DEJECTION, EJECTION, AND REJECTION (POST 8/25/10)

August 25, 2010 · philliesmania · Jump to comments

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PHILLIES LOSE A WACKY 16 INNING DUEL WITH THE LISTLESS ASTROS ………

5 Game in 6 DAYS THEY SCORE 2 RUNS OR LESS!

ANOTHER WASTED GREAT START BY COLE HAMELS ……….

BRAVES LOSE AGAIN AND PHILLIES DO NOT CASH IN ……..

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It’s 2:47 am on Wednesday 8/25/2010. I left my house at 3:28 pm on Tuesday 8/24/2010 to go to Citizen’s Bank Park to enjoy a night watching my favorite sport and my favorite team!

Surely with Cole Hamels going against Bud “who is that” Norris and it being Carlos Ruiz Bobble Head night the Phillies would win. How could they possibly have another choke of a night after scoring 2 runs or less in 4 of the previous 5 games. That is not possible right? Oh not so fast my friends.

This is the return of the team who got shut out of Citi Field in June and dropped a comfortable lead in the NL EAST to the Braves and were in 3rd place for a bit. Of course the Mets did their annual plummet out from in front of the Phillies but the Phillies are still looking up at the Braves.

Oddly enough I must go to work in like 10 minutes! So I am going to just post a few quick thoughts and first reactions:

Before we even mention the men in blue let us reflect again on how pathetic of an effort this was as a potent offensive line up. There is no excuse for a team of this talent to not score more than 2 runs in a game in 5 out of 6 games
Again let us consider we were facing Bud Norris! Yes of the famous Norris baseball family. Bud has done as much in pro baseball as Chuck Norris has as a Texas Ranger. Really 5 hits and 1 run off of Bud Norris? Oh and let me remind you that Bud walked a few Phillies to give us opportunity enough to score a run or 2 more!
Hamels looked great again. Other than a ball he elevated to Hunter Pence who lasered beamed a liner for a hit and then a bad location pitch also elevated to Carlos Lee, Hamels was very good. He deserved the win!
The bullpen was very good also. Pitching from the 8th thru the 16th and only giving up the 2 final runs to the Astros in the 16th.
Jimmy Rollins game tying HR in the bottom of the 9th was awesome!
Herndon was in his 3rd inning when he sort of imploded which is his M-O as far as I have seen. He has been good in 1 inning roles consistently, so so in 2 innings stints and not good when he is asked to go 3. That said both runs were scored without a ball leaving the infield!
Did not agree with Charlie’s decisions to have Lidge in the 9th. Game tie I and thinking of winning I would have given the ball to Contreras. But that said he goes Lidge, Contreras, Madson, and then Baez. Baez did very well and did not throw many pitches and has not thrown many in a long time. Mostly because he stinks but ………….. with only Herndon left in the pen Manuel should have let Baez go at least 1 more. All of this is hindsight of course.
The Howard fiasco was building all night. No one wants to say it but he look clueless at the plate and you can’t tell me that did not feed the fire. The balls and strikes started consistent through the first 6 innings but then Home plate Ump got erratic and unpredictable and that was making everybody ancy and frustrated.
The 14th inning blow up was an embarrassment to umpiring in this respect. Be a man about your call and do not mock a player. Also you should restrain from tossing a guy in that scenario. You knew the Phillies had no bench left!
I do not absolve Howard though. I am probably the only one but he has to shoulder just as much blame. First of all both pitches he checked his swing at were atrociously bad pitches. One was in the dirt! He had no business even thinking about swinging at either one of them. You get called on a swing you have to remember you were the one who started the sequence!
Howard has to know the situation, he already knew the guy was mocking him. He should have just went back to the dugout and took it like a professional. He put his team in the situation to play Roy Oswalt in left and Ibanez at first. That wasn’t the Umpire Ryan who made you throw your helmet and bat like that. Should you have been thrown out? Probably not, but it would have never happened if you would have sucked it up and complained loudly at the press conference!
I knew Oswalt was going to be the guy who came in the game. For starters he is a great athlete and ironically this game was against his former team!
Watching Oswalt field the first fly was bizarrely awesome! And I was saying from the time Howard got ejected that Oswalt would get an at bat with the game on the line. I have seen too much baseball not to call that one.
Repeat: Howard should have foreseen the same thing I did.
Howard’s blow up was even stranger. At one point another Umpire was helping restrain Howard. How is that professional? Players should not touch umps and umps should not touch players! Regardless of intent I might add!

Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	PC-ST	ERA
C Hamels	7.0	5	2	2	1	8	1	101-72	3.47
J Romero	0.1	1	0	0	0	1	0	7-4	3.86
C Durbin	1.2	0	0	0	1	0	0	21-11	3.71
B Lidge	1.0	0	0	0	0	2	0	14-9	3.86
J Contreras	1.0	2	0	0	0	0	0	15-11	3.35
R Madson	1.0	2	0	0	0	1	0	27-19	3.48
D Baez	1.0	0	0	0	0	1	0	16-10	5.14
D Herndon (L, 1-3)	3.0	3	2	2	2	2	0	50-31	4.57

Hitters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	#P	AVG	OBP	SLG
J Rollins SS	7	1	1	1	1	1	35	.249	.336	.387
P Polanco 3B	6	0	2	0	2	0	34	.317	.352	.419
C Utley 2B	6	0	2	0	2	2	39	.274	.381	.449
R Howard 1B	7	0	0	0	0	5	33	.284	.346	.509
R Oswalt LF	1	0	0	0	0	0	5	.150	.190	.150
J Werth RF	7	1	2	0	0	2	26	.301	.391	.519
R Ibanez LF-1B	6	0	2	1	1	0	27	.264	.348	.428
S Victorino CF	4	0	1	0	3	1	27	.253	.316	.435
C Ruiz C	5	0	0	0	1	1	29	.291	.385	.435
D Herndon P	1	0	0	0	0	1	4	.000	.000	.000
C Hamels P	2	0	0	0	0	0	11	.151	.151	.189
a-D Brown PH	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.239	.240	.413
b-B Francisco PH	1	0	0	0	0	0	3	.252	.323	.415
J Romero P	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000
C Durbin P	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000
c-M Sweeney PH	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	.235	.316	.265
B Lidge P	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000
J Contreras P	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000
d-W Valdez PH	1	0	0	0	0	0	4	.244	.277	.350
R Madson P	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000
D Baez P	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000
B Schneider C	2	0	0	0	0	0	4	.214	.306	.357