Just let your soul glow

With Pedro Martinez, the last, best hope for the jhericurl, set to make his home debut for the Phillies tonight against the Diamondbacks, there are only two things I can think about: finding myself some Soul Glo and finding the Phillies a closer who isn't on the wrong side of his deal with the devil. We'll get down to the latter in a moment, but first, I need a moment to fix my hair...


The Brad Lidge situation, sadly, is a bit trickier than my 'do. Brett Myers appeared to many of us, myself included, to be the most likely savior. But then, of course, we remembered he was Brett Myers coming off not only hip surgery but any number of the following: his 4-year old son's fastball, his 4-year old son's toys, his own drunken buffoonery, and/or a bar fight involving his friend which he definitely witnessed but appears to have not taken part in. So, until I see him prove otherwise on the mound, Brett Myers is out of the running. But let me be the first to make the case, right now, for the Phillies to sign him as a free agent closer this offseason. We'll need one.

The next most logical option would probably be to give either Pedro or JA Happ a shot, depending on which of them you choose for a 4-man playoff rotation. But of course, neither of them has the singular out pitch you want in a closer, and neither has closed any time even close to as recently as Myers' stint in 2007 and won't get much of an audition before a potential playoff matchup.

Which leaves, as far as I can tell, three options: closer by committee, which is essentially like forfeiting in the playoffs (just ask Grady Little); calling up a young, unknown arm in the mold of K-Rod with the 2002 Angels and David Price last year with the Rays, which is slightly more appealing but still obviously dicey and not remotely in line with the Phils' philosophy concerning their upper tier young pitchers; and turning to the most reliable arm in the Phillies' 2009 bullpen. I can't believe I'm saying it, but I think the Phillies need to take a cue from Pedro and let their Seoul glow. It's time for Chan Ho Park to get a couple weeks' audition in the closer's role.

To put it quite simply, Chan Ho has earned it: in 37 innings as a reliever in 2009, over 26 appearances, Park has posted a 2.68 ERA, a better than 5:1 strikeout to walk ratio (41 K vs. 8 BB) and held opposing hitters to a staggering .277 slugging pct. To put that in perspective, Carlos Ruiz is slugging nearly 100 points better than batters who have faced Chan Ho coming out of the pen this year. More importantly, over Lidge's last 37 innings, dating back to April 23, opponents are slugging .524 off of him. Which is actually a bit better than his season total. Given the demotion Chan Ho accepted with poise and class earlier this season (coughMoyer'sabitteroldmancough), it's only right that he gets the opportunity to replace someone who he is clearly outperforming. If only for the purposes of giving Lidge a couple of weeks to go figure out who left the lights on and how he can turn them back out, and giving themselves a better idea of what exactly their options are as the season winds down and, hopefully, they move on into October. Time isn't gonna get any better for experimenting as the end draws nearer. Click me for the rest!

And people call us crass...

Needless to say, I fucking loved this shit. Kudos to the700level for the link, and to Chase for channeling the thought every Phan has had since Wednesday night and screaming it on the biggest stage possible. Now that he's done it twice, I can officially call him Chase "Fuck"ley:
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It ain't a cliche to me. I've waited my whole life for this blog post.

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You think I was in a silly mood last week?

Six hours till first pitch. The best pitcher I've watched in a Phillies uniform on the mound. It ends tonight. Click me for the rest!

One more win

It's still surreal to me, which is why I'm so happy to have an indelible record of so much of this postseason run. I may well forego live-blogging tomorrow night in favor of being able to watch the game in Philly with Radnor, because it just has to be that way. But this could very well be the last night of something I've known for as long as I can remember. And as much as I tend to resist change, I'm not the slightest bit apprehensive about this one. Here's hoping the Phils aren't either. Cole takes the mound tonight looking to stake his claim to the greatest postseason a starting pitcher has ever had. Jimmy leads off tonight looking to make good on his promise to Larry Bowa to put the mark on CBP that Bowa and his Phillies left on the vet. 27 outs from a night we've all waited for for far too long. Click me for the rest!

I feel obligated to post about the Phils

But the truth is, there's nothing left for me to say about this team except for one thing: win or lose, the 2008 Phillies are the best team to play in Philadelphia in my life. If they can play .500 ball over six games, they'll be World Champions, but their performance on this stage, even if only for one game, trumps anything any of the other teams have done. If they don't finish the job, it will be because Tampa comes back and proves they're even better, because as of now, there is no doubting of the Phillies left to be done. They're not perfect, but they're good enough to win a World Series. That's a feeling I'm just not accustomed to feeling. Why can't us? Click me for the rest!

