, or both.

Here's my first half grade: Incomplete. The season's half over, and nobody cares what your record is in July. I wish they had won more games, but even with the first-half they've had, they could still win it all. They'll need to either pitch better or hit better or both to do it.

My second-half preview: I have no idea what's going to happen. None whatsoever. Actually, that's not true. Here's what will happen: based on the last 13 years, you'd have to expect the Braves to win the division. However, they could be beset by injuries, or John Smoltz could decide to start working as an architect at HOK, or Andruw Jones could become the military dictator of Curacao, or any number of things could happen, and there's always the wild card. The Angels, Marlins and Red Sox won the World Series the last three years. Hands up who saw that coming? Another thing that will happen: we'll analyze and handicap this thing until we've wrung nearly all the fun out of it, and some crazy shit will happen that nobody expected and we'll all say, "That's baseball!" It could happen to the Phillies as well as anyone else. And no matter what happens, I'll be sitting my sorry ass in front of the tube for the first televised Spring Training game in Clearwater again next March. Until then, I'll whine, complain, give Ed Wade and Dave Montgomery unsolicited suggestions that they won't even read let alone consider, delight at every win and be depressed with every loss until the Phils are either mathematically eliminated or are parading down Broad Street.

If you were looking for insightful analysis, well, you got what you paid for.

Now, let's play some ball!

NO NATIONAL DISGRACE (WELL, MAYBE FRANK WAS)

For what it's worth, the Phils took two of three from the stubbornly front-running Washington Nationals. All three games were decided by one run, the type of game in which the Nats had heretofore excelled and in which the Phillies had been struggling, which may mean something but probably doesn't.

I missed most of Friday night's game indulging my wife in a night out at the Brandywine Regal GooglePlex watching "Mr. and Mrs. Smith". This film reminds me of the Phillies: beautiful on the surface, but awash in mediocrity at every other level. In any case, the Nats sprinted out to a 5-0 lead before the Phils bats awoke, scoring three in the fifth, two of those on a Ryan Howard two-out double. Howard is emerging as the hitter we've all hoped. More on him later. Aaron Fultz then let has-been Carlos Baerga take him deep in the top of the sixth for a three-run homer, extending the Washington lead to 8-3. The Phils roared back in the bottom of the inning against Joey Eischen and Luis Ayala, scoring four and nearly tying the game on another Howard two-out double. This time, Pat Burrell was thrown out trying to score. As if one tying run being cut down at the plate wasn't enough, the Nats did it again in the seventh when David Bell was nabbed trying to score on a grounder by Jason Michaels with nobody out. Wheels explained it on the radio by saying that you have the contact play on there because if Vinny Castilla grabs the ball and tags out Bell, he can get a double play. I didn't see the location of the grounder, but I'm still skeptical. It seems to me if you have runners on second and third and nobody out, you play it pretty conservative and make sure the ball goes to at least one of the middle infielders, who I believe were playing back at the time, before heading home. If it's hit to Castilla and he makes the play at first, you still have only one out, and you definitely do the contact play at that point. The end result was, as has been typical, no runs for the Phillies in the seventh, a 1-2-3 eighth and Chad Cordero coming on in the ninth to record his league-leading 31st save.

I'll have to confess I thought Saturday's game was a night game. I spent the afternoon sorting through about a million DVR recordings after our vacation. I didn't miss much action at the Park. Both Cory Lidle and Nats starter John Patterson threw scoreless gems through seven innings, with Lidle extending his to the top of the eighth. Frank Robinson inexplicably let Patterson hit for himself in the eighth, but then sent in Hector Carrasco to pitch the bottom of the inning. I think Frank simply changed his mind about the pitching change after Patterson's at-bat, and then said, "aw, the hell with it, I'm bringing in Hector anyway." Daddy Wags negotiated the top of the ninth with no trouble, and the Phillies quickly loaded the bases off Carrasco in the bottom of the ninth around another Pat Burrell strikeout. David Bell then stepped up and got the job done with a medium deep fly to left, scoring Bobby Abreu for a 1-0 final. This game was the very first 1-0 in the history of Citizens Bank Park, and it came on the same day as the Rockies had their first 1-0 game ever at Coors Field. I think it had something to do with the vortex of voodoo that surrounds Vinny Castilla (how else can you explain why anyone throws him a fastball ever?), but I'm not sure.

Sunday's game was one of the most pleasing in recent memory. The Nats took a 1-0 lead in the third on a Matt Cepicky RBI single scoring Brad Wilkerson. They extended their lead to 3-0 on a Jose Guillen two-run blast in the fourth off the gopheriffic Jon Lieber. The Phils dented the board in the bottom of the fourth with another Howard RBI, this time a single scoring Abreu to make it 3-1. The Phils then loaded the bases with one out off starter Esteban Loaiza in the fifth, and looked poised to blow the game open when Jimmy Rollins alertly raced home on a wild pitch that barely eluded catcher Brian Schneider. Burrell, however, added to his mounting strikeout total, and Chase Utley followed with a hapless at-bat where he swung at several bad pitches and eventually struck out as well, stranding runners at second and third. To top off that disappointment, Ryan Madson surrendered the wild pitch run right back in the seventh, uncorking one to score Jamey Carroll with two outs, giving the Nats a 4-2 lead. Then, Frank Robinson and his unerring sense of how not to handle a bullpen struck again. With one out in the eighth, Utley and Howard due up, and lefty reliever Joey Eischen ready to go, Frank stuck with righty Gary Majewski, who was probably as surprised as anyone. Majewski walked Utley, and then, still in there to face Howard, left a breaking ball in Howard's down-and-in joy zone, which Ryan hit like a Phil Mickelson 2-iron into the shrubbery over the 401 sign in center to tie the game. Un-freaking-believeable. David Bell followed with a double, and then, as if waking up from an afternoon nap, which he may have been, Robbie finally inserted Eischen, who intentionally walked Tomas Perez before immediately heading to the showers. I didn't watch any post-game interviews with Robinson, and far as the Philly and Washington papers are concerned he offered no explanation. Again, I think he just blew it.

The next three innings were a brilliant display of relief work by Chad Cordero and Sunny Kim of the Nats and for the Phils, Oogie Urbina, Daddy Wags, and surprise or surprise, Frenchie Cormier. Neither team got a man to third, until Todd Pratt singled David Bell there in the bottom of the twelfth with one out. Jason Michaels nearly ended the game with a fly to left, but it wasn't quite deep enough to send the slow-footed Bell. Charlie Manuel then went to end of the bench for Ramon Martinez, the spare part acquired from Detroit in the Polanco deal. Martinez took a strike and a ball, and then drove a fastball past the hobbling Vinny Castilla into left field for the game-winner and a joyous All-Star break Phillies clubhouse.

What does it all mean? We slayed the current first-place dragons at their own game, and they may be toppling down the standings in rapid fashion after the break. Or maybe the break is just what the Nats needed to recharge. Or maybe we're starting another roll. Or maybe we would have started a roll if the All-Star break hadn't intervened. Or maybe the Braves will stop toying with us all and win 30 of the next 35. I guess it doesn't mean anything. But it sure was nice to see that ball go into left field.

The standings at the break have the Nats in first by 2.5 over Atlanta (who has the wild card), 7 over Florida, 7.5 over us, and 8 over the Mets. We start up again on Thursday with a critical four-game set at home against Florida, and then three games apiece against the injury-riddled but still dangerous Dodgers and the NL West leading Padres. We need to win at least seven of ten to move up, and at least six (two vs. Florida) to stay where we are. Until then, ¡Viva Abreu!, ¡Viva Venezuela!

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.

WALK ON BY (YES, TWO DIONNE WARWICK REFERENCES IN A ROW)

More quick takes...

We just got back from McAfee Coliseum, where the A's rode nine walks to a 6-2 thumping of the hapless Seattle Ichiros. Since we are on vacation and can easily convince ourselves that the money we are spending doesn't really count, we bought the best seats available, which entitle the buyer to a seat in an indoor cafe with a spectacular view of the field, plus $10 off each for a meal, which admittedly was overpriced. Still, you can't beat it. You also get to sit out in the second deck nearby if you want to, which we did for the first four innings until we turned into nuclear mutants from the blazing sunshine. Did I mention it's been about 80-85 and sunny here every day, and not that sweaty, inside the crook of a Saint Bernard's armpit 80-85 degrees you get in Philly but a clear, dry, spectacular 80-85 degrees that makes you feel like an extra in Albert Brooks' "Defending Your Life"? No? Ok, I just did. Anyway, watching the Athletics in their beautiful, serviceable, and inexpensive ballpark systematically vivisect and devour Gil Meche with base on balls after base on balls, after recently watching the Phillies make him look like the second coming of Walter Johnson, only served to further strengthen the idea that I never want to go home, ever.

