Monday, August 22, 2011

COULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN?

The LSF does not like heat and humidity - not even a little bit. While watching the Phillies today, I noticed that Roy Halladay was sweating like a whore in church in the first inning - the inning where he gave up two runs to the Nats. If my memory serves me correctly, he has been having his problems in the early innings during these dog days of summer. Should we be concerned? The heat and humidity affects me a great deal, but I am not being paid a gazillion dollars a year to be "the best pitcher in baseball."

The other thing I noticed is that the Phillies are having a lot of trouble beating the Nationals. What's with that? Oh, I know that they have been playing shorthanded with a bunch of guys hurt and all that, but they were certainly able to overcome all the trouble during their recent ten game winning streak. Should we be concerned?

Last year at this time the Phillies trailed the Braves by seven games. As we know, they were able to go on a tear and wound up winning the division. The Braves won today. Should I be concerned? For those who have been gulping down the Red Kool Aid , how do you feel now? Are you concerned? The Gods Of Baseball could be making their move right about now, and they may want to see the Braves do to the Phillies what the Phillies did to them last season.

I know that some of you are thinking that the rain delay hurt us, since Doc could only go five innings and that he had settled down by the time the tarps were brought out. Didn't the Nats have to deal with the same rain delay? The Phillies left six men on base today, and the Nats took advantage of their opportunity in the tenth. Once again, a look at the box score will show a lack of clutch hitting by certain overpaid players. The drama continues.

I have no issue with Ruiz, Utley, or Victorino - and even give a small kudo to Ibanez who found a way to score two runs. Subway's spokesperson, the Moat Man gave us an unproductive one for five, but he only struck out once. Yippee.

The Phillies pitching was consistent in that all four of the pitchers used by Charlie gave up at least one run.

The Phillies still have plenty of time remaining in the season to either get their act together or to give us the greatest collapse since the 1964 edition of the team. Let's take a quick trip on the Wayback Machine. I'll set the controls so that we arrive at Connie Mack Stadium on September 21, 1964 and will arrange to have tickets to that day's game against the second place Reds left at the box office for us.

The Phillies had returned to the greatest city in the world from the west coast the night before. They returned home holding a six-and-a-half game lead over the Reds with twelve games left to play.

Art Mahaffey was on the mound for the Candystripers that day facing journeyman John Tsitouris. The game was scoreless in the top of the seventh inning when the Reds' Chico Ruiz got a hit and managed to get to third base with two outs. As Mahaffey went into his wind up, Ruiz broke for home. He should have been out by twenty feet, but Mahaffey threw a wild pitch. Ruiz scored and the Reds went on to win the game 1-0. The Phils were swept by the Reds, then by the Braves, and finally by the Cardinals. Our fair haired boys ran off a ten game losing streak before winning the final two games of the season. By then it was too late. The Cardinals won the pennant and went to the World Series. This city was in a state of mass depression. The team had been given permission to print tickets for the Series and many fans had already received theirs when the season ended.

Before you find me and call me all kinds of names, I am not predicting the same ending for this years edition. The 2011 staff is much better than the tandem of Bunning and Short, and should not have to endure a ten game losing streak - unless The Baseball Gods decree that it should be so.

Just do yourselves a favor. Put the fucking Kool Aid on the shelf and wait until they have actually won something.

Not much else on my mind except to hope that I don't have to hear Charlie say "We have to do better".

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