God I love the internet...

Not that it's surprising, but the Flyin Hawaiian is as pumped as I am, and it does make me truly giddy to read it. Game day is here, baby. Come on back around noon tomorrow for a link to my World Series preview at examiner. Until then, one more silly song for my silly mood:
Click me for the rest!

"They're like characters in a Springsteen song..."

This article offers up easily the funniest and most accurate description I can remember of the Phillies fan. Who'd have thought it would come from the Wall Street Journal? Kudos, as always, to the700level for finding it first. Click me for the rest!

Because I like being funny more than I like being analytical

And "why can't us?" is as valid a take on the World Series as any other. Click me for the rest!

I smile when I think about it...

It's been over 24 hours now since it became reality, and I cannot deny, it's still hitting me. It probably doesn't hurt that I'm listening to WIP, but even just hangin out with Michelle, watching Heroes earlier, my thoughts would drift away for a few minutes, and eventually, I'd remember, and I wouldn't be able to help but have a giant grin on my face. The Phils are in the World fucking Series. It's unbelievable, and it was worth every bit of the wait. This week is going to be unbearably slow, but it's gonna be a great week, too. I'm gonna do my best to savor the slowness, to cherish the anticipation, because that's usually the best part. Every heartbreaking loss, every embarassing loss, every devastating injury, every star player who ran himself out of town, it's all been leading us back to this, and it makes this all the sweeter. If the Rays manage to bounce back from tonight's epic, epic fail and give us one final shot at dignity before the phanbase is forced to just bend over and call the city of Tampa daddy, the tidbit I'm about to mention will probably be one of the angles played up most in this series: the last time the Phils did this, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were still two years from being awarded as an expansion franchise. In fact, until literally this year, the most notable thing the Rays had ever done was trade Bobby Abreu to the Phillies for Kevin Stocker on expansion draft day. Click me for the rest!

Nothing is fucked? The goddamn plane has crashed into the mountains!

Well, kiddos, the mother of all fucking catastrophes is about to strike the city of Philadelphia. With the Phils holding a commanding 3-1 lead in the NLCS, the city of brotherly love's thoughts have started to shift forward to the World Series. Lo and behold, Mayor Michael Nutter is reportedly considering making the same ridiculous mistake this city has been making for 15 years. He's thinking about putting the jersey on William Penn. I don't even know what else to say, except that this clearly cannot be allowed to happen. I need game plans, folks, how the fuck are we going to stop this from occurring?

edit: nothing is fucked. The mayor's office issued a form letter and some dude from Modell's is on WIP swearing there will be no dressing up of William Penn. Now back to regular programming. Click me for the rest!

What a long, strange trip it's been

As I do my best to make the hours between now and NLCS game 2 pass quickly, I'm finding it very hard not to think about where these Phillies have been to get in this position. I've read stories about these teams from every angle except for the one that Phillies fans have lived for the last decade. There are stories about Black Friday, and stories about 1993, and a fucking boatload of stories about Manny and Torre and their date with destiny and the Red Sox...who haven't even played ALCS game 1 yet! But I've never seen a story about the journey these Phils have gone on together. Whereas the Dodgers, replete with young talent as they may be, are the picture of building a team with cold hard cash, the Phils are as home grown a team as you'll find in baseball.

Jimmy Rollins
Chase Utley
Ryan Howard
Pat Burrell
Cole Hamels
Brett Myers
Ryan Madson
Carlos Ruiz
JA Happ
Chris Coste

That's nearly half of the Phillies' NLCS roster, and every one of them came through the Phillies' minor league system. It's also the team's 4 best position players, top 2 starting pitchers primary setup man. Shane Victorino was a rule 5 draft pick from the Dodgers, but didn't even get his 73 non-Phils Major League at bats with L.A., he got them with San Diego in 2003 when they made him a rule 5 pick. So Shane-o is essentially a career Phillie. Jayson Werth was signed off the scrap heap after a promising rookie year and two seasons lost to injury with the Dodgers. He, like Shane, came to the Phils unproven and earned his pinstripes. The team's only true major acquisitions from the outside are Jamie Moyer and Brad Lidge...Moyer, who they got after the trade deadline in 2006, having dealt away Bobby Abreu and immediately vindicating all those who said his malaise had been even more damaging than Larry Bowa's fits of rage. Is Jamie Moyer an important acquisition? No doubt about it. Watch a Cole or Brett start and count how many shots you get in the dugout of Jamie Moyer teaching. Immeasurable. And I don't even need to speak of Brad Lidge's importance to this team. But even his acquisition, having been riddled by injuries and banished to the 8th inning in Houston, came at the cost of two of the team's highest rated prospects in Michael Bourn and Mike Costanzo.