Ok, not very quick. But I had to get that out. I'll post some photos when I get home.

DO YOU KNOW THE WAY?

Quick takes...

Red Sox Series: Didn't see it. Didn't want to see it.

San Jose Norman Y. Mineta Airport: That's good. Name the airport after the guy who was Secretary of Transportation when 9/11 happened. That should inspire confidence.

FLYING THROUGH O'HARE...WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

I'm off tomorrow morning with the wife to the Bay Area for a week's vacation. We're bringing the laptop, and the place has wireless broadband, so at the very least I'll catch some games on MLB.TV, and I'll even sneak in an entry or two if I get tired of looking at the Monterey coastline and such. I'll also post some shots of the A's/Mariners tilt at McAfee Coliseum when I get back. Maybe I can get Mr. Overrated to sign my program!

CHECK-MET

Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. If you're going to swing at the first pitch, swing! Oh, well. You can't complain too much. We'd be swimming with the Devil Rays without Abreu.

The Phils dropped the game, 4-3, and the series, 2-1, to the recently foundering Metsies yesterday afternoon at the Park. Cory Lidle had another workmanlike effort, where he pitched his usual six-plus innings and gave up his usual four runs. Typically, the Phillies bats have been enough to win these kinds of games, especially at home, but yesterday they couldn't solve the normally very solvable Kaz Ishii. Kaz picked up only his second win of the season mainly by stymieing the big two, Abreu and Burrell. Thome took him deep, but neither Bobby nor Pat nor anyone else for that matter was on base at the time. Jason Michaels had a nice game, getting three hits and keeping the game alive in the ninth for Abreu to ultimately end it with his feeble check swing bouncer to the mound. Braden Looper saved it for New York, and despite what the WFAN idiots have been whining about, he's done a pretty good job, certainly against us.

Once again, Phillies pitchers could not manage to keep Jose Reyes off the bases. The Mets shortstop went 3-for-5 with a run scored and stole three bases. Is it bad execution of the game plan, or just a lack of a game plan? How can you give Reyes anything good to hit when he obviously will swing at anything? If there was one key to why we lost this series, Reyes' anomalous success may be it.

The Phillies fell to 13-20 vs. the NL East. Obviously, there will be no October baseball in Philadelphia if that winning percentage keeps up. The Spawn were blanked by Florida and T.F.N. were off, putting the division deficit to 3.5 games and leaving the wild card lead at a half-game. The Faithless meet the Faithful tonight as the World Champion Boston Red Sox drop by for the first of three. The Champs have won four straight, and nine of ten, although five of those nine wins came at home against the imploding Reds and the perpetually rebuilding Pirates. Knuckleballer Tim Wakefield takes on Jon Lieber in the opener. Now, for those going to the game, the Phillies fans seats are in the upper deck, last three rows. Try to not to disturb the Red Sox fans. They've paid good money for those tickets, and they've traveled all this way. Even when they start up with the "NINE-TEEN EIGHTY" chants, just look the other way.

AARON GO BOOM

I was right about the low run total, until Aaron Heilman came in. Up to that point, Robbie Tejeda had gone six innings only allowing one run, and Victor Zambrano had only allowed two runs. Ryan Madson had given up the tying run the top of the 7th to make it 2-2. Heilman is sort of Ryan Madson's opposite number on the Mets. Mets fans are clamoring to get him in the rotation, and he has a similar build and pitching style. Lefthander Royce Ring (not his porn name, as far as we know) started the bottom of the 7th by striking out Abreu and walking Thome. With the righthanded Pat Burrell coming up, Willie Randolph brought in Heilman. Then, basically, all hell broke loose. Heilman hit Burrell with his first pitch, allowed an RBI single to Chase Utley, struck out David Bell, allowed another RBI single to Mike Lieberthal, gave up an infield single to Jason Michaels, wild pitched in a run, and walked Jimmy Rollins. Now with three lefthanded hitters due up, Randolph mercifully pulled Heilman and inserted Korean lefty Dae-Sung Koo. Kenny Lofton timed a few fastballs and then slapped a double down the left field line to clear the bases to give the Phillies an 8-2 lead. Final numbers on Heilman: 1/3 IP, 3H, 5ER, 1BB. Omar Minaya will be accepting apologies from Mets fans on "Mike and the Mad Dog" later today.

Oogie started the 8th and had another rough outing, allowing a 2-run homer to Mike Piazza with two outs. When does Tim Worrell get back? Just kidding. Daddy Wags finished off the Mets in the 9th for a non-save and the 8-4 final.

You know, if Yukon Cornelius were allowed to only play the Phillies for 162 games a year, we'd be speculating about the size of his head and what he told the grand jury in the BALCO case. He hit roughly his 578th home run against the Phils last night, off Tejeda, who has pitched over 16 innings as a starter this year without allowing a run to anybody else.

It's a Lost Productivity Special at Citizens Bank Park this afternoon as Kaz "O-Ren" Ishii takes on Cory Lidle in the rubber game (The Rubber Game, starring Royce Ring!) of the series. Do you even have to ask if Washington and Atlanta won last night? The wild card lead is still a half-game, and the division deficit is still three games. In other news, Wolfie's third opinion was also to get cut, making it nearly certain that he will have the surgery and be out for a minimum of 14 months. Looks like a spot opened up on my Strat team for next season. Meanwhile down in Clearwater, Cole Hamels returned from breaking his hand in a bar fight to strike out eight and walk two in five dominating innings Tuesday. According to the Inquirer, Assistant GM Mike Arbuckle wants to get him 100 innings at A and AA, but if Tejeda craters, Padilla continues to miss starts, Floyd doesn't get it together, and Wade can't swing a deadline deal (if?) the Phils may have no option but to bring him up. Cole, if you must hang out down on South Street, lead with your right hand.

NEW YORK WIN IT

Of course I meant the Phils were off on Monday. Unfortunately, they played last night, and not well. Brett Myers was uncharacteristically atrocious, and all the usual Mets suspects (Yukon Cornelius, Piazza, Minky, Victor "Who Dat" Diaz) contributed to an 8-5 drubbing. Oogie turned a 1-run game into a 3-run game about as quickly as a Tom Cruise romance by giving up homers to Mientkiewicz and, of all people, Brian Daubach in a dismal 8th inning of "relief". The only highlight for the Phillies was their barely insufficient comeback from an early 5-1 deficit, which itself was highlighted by reliever Aaron Fultz's base hit and subsequent head first dive into home plate.

I think the most egregious example of Myers' and the bullpen's awfulness last night was their allowing leadoff mangler Jose Reyes, who entered the night with a .271 OBP, to reach base three times. He eventually scored twice, and was generally in the middle of every Mets rally. If Willie Randolph is going to put such an offensive liability in the no. 1 spot, you have to take advantage.

While T.F.N. also lost, the Atlanta Evil Spawn (A.E.S.?) won, tightening up the wild card race to a half-game. Robbie Tejeda tries to extend his unscored-upon streak as a starter tonight against Victor Zambrano. Zambrano has a 2.49 ERA in the month of June with no home runs allowed. I'd have to bet the under on this one.

LAST DANCE

The Phils are off today, so it's back to my usual off-season dreck.

Former Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of manslaughter today in Philadelphia, MS for the 1964 killing of three civil rights workers.

All I know is, this can't be helping Six Flags.

COASTAL EROSION

The weekend series with the A's was a chance wasted to pick up some ground on T.F.N. On Friday night, the Phils were more or less back to their home selves, chasing Barry Zito with a five-run seventh and coasting to a 6-1 victory behind the once-again stellar pitching of Robbie Tejeda and the lower rungs of the bullpen. On Saturday, though, they ran themselves out of several run-scoring opportunities en route to a 2-1 loss, and blew a 2-1 lead in the sixth on Sunday to lose 5-2. Jon Lieber lost the Sunday game, and continues to disappoint. He's not keeping the ball down consistently, and he gives up way too many homers. Did somebody just give Kevin Millwood a haircut and a shave and sew Lieber's name on his uniform?

Washington didn't fare much better on their West Coaster, going 3-3, but it was enough to extend their lead from 1.5 to 2.5 games. The Phils returned home last night and will face the Mets starting tomorrow, followed by, for some unknown reason, the Boston Red Sox. T.F.N. play the relentlessly mediocre Pittsburgh Pirates in Pittsburgh starting tonight before heading home to play their erstwhile Canadian rivals the Blue Jays. It looks like we're just going to have to beat Washington ourselves, much like we couldn't do for lo those many years against the Braves.