The next biggest acquisition on the roster? It's a toss up between Greg Dobbs, Pedro Feliz, and JC Romero. So it's no exaggeration to say the vast majority of this team's important players learned to win together, as a team. They came up together, struggled together, stood up for each other when they got into ridiculous media battles with departed closers (see ya in 2010, Billy.) That's the story I want to read. The one about how Pat Burrell was branded the savior when the Phils drafted him in 1998 to replace JD Drew who had been branded the savior and never signed the year before. And how he got rushed to the majors and it almost worked but then the league figured out he had never learned how to hit and started pitching around his swing. I want to read about how Jimmy Rollins had to answer questions about being a "leadoff hitter" the way Donovan McNabb had to answer questions about being a "pocket quarterback" and went on to win an MVP batting leadoff and hitting .290. Whatever. Few more wins and Joe Buck's not gonna have Hollywood to adore anymore.


...To anyone who might ask, this just felt more appropriate here than on examiner. Plus I wanted to say fuckin boatload. Click me for the rest!

Because the Phillies are in the motherfrakking NLCS baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I was dead wrong about starting Cole on short rest. My reverse jinx powers in the NLDS were unreal. Click me for the rest!

So here I am, it's in my hands, and I'll savor every moment of this

So, I don't know if you've heard, but it was pretty damn sunny in Philadelphia yesterday, perhaps all part of a grand marketing scheme in advance of this thursday? But never did the light shine brighter than during the nightcap of yesterday's doubleheader between the Phils and the Broomed Crew, as Brett became the first pitcher since my namesake and fellow southpaw Andy Pettite to throw a complete game on 3 days rest. And he did it in 95 pitches. He was essentially one Prince Fielder home run or one Astro hit from splitting national headlines with Zambrano today, but this ain't about bein a rock star and the end result is all the same. Somehow, by the grace of the baseball gods, the Phils have reclaimed control over their playoff fate. Would it be nice to win the East? Of course. But the wild card is now theirs to lose, and there are no two ways about it.

The schedule includes but three more games against a team which can even be described as mediocre, and 9 against Atlanta and Washington. There is simply no excuse for letting the Brewers, who play 6 more games against the Cubs, finish out the schedule with a better record. Don't even get me started about the disgrace it would be if Ed Wade, Randy Wolf, Geoff Geary, Michael Bourn, no Carlos Lee and the rest of the Rastros come from 2 games back. 150 games in, this team has the opportunity to make the Great Drought of '08 a distant, forgotten memory. It has the opportunity to make the 8th inning's metamorphosis from Mr. Tom's Wild but ultimately pretty effective Ride into the DurMadson Triangle nothing more than a post script to the story of what was, ultimately, a wild ride back to the postseason. The only things standing in the way are themselves, and 12 games with teams with a 200-248 combined record and nothing to play for, but nothing to lose. I'm officially out of the prognosticating business, because it's a total no-win from here on out...plus I have no idea what to expect.
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You gotta...bereave?

I'd like to have something witty to say about the topic but the truth is it really just makes me queasy. This Phillies team, to put it quite simply, is not a playoff team. And it's not for lack of pitching staff, because this pitching staff is still better than it was a year ago, despite today's 8th inning meltdown -- which, by the way, is as easily fixed as Charlie accepting the fact that Durbin NEVER strands inherited runners. He's had a great year, and while he may be tiring, the truth of his recent woes is that he's been asked to be this bullpen's fire extinguisher and he's got an arm full of kerosene. Either get Brett out of the game, or at least go to the pen before the runner is on 3rd, but Durbin just doesn't react well to being brought in with his back against the wall. -- and it's not for lack of offensive talent, because even in what has been considered a significantly "down" year for the Phillies offense, they lead the NL in homers and rank among the league leaders in runs scored. This team will fall short, and in fact really has already sealed that fate with 16 games to play, because they lack the heart which their 2007 counterparts practically OD'd on. I'm pretty sure his name was Aaron Rowand, and I know he would never have let them spend so long going through the motions the way they have lately. They put on a damn good facade for the most part this year, but the grit just isn't there. The most glaring instances of it have been in games like the one they played Tuesday against the Marlins. Take a team's best shot square on the chin, get back up, and knock them the fuck out. That was the way of the 2007 Phillies, the team we saw for a couple hours about 2 weeks ago against the Mets. But in 2008, when the other team gets up from the Phils' best shot, when things inevitably get intense and the baseball suddenly gets played at a much higher level than what leads to the sorts of slugfests in question, the Phillies fold like a house of cards. They abandon the one play at a time mentality which allows them to fight out of a 9-1 deficit and start trying to do it all at once. And inevitably, fail miserably. Not miserably for them, they've maintained an impressive malaise throughout both the highs and lows of this infinitely compelling season, but miserably for those of us who have come to know it best. I never expected to wonder about the heart of this group of guys again, but I guess that's what happens when a team loses the only champion among its ranks, it loses the mentality of a championship ballclub. My only real hope, and there's documented proof of it a few times on this here blog, is that the one hallmark of the 2008 Phils is that every time they look ready to phulphill my profesy of a phade, they beat someone better than them. Click me for the rest!