I hate to mention it this early, but we still maintain a 1.5 game lead over the Atlanta Evil Spawn for the N.L. wild card. While it's not the most advantageous place from which to embark on a playoff journey, the wild card has been popular recently for World Series champs. We'll definitely take it if we can get it.

The Blue Rocks were giving away Johnny Damon bobblehead dolls on Friday, but we arrived far too late to get one. Due to the crowd for the promotion, we ended up sitting in the upper boxes behind home plate, in the middle of a row of a mostly full section, uncomfortably wedged between an incredibly fidgety corporate outing in front of us, two 250-lb. guys who liked to spread themselves out to my right, a family with incessantly yapping teenagers behind us, and some people to my wife's left who didn't bother us but who we still wished weren't there so we'd have some room. The night was also kind of a downer because the Rocks' longtime PA announcer, Johnny McAdams, had passed away the night before. In addition to doing Blue Rocks' games, Johnny Mac was the PA voice of the Palestra, and he's the only PA announcer I've ever known at Frawley Stadium. They played the entire game without any public address during the game in his honor. Johnny Mac's voice was a rich baritone, as smooth as any I've ever heard at a big-league park. I'll especially miss "8 o'clock, Bulova Watch Time" and his signature call of the "The Wilmington Blue Rocks aaaaaaaaaaaand friends" at the beginning of the game when each of the Blue Rocks take their position with a kid from some local little league team. Thanks for everything, Johnny Mac, you'll be dearly missed.

EXTRA WINNINGS

Props to all of you who stayed up to watch the Phils 13-inning 3-2 win on the West Coast on a Thursday night, with "props" in this case meaning "Are you clinically insane?" But hey, a win is a win, any way you can get it. J-Roll kept the contract honeymoon period going with five hits and the winning run-scored. The bullpen, excepting Frenchie, was superb. Even Geoff Geary managed to pick up a win with two hitless innings.

T.F.N. (now with periods!) were off last night, meaning the Phillies deficit is now 2.5 games. Tonight's game is at McAfee Coliseum in Oakland. During the 7th inning stretch, the Jumbotron gets it's virus protection updated and reboots itself. It's quite a party atmosphere. Robbie Tejeda fills in for Wolfie for the first and possibly the last time against his Phan-hoped-for successor, Barry Zito. Zito's presence would certainly raise the attendance of South Philly's single female population at Citizens Bank Park, but I'm not sure what else good it would do. Besides, the surf off the Jersey Shore leaves a lot to be desired, and we already have more mediocre Italian-American singer/guitar players than we need (see Bon Jovi, Jon).

Speaking of McAfee Coliseum (motto: W32/Sober.p@MM is a low profiled virus. Would you like more information?), yours truly will be there in person on Thursday, June 30th, to take in an Athletics/Mariners day game My wife and I are taking a much anticipated vacation to the Bay Area starting next Saturday (maybe just in time for The Big One). Had I bothered to check a schedule, I would have tried to convince my wife to take the trip two weeks earlier. Of course, today is her birthday, and I'm not sure she would want to spend it watching the Phillies in Oakland. I probably made the right call.

We are watching some baseball on her birthday: the Wilmington Blue Rocks. Love that Mr. Celery.

COFFEE TALK

The Phillies leave town and turn back into...the Phillies. After another wretched offensive performance, the Phils find themselves three games back of TFN (see yesterday's post). Padilla allowed a leadoff homer to Mr. Overrated, and gave up what proved to be the winning run later in the first inning mainly because of a ball hit by Richie Sexson that Bobby Abreu so often has trouble with, a deep fly right at the wall. Bobby can never seem to figure out how to feel where the wall is while keeping his eyes on the baseball and then leap at just the right moment and in the right direction. Like last night, he always ends up distancing himself from the fence a few feet and making a desperate lunge in the general direction of the ball, seemingly with his eyes closed. You can understand his desire to protect his multi-million dollar body from crashing into a concrete barrier, but somebody has got to teach him how to make that play. It clanked off his glove for a double, sending Raul Ibanez to third, where he later scored on a Jeremy Reed sac fly. Padilla gave up another homer, to Randy Winn, and the M's tacked on the final two on a Mike Morse homer off Ryan Madson in the 8th for a 5-1 final.

Meanwhile, Ryan Drese, whom the Phillies clobbered so badly last week that he was put on waivers, combined with Chad Cordero for a 4-hit shutout of the Angels. TFN, indeed. We absolutely must win tonight's series finale. Brett Myers faces the awful-so-far Joel Pineiro. No more jet-lag or too many Double Ristretto Venti Nonfat Organic Chocolate Brownie Frappuccino Extra Hot with Foam and Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended* excuses. We need this one, guys.

*actual longest possible Starbucks order, as documented on the Internet, so it must be true.

(TOO) LATE SHOW

I hate West Coast swings. Stewart O'Nan, who co-wrote "Faithful" about last year's Red Sox, wrote proudly of staying up until 2 AM on work nights to watch the Old Town Team play Anaheim, Oakland and Seattle. It ain't happening here. I need about 10 hours sleep a night and usually only get seven or eight, and I'm not about to reduce that to 3 or 4 for the sake of this pissant blog. Maybe if Stephen King was co-writing and I had a big advance in my pocket, but that ain't happening either. As it was, the Phils scratched out three hits against the immortal Gil Meche and lost 3-1. Meanwhile, Those F*cking Nationals (trademark pending) won in Anaheim to extend their division lead to two games.

Randy Wolf is headed to Tommy John Country. Maybe he can borrow one of Octavio Dotel's "exceptionally long leg tendons". Both guys are on my Strat team, so you'd think one would help the other. Jeesh. Just when it looked like everything was sunny, a tornado rips off the roof.

The Padilla Flotilla sails tonight against former Red Sock Aaron Sele. Those F*cking Nationals have Rangers' castoff Ryan Drese facing Angels ace Bartolo Colon, so if we can get the bats going again, maybe we can get back to within a game.

My take on the J-Roll signing: Whatever. There isn't anything better in the Phillies price range at shortstop, and as others have noted, Jimmy appears to be at least consistently mediocre at the plate, and pretty good defensively, making the signing very low risk. Unless the Phils have designs on breaking the bank for a Tejada or a Jeter or (I just heard Dave Montgomery's aorta constrict all the way from here) an A-Rod, which is about as likely as J-Roll achieving a .900 OPS, they might as well lock him up. $8 million a year is chump change for a franchise swimming in Citizens Bank Park cash.

NEW ZOO REVUE

The Nationals lost. Finally! The start of their inevitable decline has begun.

Wolfie's hurt. Once again, it's the elbow that disabled him last year for the last month of the season. Robbie Tejeda will step in, but Wade had better get on the phone to move Ryan Howard for an arm, preferably one attached to a starting pitcher (you have to spell these things out for Ed). As with Oogie, even if it's not precisely the guy you want, you may prevent one of the other NL East teams from getting precisely who they want.

Let's talk Ichiro for a bit. I love to watch the guy, but the Wikipedia entry for overrated needs to have his photo. Maybe I'll do that later today, just to see how long it lasts. I love the Internet. Back to Ichiro. His VORP for the last three full seasons and so far in 2005 are listed below:

Year	VORP	Rank Among Right Fielders	Rank Overall
2002	44.6	8th	56th
2003	39.3	12th	70th
2004	80.9	4th	9th
2005	12.8	12th	90th

Compare that to Bobby Abreu:

Year	VORP	Rank Among Right Fielders	Rank Overall
2002	70.4	3rd	18th
2003	53.3	4th	34th
2004	83.8	2nd	7th
2005	39.9	1st	3rd

Now, who should really be getting a ZOOperstar? Bobby outperformed Ichiro in each year of this comparison, often by an embarrassing amount, and yet Ichiro gets to wear his first name on his jersey, gets followed around by a horde of press, and is celebrated wherever he goes. They're both foreign and can barely speak English. Neither one is particularly eloquent in their native language, as far as I can tell. Bobby even had a Miss Universe girlfriend before she cheated on him on Venezuelan reality TV. So what's the deal? Ok, Ichiro has a (insert gun cliche here) for an arm, and he's often spectacular in the field while Bobby sometimes looks slightly inebriated, but still, this comparison is almost laughable in terms of who helps his team win more. And as the PTI guys like to quote Herm Edwards, "We play to win the game."

The ZOOperstars would like to welcome Bobby Crab-reu!

WIE ARE THE WORLD

Just a few quick words. Very, very busy today.

The Phils completed yet another series sweep. The Brewers went down by scores of 5-2 on a David Bell bell-ringer in the 9th, 7-5 behind a strong Randy Wolf outing and some late power from Mr. Burrell, and 6-2 on Cory Lidle's sixth win. I'm not sure what else can be said. This is a team playing at the highest level right now, at least offensively. The damn Nationals are really starting to piss me off. While we win 12 of 13, they win 10 straight. F*ck those rat bastards. I'll say it one more time: they have to collapse eventually. Whimper.

Non-baseball-wise, I saw Michelle Wie on Saturday down at Bulle Rock. She can play a little. I saw her back up a wedge shot on #2 about 15 feet to within a foot of the cup. I've only ever seen male players do that before. She made Julie Inskter stop flapping her yap about Michelle's sponsor exemption by finishing second to Annika. Michelle doesn't quite have Annika's machine-like approach yet, but she has 19 more years to catch up. She's also way too timid at this point. She laid up on #2 from only 205 yards out, which is about a 4 iron for her. Of course, she stuck the wedge on her third shot, so what do I know.

We also caught Judith Owen down in Wilmington at the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival at Rodney Square on Sunday. She wasn't really in her element, but it was a good time nonetheless. It had to be difficult for a freckly-faced Welsh girl to try to win over a bunch of hot, sweaty, mostly small-city jazz enthusiasts with her brand of piano-driven pop music. They had a beautiful grand piano set up for her, which she gratefully acknowledged, and she had her bassist from the Tin Angel show playing stand-up bass as accompaniment. She mostly reprised the Tin Angel show, although it was significantly shorter due to her cross-country travel arrangements, or so she said. I bought her CD and got her to sign it for me this time. She urged me to come to her next area show at World Cafe Live in Philly. That's a fantastic venue. I hope she brings Harry along.

TEXAS SWEEP 'EM

I've been spending most of the last 12 hours berating myself for being so far off on last night's final score. How could I have predicted 10-9? What was I thinking?

So, it was 10-8. Oh well. Nobody's perfect. The Rangers bats did in fact come to life. Dellucci led off the game with a dinger, and Teixeira hit two. Even Mark De Rosa got in on the fun. Fortunately, we kept hitting our singles, doubles and a triple in addition to two homers from Burrell, and one each from Pratt and Thome. Padilla struggled again, and Urbina was horrendous, but Geary and Cormier chipped in some good innings for a change, and Wags did his thing. Ho-hum, another series sweep.

I thought the beanball incidents were handled well by Jerry Crawford. Padilla may or may not have been throwing at Teixeira, who had already taken him deep twice, but to issue a warning to both benches at that point would have deprived the Rangers their opportunity to retaliate in kind. As it was, Michael Tejera plunked Abreu in the arm, the warnings were issued, and the situation was defused. Too many times I've seen the warnings go out after the first hit batsman, and the aggrieved party ends up exacting revenge with a hard takeout slide or a plate collision, which only escalates the potential for injury, or they carry over the dispute to the next game or even a series several months later. Of course, the latter can't happen between these two teams, but I still think it's better to let the players police themselves whenever possible.

The Brew Crew round out the 13 game home stand, starting with Brett Myers vs. Victor Santos. Santos has received deplorable run support lately. In five of his last six starts, the Brewers have scored 2, 0, 2, 1 and 1 runs, losing each game. The only win among those losses was against the putrid Colorado Rockies. Let's hope Milwaukee keeps it going. Wolfie takes on fellow lefty Doug Davis on Saturday, and Lidle faces Big Bad Ben Sheets on Sunday afternoon.

I'll be at Bulle Rock in Maryland to check out the LPGA tournament this weekend. I attended annually when it was at the DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, and Michelle Wie is playing, so I don't want to miss that. We'll also we seeing the wondrous Judith Owen again, this time for free at Rodney Square in Wilmington on Sunday. I won't be able to watch it, but I'll be rooting for Afleet Alex in the Belmont. I think they're still playing the NBA Finals, too, although ABC would just as soon show repeats of "Desperate Housewives", or even "According To Jim" at this point.

U-R-B-I-N-A SPELLS RELIEF

I'm kind of busy today so I'll make it quick. Nice trade, Ed. No, I actually mean it. I give it an A-. Ugie nicely fills our biggest hole, Utley will be playing full time, and we got a bench player to replace Polanco. Now, if Ed had managed to get a bench player who could hit, the deal would be an A+, but we can't always get what we want. Ramon Martinez will suffice for now, unless one of our starters gets hurt. But that's what Ryan Howard is for.

Great 2-0 win last night, as well. I had a feeling Tejeda would be good, but five shutout innings blew away all expectations. As with most Wednesdays, I missed the bulk of this game. It doesn't look like much happened. I see Madson and Wags threw another three innings. Hope you got a good night sleep at Abreu's house last night, Ugie.

We're now in second all alone after losses by New York and Atlanta. Padilla takes on Astacio tonight as we go for the sweep. Look for the Rangers bats to awaken. This could be a 10-9 game. Come on Oakland, show some professionalism and beat the Nationals!

THEY DON'T LIKE MIKE

The Rangers had their fun last night, belting three impressive-looking homers, but the Phils' steady samba beat of singles and doubles (and one Abreu blast) allowed them to prevail by an 8-5 score. The Phillies jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the second. Thome lashed a hard single to center, and Utley drove a double into right field to put runners on second and third. Polanco followed with a liner that tipped off losing starter Ryan Drese's glove, which SS Michael Young tried unsuccessfully to barehand. The ball ended up in short left field, scoring Thome and Utley. Lieberthal reached on an infield hit to second base, and after Lieber whiffed on 3 bunt attempts, Rollins skied one to right center. Lieby forgot that there was only one out and was doubled off. This started a night of Lieberthal-hating that has seemingly been pent up in Phillies fans. I'm not sure exactly why. As someone has noted, Lieby is second in the NL in catcher VORP, or Value Over Replacement Player, which is a cumulative measure of the value of a given player relative to a "replacement-level" player at that position, who is essentially someone you could sign off waivers or out of Triple-A. What it means is, we can't really do much better.

The Phillies added more in the 3rd, on singles by Abreu and Burrell, a walk to Thome, a fielder's choice by Utley, and a single by Polanco. Buck Showalter, once derisively referred to as "the guy who invented the game" by Ozzie Guillen, decided to pitch to Lieberthal instead of putting him on to face Lieber. Lieberthal responded against new pitcher Joaquin Benoit with a two-out hit to score the third run of the inning to make it 5-0. Then the Rangers woke up. In the fourth, Hank Blalock hit a laser beam into the right field stands with a man on, and after a Kevin Mench walk, catcher Rod Barajas homered deep to left center beyond the 385 sign on a Lieber crush-me slider to make it 5-4.

Benoit retired the final 10 hitters to face him before he was relieved by lefty Ron Mahay after a curious move in the top of the 7th. Alfonso Soriano, who had been held out of the lineup with a bad hammy, pinch-hit for Benoit and singled, and Showalter brought in Mahay, his next relief pitcher, to pinch run. I don't think I've ever seen that in all my years of watching baseball. Maybe Buck did invent the game. Mahay was quickly forced at second to end the inning, and then only retired one of the six batters he faced in the bottom of the inning to help give the Phils a four-run cushion. It could have been more but wasn't thanks to boo-magnet Lieberthal, who hit a weak tapper to the mound with the bases loaded. Everybody's second favorite object of derision, Charlie Manuel, then heard it from the crowd when he let Rheal Cormier (third favorite, if you're counting) hit for himself with the bases still loaded and the lead only 8-4. Frenchie weakly struck out, of course, drawing more vitriol from the crowd. I'd hate to hear what it would have been like if we were losing.

As if to validate the catcalls, Cormier went out to start the 8th and gave up an instant home run to Michael Young which barely left the ground. He got the next two batters before Ryan Madson finished off Kevin Mench. Wags walked Mark De Rosa with two outs in the ninth, but struck out Andres Torres to preserve his 15th save.

Everybody else in the NL East won except for Florida, which dropped them into last place by a full game behind us. As I mentioned yesterday, tonight's game looks like a strategic give-away. Instead of pushing Myers to pitch on 3 days rest, we're throwing Robbie Tejeda. It'll be a good test of the roll we're on if we can somehow scrape out a win. Who knows, maybe Tejeda has what Gavin Floyd didn't. He was 2-0 with a 2.22 ERA in 5 starts at S/WB.

RANGERS IN THE NIGHT

Back in last place, and it only took one loss. This is going to be an emotionally draining summer.