Each time you smile, it'll only last a while...Life may be scary, but it's only temporary...Everything in life is only for now.

So, it's official...I'm a derelict blogger. But with no one reading, I hardly think it's a crime. Sadly, the most notable things in my life lately have been the 904 bug bites I'm sporting on my lower right leg, thanks to the astoundingly brilliant combination of Paramore, Central Park, shorts, sandals, and, because she was incredibly annoying in addition to continually leaning back into me, forcing said right leg to get tucked back under the row of bleacher on which I sat, the rather large high school girl in front of me and her two competitively slutty friends. Fuck you all.

I've also finally really started the process of writing my Senior Project/Thesis/whatever you wanna calla 30-40 page paper on essentially anything media studies related. And by started the process of writing, I mean I attended my first meeting (of 7 total) of the seminar whose lone assignment is a semester-long research paper which eventually compiles to about 30-40 pages but must be delivered in many increments before then or else an A paper can get at best a 55 or so. I think my topic, which is due in a week and must eventually be boiled down to a single thesis question, is essentially "What Makes Media Independent?" with, hopefully, the most significant changes to be made to the wording of the question, and not the spirit of it. There's definitely enough there for me, given the amount of literature review required and the ridiculously vast amount of literature on media ownership, and, as a natural byproduct, independent media, and it's definitely a topic I can really dig into, and with any damn luck at all, maybe just have something compelling to say about it.

I felt like I got into a really nice groove writing papers last fall/spring which seemed to always come around to a decent point even when I had no fucking clue what I wanted to say while I was writing them. So hopefully, I can knock one more out of the park, boost my final official bullshit GPA a little more with an A, and finally complete a damn degree of some kind (damn you for costing me an IB diploma, Petrovic. The run of the mill one really feels illegit to me.) In other news, there are some sweet-ass brand name band aids (officially the greatest new tongue twister of the 21st century) with neosporinesque (neologism! score!) antibiotic ointment on them which are currently plastered all over my foot/ankle. Other than sometimes getting a little gooey, they're quite helpful.

Running out of transitional phrases here, those Phlailin Phils have their last best chance yet to come, with 7 games of their next 10 against the 2 teams they're chasing, the Mets and Milwaukee. I predict a 3-4 record and a phairly quiet phinal phade.

Fuck transitional phrases. I'm going to see Ben Folds con Orchestra and Beth(orchestra with ben, who beth and i will be seeing together, for clarity's sake. Not that Beth shouldn't be performing with Ben and an orchestra. Also, I should be linking her name to her blog...but I not sure how spell it.) in Philly on Saturday, which should be quite awesome.

And finally...I still have no job. But at least I'm seeing a couple old friends in the next few days. I'm still convinced that's really the most meaningful thing there is. It's now 2:32 as I wrap this up, proofread, and begin the interminable search for THE song lyric which sums up how I feel. Over/Under at 2:55 AM for clicking publish.

Okay seriously Apple, stop being so cognizant. Whilst I had music ADD and looked for a song which wasn't so sleepy for my lyric (at 2:37), iTunes, shuffling (not party shuffling, for true blind randomness) my entire library, has just given me THREE songs in a row with lullabye in the title (lullabye by Ben Folds Five, lullabye for wayne by Weezer, and lullabye by Billy Joel). It's not bedtime for me until 4. Any time earlier than that that i choose to go to bed, barring morning obligations, is my choice, and it's not yours to influence, Mr. Jobs. Your team of slaves is clearly picking my shuffle music for me somewhere in a bunker somewhere, thus creating the strangely cognizant abilities of itunes and ipods and iphones, and they wanna go to bed. Too bad. Don't make 24-hour devices if they're gonna not only spy on me but try and influence me. That's bullshit.