Cory Lidle was pounded hard and early by the D'Backs, who put up seven runs in the first two innings. I was forced to watch most of it on the ESPN.com GameCast. Those little blinking dots are no substitute for Harry Kalas, but one does what one must. Lidle made it through three innings before Geoff "White Flag" Geary came in. He allowed a homer to Jose Cruz, Jr.in the 5th, and his successor Aaron Fultz gave up what would be the deciding runs in the 7th, the last of which was driven in by relief pitcher Lance Cormier, who is no relation to Rheal nor would he want to claim to be right now. To their credit, the Phils battled back into the game, scoring three in the fifth on a Burrell double and an Utley sac fly, and four more in the bottom of the ninth on a Rollins double, and singles by Lofton and Utley. Last-man-off-the-bench Todd Pratt left the tying runs on base by succumbing to a 2-2 fastball from Javier Lopez to leave the final score at 10-8. This leaves us at 30-28, tied with Florida at 1.5 behind the confounding Nationals, who have to tank pretty soon, don't they? Please? If I keep saying it, it has to happen.

Interleague plays beckons again. We get the AL West this year, starting tonight with the frightening lumber of the Texas Rangers. It sure would be nice to see the "keep the ball down" Jon Lieber we were promised when he was signed. Otherwise, there could be some sore arms in the bleachers from throwing all those home run balls back. The Rangers have four players (Soriano, Texiera, Hidalgo, and Mench) in double figures in HR's, with Hank Blalock and platoon outfielder Dave Dellucci sitting at nine. It looks like we're going to avoid the methusalan Kenny Rogers and his sub-2.00 ERA, but we will see the 6'10" Princeton grad Chris Young, who is sporting a 3.02 ERA and a 5-2 record, in game 2. That game looks like a sacrificial lamb, since we have Robbie Tejeda making his first major league start, occasioned by the rainout Friday night. Sorry about that. Padilla goes to the hill in game 3 against Pedro Astacio, who I seem to recall gives us fits from his days as a Met (well, not fits necessarily, but he did beat us twice in 2002).

Somebody beat the Nats!

SNAKE CHARMING

It did continue to rain on Friday, but Padilla took his turn anyway. The D'Backs are only in town this one time, so the teams and the league were forced to schedule a twi-night twin bill on Saturday. Vicente gave up an early run on a Tony Clark homer in the second. As Paris Hilton would say, he's hot. George Steinbrenner is asking, "Where was that in the ALCS last year?" Abreu answered in the third with a two-run shot off Javier Vazquez, who Steinbrenner saw pitch a lot like this last year. The Phils exploded for six runs in the fourth on, among many other hits, Abreu's second homer of the game, effectively putting the game away if not for the continued entertainment value provided by the bullpen. Robbie Tejeda is looking more Adams-like every time out. The Snakes had the tying run at the plate at one one point before Frenchie Cormier got Jose Cruz. Jr. to ground into a rally killing DP to end the 8th. The game 1 final was 10-6, with Jim Thome adding an upper deck homer and Lieberthal singling in a run to complete the Phillies scoring.

The nightcap pitted ace Brett Myers vs. Russ Ortiz, a guy who normally takes four hours to pitch a game, walks about 15, and somehow manages to beat the Phillies almost every time. It goes to the strength of the roll the Phils are on that none of that happened. Maybe it's because Ortiz is not a Brave anymore. The D'Backs got on the board early again on a Luis Gonzalez RBI single. Myers was laboring, looking very Ortiz-like, but he was able to strike out Troy Glaus, and then, after a wild pitch and a Shawn Green walk, Jose Cruz, Jr. and Chad Tracy to wriggle out of the bases-loaded predicament. The Phils tied it on only one hit, a single to center by Polanco after a leadoff walk by Lofton (Rollins was being rested). A couple of fielders choice's later, the game was even at 1-1.

Both pitchers settled down until the 5th, when Alex Cintron and Luis Gonzalez hit back-to-back solo homers off Myers. Myers was out of gas after six, so Charlie Manuel sent up Endy Chavez to hit for him to lead off the bottom of the sixth trailing 3-1. Ortiz was still in there, having retired 15 straight, and more amazingly, walking none since the first inning. Chavez started off the inning with a single, and then scored on Kenny Lofton's triple on one hop off the 365 sign in left center. Placido Polanco even more amazingly, followed with a go-ahead homer, only his second of the year, and suddenly, it was 4-3 Phils. Ryan Madson, who had been spared any game 1 duty, barely, came on to pitch two scoreless innings, and just to prove the first homer wasn't a fluke, Polanco hit another one, this time off the Javier Lopez who didn't use to demoralize us in Atlanta. Billy Wagner came on in the 9th, and the D'Backs killed their own rally by trying a double steal with two outs. Todd Pratt fired to second to get the trail runner Luis Gonzalez by five feet. Thank you very much. The final was 5-3, completing the doubleheader sweep and moving the Phils to 2 games over .500.

Yesterday, my wife and I attended a Wilmington Blue Rocks game in lieu of me napping in front of the HDTV. It was a little warm out there, finally. The best part was that it was "The Dog Days Of Summer", and people brought their pooches to the park. We had a massive German Shepherd at the end of our row, and a little brown poodle named Amber was shading herself under the seats in front of us. The Salem Avalanche players came to the fence and were loving on the puppies, too. The Rocks went out and played like dogs, surrendering an early 2-0 lead and losing 3-2. Rocks manager Dann Bilardello has a very un-Theo like approach to the game that he'll have to straighten out if he wants to make it to the big club. He sent a runner home with one out on a short looper to right. As we know, the Red Sox like to play it station to station unless Damon or someone else reasonably fast is running. Of course, the runner was cut down easily. Later, Dann ordered his cleanup hitter to sacrifice. No thanks, please, we're Moneyball. That move didn't work either, by the way, resulting in a meek pop-up. Get with it, Dann.

As for the Phillies, they sprinted out to another quick lead, 6-0 this time. Mike Lieberthal got the break of the day when his double off the wall was ruled a home run after Charlie Manuel gave the umpires a grounds rules refresher, which only served to help them blow the call. Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin was ejected, and for good reason, since that ended up being the winning run. The Snakes chipped away at the lead against Randy Wolf and the bullpen, especially the bullpen. Our pal Cormier gave up Luis Gonzalez' 300th home run in the 8th to make it 6-5. Pat Burrell hit a bomb in the bottom of the 8th for a 7-5 lead, and Wags held on to barely get the save after giving up an RBI single to who else, Tony Clark, in the 9th for a 7-6 final.

This afternoon's series finale has Cory Lidle facing their putative ace, Brandon Webb. When the NL East merry-go-round stopped Sunday night after the Mets doubleheader with the Giants, your Washington Nationals (?) are now in first place, a half-game better than Atlanta. We're tied with the Mets at 30-27, a game out in third place, and the Florida Marlins (!) are in last place, having lost 8 of 10. I love this. Any team can go 8-2 and take a 3 game lead, or go 2-8 and wind up in dead last. I'd love it more if we keep winning 8 of 10 for a while, and the Braves would lose 8 of 10, of course. Looks like I picked the right year to start blogging the Phillies.

BROOM, BROOM, BROOM!!!

How sweep it is! Sweeping Beauty! How Sweep is my valley? Ok, that's enough. The Phillies managed something they hadn't done all year, take every game of a series, last night against the Giants. It was shaky behind the always interesting pitching of Jon Lieber, but they held on.

The Phils took a quick 4-0 lead in the second on an Utley double, a Lieberthal single and egregious throwing error by Jason Ellison, a near homer by Lieber off the 398 sign in right center, and a for-real homer by J-Roll just inside the right field foul pole. Lieber gave that lead right back with a two out rally including back-to-back homers by J.T. Snow and Moises "Urine Good Hands" Alou. The Phils then quickly regained the lead in the third with a two-run bases-loaded wounded duck into short right field by David Bell. The Giants added a late run in the seventh off Rheal Cormier, who still hasn't got the "improved bullpen" memo. Daddy Wags closed out the 6-5 win with a 1-2-3 ninth. Back to .500. And thanks to a late comeback by the Nats, the entire NL East is now within 2.5 games of the lead.

It's June 3rd, and it may be early, but we are in what is known in baseball circles as a "pennant race". It's an alien concept in these parts, but I've seen them before, and they can be quite exhilarating. This is a particularly good one, involving five nearly indistinguishable and variously flawed teams. The Braves bullpen is a mess, the Marlins just lost 7 of 8 and are getting no production from Mike Lowell (yet) and Al Leiter is terrible, the Mets have weak pitching after Pedro, and the Nats are playing way over their heads. Despite our problems, which have been excruciatingly documented here, we've won 10 of the last 15 and have the only thing resembling momentum in the division, plus a favorable schedule. Now, Rheal, did you get the memo? I'll just forward you another copy, mmm-kay? Thaaanks. (that was my Lumbergh impression, in case you weren't aware).