Oh, also, I'm clearly way too into parentheticals and I think I've essentially come to be a nihilist. But ya know, a nihilist who really loves ancillary cultural institutions like sports and movies which conveniently convey the most prominent signs of our imminent cultural demise. Nihilists can still vote Obama even if we think change is hopeless, right? I like the dude and I like voting so no one can tell me if I didn't vote I can't complain.

It's 2:49. Still no song. What all-encompassing song lyric could even sum this one up? At 2:55 AM I pressed publish. Click me for the rest!

Guess I'll just close my eyes...

...Brett Favre...a J-E-T jet jet jet? Say it ain't fuckin so. I still have no idea if I can actually root for him. Looks like Michelle (she insists I don't need to hide her name and I feel dumb doing so) might get her wish of the Steelers being my 3rd team after all. But this late night post has nothing to do with that and everything to do with my Phils, about whom I have this to say: their ONLY chance of making any kind of a meaningful go of it IN October is with at least two pitchers starting games who are not currently doing so for this team.

As spotless as his scoreline somehow remained tonight, Kendrick is an absolute abomination against lefthanded hitters, and truthfully only has one effective pitch to righties. When he's on, and facing a team which doesn't have more than a dangerous lefty or two, his sinker alone is enough to win us some games, as it did tonight. But his fastball ain't cuttin it against anyone, including righties. He needs to spend some time in Allentown IronPiggin it while he develops that fabled changeup he's abandoned the concept of throwing since the second week of June.

Which brings us to our next conundrum. Even when Gordon is healthy, the Phils' bullpen has been getting to Brad Lidge largely on smoke, mirrors, and Chad Durbin, who no one has even tried yet to pretend is an 8th inning pitcher. His dominance the last two times out aside, there's simply no greater value for Brett Myers than as an 8th inning bridge, a role which would allow him to vastly increase his postseason trade value to a team in the closer market if successful, and further ammunition for the Phils in forcing him back into the rotation if unsuccessful. I'm guessing it would go without saying to most Phils fans where I'm headed with this by now, but I'll spell it out anyway. Their spots in the rotation are then filled by a man who's already on the roster, and didn't exactly take to his first career bullpen outing very well, J.A. Happ, and recently-promoted to AAA Carlos Carrasco, the Phils' top pitching prospect.

While Happ isn't quite a strikeout pitcher, he misses his fair share of bats, has the inherent benefit of being lefthanded, and the added benefit of being new to most hitters he'd face. Carrasco is a strikeout pitcher, and continues to flash his brilliance while constantly showing signs of boredom playing for sub-.500 minor league teams filled to the brim with minor league filler at every other spot on the diamond. Perhaps a pennant race would bring out the best in him? If his first start at AAA is any indication of his performance under pressure, he'd serve us better than what we're trotting out there now. Which, don't get me wrong, I have always believed and continue to believe is the best team in the National League East and a damn good bet to repeat as its champions. But none of us want to see the Phils get booted quickly in October again, and it's just about as late as this thing can get and still ask a couple of kids to contribute anything.

All indications are this team tried to "win now" at the deadline and came up short not on effort but on tradeable prospects/the depth to trade what we got without leaving the cupboard entirely bare. Pat Gillick and his team clearly understand, then, that the future is now, and they also see JA Happ and Carlos Carrasco as valuable enough pieces of the future to have held onto them at the deadline. Neither one has anything that much left to prove in the Minors. I doubt either of them develops into a true ace, but I seem to remember a few kids named Beckett, Willis, and Penny winning a World Series five years ago. One true ace among the bunch and a couple other guys with all kinds of stuff. Hamels, Happ, Carrasco really sound so different? Throw them out there with grampa Moyer, and a bullpen which uses Lidge, Myers, Romero, Durbin, and Madson and this team could at least sniff the second week of October. I just don't think anyone can look in the mirror and tell me Kendrick, Blanton, or Myers is gonna go out there and win a playoff game. At least with the kids, we don't have a clue. Now if only SOMEONE was reading this. Click me for the rest!

Holy Crying Fanbase, Batman!