Try as they might to shelter him and his 7+ ERA from Major League hitters, the Phils are forced to send Vicente Padilla to the hill tonight against the D'Backs Javier Vazquez. On the surface it doesn't look promising, but we're on a roll, and this is as good a time as any to see if Padilla can get it together. The good news is, it's raining. Keep raining! And CBP grounds crew, whatever you do, don't do this!

CHASE AND THE GIANT HIT, PART II

Damn! Why do all the good games happen on Wednesday? I have "a prior commitment" (which has nothing to do with the oft-injured Cubs pitcher) most Wednesdays, and I am usually unable to catch the entire game. I'm really sorry I missed most of last night's strange tilt with the Giants. Is there any better phrase in the English language than "pinch-hit Grand Slam"? There are probably a few, and of course, it really sucks when you're the slamee, but still, when you're a follower of the team that hits one, life is good.

I did catch Scott Graham and Chris Wheeler on WDEL for the first two innings while I was in the car. Wheels pulled a typical Wheels jinx move when he mentioned, not once but twice, that Cory Lidle has not given up a home run to a lefty this year. I thought, "Oh great. The ball will be flying out of the park in bunches tonight." Amazingly this didn't happen, but about everything else did. The Giants started things with a couple of cheap runs when pitcher Kirk Rueter slapped a two-out single up the middle with the bases loaded, and Jason Ellison followed with another single to left. Pat Burrell cut down Mike Matheny, who Marion Jones could outrun even after she stopped taking steroids and while pregnant, at the plate to end the threat. So far not too unusual, but the night was young. In the Phils half of the third, Jim Thome was ejected, for the first time as a Phillie, for arguing balls and strikes with plate umpire Paul Schrieber. I guess I was right when I said he wouldn't get cranking on a monster June last night, but that's not what I meant. Thome later had a run-in with a defenseless water cooler as he exited the premises, which seemed to fire up the Phillies.

The Phils took a 3-2 lead in the 4th on an RBI double by Lieberthal, an RBI triple by J-Roll, and an RBI single by Polanco. Tomas Perez, filling in for Thome, popped up with the bases loaded to end the inning, but his time would come. The Giants regained the lead in the 6th with a 2-run triple by Alfonzo followed by a double by Matheny to make it 5-3. Rollins led off the bottom of the 6th off new pitcher Jeff Fassero with a single, and advanced to second on a Polanco infield hit. Abreu then singled to left, and Pedro Feliz gunned down Rollins trying to score. Just when it looked like a promising inning was falling apart, Tomas took his cue and dribbled a bases-loaded single into center field to tie the game at 5-5.

The Phillies took the lead in the 7th on one of the bigger plays on a night of big plays. J-Mike and Lieberthal led off the inning with singles, and Endy Chavez came on to pinch-bunt, which he did successfully to advance the runners, With the Giants infield playing in and the outfield playing deep, Rollins hit a routine fly to short left that Feliz charged at full speed and reached for just as it neared the turf. The ball appeared to hit Feliz' glove and stick, but the second-base umpire Andy Fletcher immediately called it a trap, which allowed Michaels to score. This was the second time in two nights the Phils caught a break on an outfield play. In game 1, Lofton clearly trapped a ball that was called a catch, which saved at least one early Giants run. Giants manager Felipe Alou had seen more than he could stand, and carried on long enough to get tossed. The Giants immediately re-tied the game at 6-6 in the top of the 8th off Ryan Madson. Jason Ellison hit a one-out nubber to Perez with runners on first and third, which Perez tried to fire home. His throw was off-balance and the ball ended up short-hopping Lieby, several steps too late. Madson regrouped and got Vizquel to bounce into a 6-3 double play to end the inning and preserve the tie.

The Giants decided to go with newly acquired LaTroy Hawkins to start the 8th. As a Cub last month, Hawkins speared a liner and then hit Jose Offerman in the head as he tried to scamper back to first, allowing two runs to score for a 3-2 Phillies win. Until last night, that was by far the strangest game the Phillies had played all season. LaTroy got right to work outdoing himself, ceding a single to Burrell and a walk to Perez, followed by a sac bunt by Bell and another walk, this one intentional, to Michaels. Lieberthal hit a line drive to second for the second out, bringing up the pitcher's spot. Either by chance or by using a heretofore unwitnessed foresight, Charlie Manuel had one hitter left on his bench (other than backup catcher Todd Pratt): Chase Utley. The Giants had lefty Jason Christiansen in their pen, but he had pitched the previous night and presumably was unavailable. Possibly Alou might have brought him anyway, but Felipe wasn't around anymore, so they stuck with Hawkins. On a 1-1 count, Hawkins delivered a slider down and in, which was probably an even worse location than Jose Offerman's helmet. Utley hit what we would call in the engineering field a "quasi-linear parabola" into the third row, invoking that mellifluous phrase mentioned above. Billy Wagner cleaned up the 9th for his second straight non-save.

The Phils are now one game under .500. Naturally, the Braves won, so we're still 3.5 out, but it beats being 4.5 out. At the risk of pulling a Wheels, the Phillies look pretty good right now. The bullpen is improving without Adams and Worrell dragging it down, the starters are doing fine, especially since we keep skipping Padilla's turn, and you can't argue with last night's 19 hits. We're getting breaks, clutch hits, and Thome is 1-0 vs. water coolers in the month of June (Hey Baseball Prospectus, let's see the historical numbers on that).

Tonight it's Brad Hennessy vs. erstwhile ace Jon Lieber. I saw Hennessy first hand last month in Houston, and he didn't impress much. Craig Biggio took him deep twice, and it was only the Astros' otherwise complete lack of hitting ability and four fielding errors that kept the Giants in the game. Still, a series sweep has eluded the Phillies all year. Tonight would be as good a time as any for the first one.

CHASE AND THE GIANT HIT

As Comcast Sportsnet pointed out last night, the Phillies are playing their NL West doppelgangers this week. The Giants stats and record are eerily similar to ours. The biggest difference is that the Padres are streaking right now and the Giants are several more games back than we are. The other major difference is that the Giants had played nine more home games than the Phils coming into last night.

Brett Tomko, who once pitched a 1-walk, 27-batter no-hitter for my Strat team, faced Randy Wolf in game 1 last night at the Park. Tomko struggled with his control from the outset, issuing walks in each of the first three innings. It wasn't until the 3rd that the Phils finally capitalized. Wolfie led off with a double off the scoreboard in right, and was sacrificed to third by J-Roll. Lofton, playing on his 38th birthday and defying pretty much everyone, including me, who said he was too old five years ago, drove in Wolf with a line single to center for a 1-0 lead. Abreu and Thome followed with walks, setting up a bases loaded situation for Burrell, who apparently no longer thrives under these conditions as he once did. Pat popped up to Lance Niekro at first base, seemingly deflating any chances for a big inning for the Phils. The next batter, Chase Utley, immediately got down 0-2, before fouling off a few high fastballs and basically looking lost. Then Tomko dropped a slider off the plate and down, and Utley, in what was last night's best hitting performance, somehow slapped it into center field to score Lofton and Abreu to make it 3-0. Tomko must have been royally pissed that he let that inning get away, and probably more than a little impressed with Utley, as was everyone who saw that hit.

Wolfie, meanwhile, was also struggling a bit, including a couple of early walks and a hit batsman, but he always managed to escape his self-made jams without allowing any runs. Manuel lifted him in favor of Ryan Madson in the 7th to face Moises Alou with a man on and two outs. I haven't read the full scoop on this, but I'm guessing it was a combination of pitch count, fatigue, and the fact that the Giants had their right-handed cleanup hitter up. In any event, Mad Dog did his job getting the game to Wagner in the ninth. Thankfully, the Phils tacked on a couple of runs in the 8th, because Wags gave up yet another home run, this one to rookie Jason Ellison. The Phils managed to hang on for a 5-2 win, and are now 3.5 games out following losses by Florida and Atlanta. The NL East is tighter than (insert Dan Ratherism here).

I'm getting really worried about Billy Wagner. I keep saying that, but this time I mean it. He once could spot his 99 MPH heater, but now it inevitably ends up right on the barrel of the hitter's bat. He's publicly disavowed using his slider, so unless he comes up with another off-speed pitch, unlikely from a guy who has mentioned retiring after the season, he has nowhere else to turn.

I'm letting up on the "Do Something, Ed" watch. Outrighting Terry "I Hear Scranton Has A Pretty Good School System" Adams and giving Robinson Tejeda a shot at some meaningful work has been enough so far to halt the precipitous slide of the bullpen. Still, it sure would be nice to unload Ryan Howard, who will never play as long as Thome is around, and break up the Utley/Polanco/Bell playing time mess in favor of a reliable young reliever and maybe some help for the farm system. I've heard some folks mention that the A's would love Howard and his potentially sweet OPS, and they have a young catcher, Daric Barton, who they might part with. They also have a deep bullpen we could poach from with the right combination of players. Then again, knowing Wade and having read "Moneyball", the chances Ed won't get fleeced by Billy Beane are pretty remote.

Soft-tossing lefty Kirk Rueter takes on Cory Lidle in the Park tonight. Thome has had some monster Junes in the past (9 and 15 HR's so far as a Phillie), but Rueter is very tough on lefties, so he probably won't get cranking tonight.

SITH SENSE

Once again, we'll do a brief review, this time of the Phillies successful but not quite successful enough weekend series against the Braves. The Phils hung a 4-spot on John Smoltz in game 1, then coasted home for a 5-1 win behind Cory Lidle, Rheal Cormier, and Billy Wagner. That had to be the easiest win over the Braves I've ever seen. Atlanta scored a run in the first, and never really challenged after that.

Game 2 was a 12-5 laugher, but only after the Phils exploded for 5 runs in the ninth. Jason Michaels was the star, making a superb diving catch and hitting a 3-run homer to put the game away. Jon Lieber was shaky, but he managed to stay in long enough to get the victory. Just as I had written, Robinson Tejeda was brought into a still undecided game to relieve Lieber, and retired the side in order. So far, so good.

Until game 3. The Phillies took a 2-1 lead into the fifth, and appeared poised to get the sweep with ace Brett Myers firing darts. Then the Braves woke up. After two quick singles, Ryan "Islets of" Langerhans hit a two-run triple to give the Braves a lead they would never relinquish. Tejeda came in in the 7th and gave up his first three runs of the season in the 8th to give the Braves a 7-2 win.

The Phillies have managed to negotiate the last 12 games vs. first or second place teams with a 7-5 record. Now, if they could have played as well against the other teams, they would be in first place themselves, but it never seems to work out that way. We're still 5 games out, still in last place, but this stretch gives us a smidgen of hope. The Braves and Marlins are not great teams, and neither appear to be capable of winning 100 games. This division can be won with a sustained run of good baseball, and with the schedule turning in our favor, the time is now.

Elsewhere in my chronologically challenged life, we went to see Revenge Of The Sith. My one-phrase review: Eh. To expand on that, the second half of the film, where Palpatine has been exposed as Darth Sidious, was excellent. It was fascinating watching Anakin slowly turn into Darth Vader, and to see all the other plot elements fall into alignment for Episode IV. Prior to that, the movie was unrelentingly dull. I think the main problem with Eps I, II, and the first half of III is that there is no established villain, at least not one who is nearly as scary as Vader, who you already know is coming. Count Dooku? Are you kidding me? I mean, the name alone sounds like a waste product. General Grievous is a droid for crying out loud. Like a droid is going to defeat a Jedi. Oh, sorry, I went over-nerd there. And the casting of Natalie Portman has got to be the biggest movie mistake since John Travolta discovered Scientology. Still, I'm glad I saw it, as if my social abilities gave me any choice.

Hope you're having some cold ones with your Navy buddies, Dad.

HANDS ON

Ok, this was posted 9 minutes ago on Yahoo, but I still won't be the first to come up with this joke:

So, some Viagra users are going blind? I guess, unlike Cialis users, they weren't waiting for the right moment.

BIG SLEEP

The Phillies had a day off last night. I went to bed at 7:30 PM. God, I'm old.

I guess I should use today's entry to reflect on the state of the Phillies, but I'm not on Xanax yet, and I don't want to start. Today is Day #3 of the "Do Something, Ed" watch. As Tom suggested in the Moral Imperatives, that something could be to either get fired or quit. In fact, I would prefer that to be the something. Maybe Ruben Amaro, Jr. has half a brain in his head. Heaven forbid Dave Montgomery goes out and hires a Moneyball disciple. Theo Epstein only won the World Series after numerous other GM's failed for 86 years, and we wouldn't want that. Then we'd have to put up bunting around the stadium and plan a parade and all that other profligacy that we just can't afford because we are a small-market team after all. So, so small.

Cory Lidle stepped up to replace Vicente Padilla in the rotation tonight against Big Bad Smoltz. I haven't heard as to why just yet, other than the obvious fact that Padilla stinks right now, and the day off made it Lidle's turn day-wise. I wonder if Madson's available, or if Manuel will try out Robinson Tejeda in high-risk situations. Tejeda has gone 5-plus without allowing a run, which is a hell of a lot better than Geoff Geary or Rheal Cormier. Again, you wouldn't want to go with young relievers who are cheap and effective when you have old geezers available on whom you lavished long-term contracts worth several million dollars. I'm getting Wade's Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Managing General Partner Bamboozlers down pat.

NORTH TO ATLANTA

Hey, we won one! I missed most of it of course. I was listening on the radio in the car up until the rain delay, and then I turned it off. I didn't tune back in until the sixth inning when Wolfie almost blew the 8-2 lead. Poor Ryan Madson's right arm is going to fall off and enter the Overuse Protection Program pretty soon. You can't really blame Charlie. Mad Dog is the only guy out there with a semblance of effectiveness other than Wags. It was nice to see J-Roll have a good night. He's been killing us in the leadoff spot with his OBP hovering around .300. Thome also got off the interstate with three hits. Thanks to Al Leiter for showing up for work last night. I think his broadcasting career may start sooner rather than later.

I've decided this is Day 2 of the "Do Something, Ed!" Watch. I'm not even counting Marlon Byrd for Endy Chavez, unless Chavez develops a nasty breaking pitch. The options are there, Eddy boy. Ryan Howard is option number one. You obviously aren't going to play him, so it's imperative that you turn him into a middle reliever or setup guy who can eat innings and keep Madson away from the Andrews Clinic. Get cracking!

On to Chipper-ville after a day off. Oh brother, Padilla vs. Smoltz. I'll have to plan to miss that one.

BILLY, YOU WEREN'T A HERO

Ugh. It's never fun when your closer blows a save, and this one was less fun than usual. Brett Myers was cruising along with a 2-hit shutout when he came out for the eighth inning of a 3-0 game. Apparently, from the paper this morning, Charlie Manuel never intended him to pitch in the eighth, instead using him as a decoy to force the Marlins to announce lefty pinch hitter Lenny Harris so that Manuel could bring in the lefty Rheal Cormier, which would cause the Marlins to have to burn Harris and insert a right-handed hitter. Myers, according again to the paper, had told Manuel he was gassed because of the hot Florida weather. I was pretty pissed at the time, but if the guy is done, he's done. Unfortunately, Charlie was stuck with Cormier, who gave up a single to pinch-hitter Joe Dillon and a double to another pinch-hitter, Jeff Conine. With his nightly botching completed, Cormier exited in favor of Ryan Madson. Madson allowed both runners to score, but did at least finish the inning with the Phillies still ahead 3-2. That's one of the many differences between the Marlins and the Phillies. The Phils in that situation score maybe one of those two runners, if they get a break.

The Phils went quietly in their half of the ninth, and on came Billy Wagner. Wags was throwing Dade County heat, registering 101 MPH on the Doplhins Stadium gun a few times, and dispatched the first two hitters, setting up a confrontation with Damion Easley. Easley has pretty much bumped Luis Castillo out of his starting job, which Castillo had held for years until a recent injury. He's always had some pop, although he peaked out at an .810 OPS in 1998. Nevertheless, if you throw him a 99 MPH fastball belt high right over the plate, he knows what to do with it. Billy did. And Damion did. Tie game. Yikes. Billy got Alex Gonzalez to end the inning, and the game went to extra torture, I mean extra innings.

Once again, the Phillies failed to mount a rally against the Florida bullpen, and Amaury Telemaco was brought in to pitch the 10th. Telly had been called up to replace the execrable Terry Adams, who had been outrighted earlier in the day. Now we know why Adams had hung around so long. Telemaco gave up a leadoff single to Joe Dillon, who had stayed in on a double switch. He managed to retire Jeff Conine and Paul Lo Duca, forcing Manuel to bring in lefty Aaron Fultz to face Carlos Delgado, who is fast becoming a Phillie nemesis of the Chipper and Cornelius Floyd variety. Delgado promptly belted another two-out blast, this one to the deepest part of the park in center, scoring Dillon and giving the Marlins the 4-3 win.

What more is there to say about the Phillies bullpen, and Wade's handling thereof? It literally cannot get any worse. The Phils have the worst bullpen ERA in the major leagues. The worst. Finally, Wade's asinine policy of signing 38-year-old relievers to lucrative long-term contracts has bitten him in the ass hugely. Tim Worrell is a mental case of some sort, Cormier can't even get lefties out, and Terry Adams was so bad even Wade had to fire him. There is plenty of cheap, effective relief talent available every off-season, but somehow, Wade always feels the need to hire guys who remember the lyrics to Queen and Supertramp songs. Then there's Wagner. He started out pretty strong, but he's getting more and more hittable every game he enters, and if he goes over the edge, we're looking at 100 losses easy. Maybe it's time to make some radical changes. Ryan Howard can be dealt for relief help today. The same is also true with either Gavin Floyd or Vicente Padilla, although you wouldn't get much for either right now. Placido Polanco or David Bell are certainly guys who might get you a decent reliever. Come on, Ed, do something! We're 7.5 back and fading fast. Maybe Ed is waiting for the July 31st trading deadline to...oh yeah, never mind.

TRAIN-ING DAY

So much for the Jon Lieber renaissance. Everything was looking good until the sixth inning, when pitcher Dontrelle Willis inside-outed a one-out single past David Bell down the left field line. Über-pest Juan Pierre, very high on the most-hated list headed by Chipper, followed with a slap hit past Bell through the hole (Bell should have had this one, but he alligator-armed it for some reason). Then the Phils got one of those breaks that usually foretell happy endings. Paul Lo Duca hit a swinging bunt up the first base line which Lieber pounced on and fired to first. The ball hit Lo Duca in the helmet and caromed down the right field line, allowing Willis to score. Immediately, home plate umpire Eric Cooper called interference on Lo Duca, who went into a fit of apoplexy, apparently unaware of the rule stating that the batter-runner must stay in foul territory while running to first. Replays showed that he was clearly in fair territory the entire time, even touching the grass as he got closer to the bag. This made it two outs with runners still on first and second for Carlos Delgado. Chris Wheeler, who was doing play-by-play on Comcast Sportsnet at the time, mentioned that the Phillies were not out of the woods yet. Sometimes, even most times, I wish Wheels would keep his rampant pessimism to himself. Delgado proceeded to take a wayward cut fastball deep into the right field seats for a 3-1 Marlins lead. Miguel Cabrera followed by mashing a first pitch breaking ball at light speed over the Teal Monster to make it 4-1. Terry "We're Throwing In The Towel" Adams, or "The Bearded Hemorrhage" as Dennis Deitch of the Delaware County Daily Times calls him, came in to allow his usual run in the 7th. Bob Abreu stayed hot with an RBI single in the 8th, but there would be no comeback against the D Train, now 9-1 and steaming toward a Cy Young award. Final: 5-2 Fish.

Last night's loss drops the Phillies to 6.5 games back, with two more to play in Dolphins Stadium, followed by three in Atlanta. This would be a good week for Jim Thome to get hot, but last night's pinch-hitting attempt doesn't bode well. Coming up in the 7th as the tying run with two outs, Thome was utterly baffled by Dontrelle's breaking stuff, and struck out looking. I guess I don't understand why if he's not likely to do well enough against Willis to start him and give him four at-bats, you would elect to pinch-hit him in a critical situation against the same pitcher. That's our Charlie: counter-intuitive to the point of utter bafflement, and not in a good way.

Tonight, Brett Myers, who would be in the Cy Young race himself if the Phillies were any good, faces Josh Beckett. The Phillies hit Beckett hard earlier this month at Citizen's Bank, which would be encouraging were it not for Beckett's 0.62 home ERA, with ZERO homers allowed and .167 batting average against. Hey Wheels, chew on those numbers!

BEYOND ELEVEN

Let's just do a quick recap of the week. I was unbelieveably busy all week and could not find time to blog.

Tuesday, May 17th - Cory Lidle manages to beat the Cards 7-5 despite five Phillies miscues, three by David Bell

Wednesday, May 18th - Jon Lieber gets clobbered again as the Cardinals win 8-4. Come on, Jon, we really need you.

Thursday, May 19th - Brett Myers, the true team ace, gets win number four as the Phils prevail 7-4. The Phillies score one run in seven different innings.

Friday, May 20th - Interleague play begins in Camden Yards. The Phillies bash the Birds 9-3. Wolfie lowers his May ERA to 2.77.

Saturday, May 21st - The Phils can't solve Eric Bedard and lose 7-0. Vicente Padilla is now 1-5 with a 7.04 ERA. Paging Gavin Floyd? He's 1-4 with a 7.66 ERA at S/WB. Maybe not.

Sunday, May 22nd - Lidle throws a complete game in a 7-2 victory. The Phillies are very sorry to leave Camden Yards.

For the 2005 Phillies, this was an auspicious stretch. They went 4-2, won both series, scored 34 runs, and aside from Padilla, Lieber, and Terry "Please Release Me, Let Me Go" Adams, pitched pretty well. Philadelphia is now 21-24, 5.5 games behind the Marlins, whom they meet for a three-game set starting tonight. Discouragingly, Jim Thome is now hitting .195 with one home run, and it's nearly June. Clearly, this situation has to improve rapidly if the Phillies have any chance this season. And we have to get rid of Adams. He's a three-run rally with ears.

In other news, on Saturday night, my wife and I attended a show by the inimitable Welsh chanteuse Judith Owen and her husband, the omni-talented Harry Shearer, of Simpsons voice-over and Spinal Tap's bassist Derek Smalls fame. The show was at the Tin Angel, on 2nd Street in Olde City. As my wife and I walked into the club, and back out again, we instantly went from the oldest people on the street to the youngest people in the room and vice versa. Second Street was thick with 20-somethings dressed for, it would seem, imminent sexual congress. The Tin Angel itself is an exceedingly long and narrow space on the second floor of the restaurant Serrano. We stood in a line on the stairs waiting to get in while a stout gentlemen at the door went in and out checking to see if the sound check was over. On one of his sojourns outside the door, he made a point to complain about Judith's behavior. Nice. As we sat down, my wife was greeted with a table having the adhesive qualities of a roach motel, only not as appetizing. Why I was expecting more out of musical performance venues in Philadelphia I'll never know. Undeterred, I ordered a fully caffeinated cappuccino in order to keep my aging self awake through the 10:30 show and the drive home.

Finally, Judith and her backup duo took the stage at about 10:45. She mentioned something about the "Non-COMM", which I found out later was a convention for public radio stations that she and Harry had attended that day at the University of Pennsylvania, and then went right into her rendition of Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water". She played most of her new album, interspersing her songs with witty commentary about the Welsh in general, Tom Jones in particular, Beverly Hills cosmetic surgery queens, her impossible husband, her impossible self, the unfortunate souls who had to navigate right past the stage to get to the bathrooms, and the ventilation fan above her that kept blowing in her face periodically. Harry, who sat on a stool in the audience along a sidebar during most of the show and was only mildly harassed for autographs by Simpsons dweebs, came on stage as a backup baritone on the Michael Jackson inspired number "Famous Friends". He then took over for about 10 minutes while Judith took a breather, doing bits from his "Le Show" program, including the hilarious song sung from Barbara Walters point-of-view called "82 Facelifts".

The night belonged squarely to Judith, however. Her songs, most of which she wrote herself, and a few which are covers of contemporary classics such as Sting's "Walking On The Moon", are sung with a jazz-inspired pop style that can only be described as unique, with her strong yet sweet voice punctuated with frequent staccato elongated vowel phrasings. She played her Yamaha keyboard with an effortless virtuousity, and percussionist Jeff Brownlee and bassist Sean Hurley, whom she described as "her hunks", were first-rate as well. The between-song interludes were always funny and often mesmerizing as she exerted her considerable will over the audience. The 40-50 patrons called her out for two encores. For the first encore, she came out and said, "I thought you lot didn't want me to come back out, and I was saying 'Those fuckers!', but now I love you." For the second encore, she sang the England homage "Blighty" from her 2003 album "12 Arrows", and then told us all (a la Tracey Ullman), to "Go home!", which we did, thoroughly entertained and feeling lucky to be part of this intimate group amidst the horny rabble on the street below. Now if they can give our table a good steam cleaning and stop dissing the talent, the Tin Angel will really have something.