So...the Phils really suck lately. Have you noticed? 50 days ago, which has a nice, round feel to it, if you ask me, I wrote a rather lengthy, somewhat tongue in cheek post about the pathos of the Metsies, as Keith Hernandez nauseatingly refers to them on an inningly basis, and lo and behold the very same Be Careful What You Wish For department which brought me a cat named Sharpie and a heartbreaking night in Jacksonville has delivered the very race with the Mets I longed for. Unfortunately, it's brought a bit of a panic attack to Philsville.

At that time, the Phils were 40-28, a day away from their season's current high point at 13 games over. As it stands now, following this week's incredibly lopsided on the field, but very minimally damaging in the standings 1-2 series for the Phils at Shea, the Mets are 55-47 and the Phils stand a game behind them at 54-48. One game back with another nice, round, number of games (60) left in the season. That's 60/162. It doesn't take a degree in applied mathematics from MIT to notice a few things going on here. First of all, the Phils have been a pretty putrid 13-20 since being 13 games over .500. Take out the 6-game losing streak which almost immediately followed that mark and they're only a game under .500 over the rest of that span. Hardly setting the world on fire, but hardly enough to sink a season...just ask Mets fans, they played shittier for longer earlier this year.

Which brings me to my next point...Over the same period of time, the Mets are incredibly hot. On June 12, they were 31-34. They were an organization in such disarray, taking 2/3 from Texas at Shea that weekend still got Willie Randolph fired...by e-mail...after the first game of a West Coast road trip...which he won. Since then, the Mets are 25-14. So, I'd be a fool to say there isn't any cause for concern. Clearly, if things continue on as they have for the past 7 weeks, the Phils have absolutely no chance of making the postseason again. Of course, they also probably won't finish over .500. If they continue at their post-June 12 .4117 winning percentage, they'll win 24.7 of their final 60 games. Since we're Phils fans here, we'll be generous and call that a 25-35 home stretch. Meanwhile, if the Mets continue playing .641 ball over their final 60 they'll win 38.46. In the interest of objectivity, I'll follow standard conventions with regards to rounding decimals and call that 38 wins. So when the Phils finish 79-83 and the Mets finish 103-59, I doubt anyone will be too worried about the postseason.


Thankfully for me, the Phils and Mets still have over a third of their seasons left to play, and if the first 102 games taught us anything about these teams, it's that they're both vastly flawed but capable of being the best team in the National League over an extended period of time. The chances of either of these teams, as presently constituted, playing in the same manner as they have since June 12 are miniscule. Neither of them has ever shown anything resembling that type of consistency and baseball teams simply don't win 64% of their games. I wouldn't pretend the phils can't be as bad as a .412 team, but I'm gonna go out boldly on that limb and say that if J-Roll can manage the simple fucking task of following the two easiest rules on earth, the Phils will play better down the stretch. It's with that, that I get to the true reason for my post...my brethren in Phillies land need a hug. Badly. And perhaps after the hug, someone slapping them across the face and screaming man the fuck up, there's 60 games left to play. As always, the best-written and most heartfelt take on the subject goes to Jason Weitzel at Beerleaguer, who, in quintessentially Philadelphian fashion, has gone off the deep end. I'll end this beast with a snippet from Beerleaguer. Jason, if you ever need cheering up, remember you have readers who generate hundreds of interesting, passionate comments over the course of even the most mundane Phils game...I'm pretty sure 3 people know I'm here thus far.

"This team has problems, brother. Do they ever. Chief among them: the New York Mets, who were better than the Phillies in approximately 26 out of 27 innings this series. Perez becomes the latest pitcher to set a season high against the vaunted Phillies offense. A close second: the vaunted Phillies offense, past the point where dysfunction can be blamed on "pressing." Third, the Marlins. Or the pitching. Take your pick.

So is it inappropriate to use the word "collapse" in July? Because this one is starting to mix in all the wonderful ingredients (comfortable lead followed by controversy, dysfunction, underachieving) that sunk the Mets in '07.

Or do we skip all that and say the Phillies just aren't good enough?"

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I mope around like there's nothing to do, another day and I'm looking for something new...

Not a whole lot to discuss over the last few days, but I'll do my best anyway...

• I thoroughly enjoyed the Weeds premiere, most notably the introduction of Albert Brooks' character. While there certainly could have been a modicum of effort to explain how Nancy came to decide he was her best option (or, for that matter, how Andy didn't manage to come to the idea of his own father first) but for the most part I think he's going to make for a highly amusing frienemy to the Botwin clan in their new digs. I'm glad to see they haven't completely abandoned the rest of the population of Agrestic, though I fear the line about Conrad and Heylia being long gone may well be indicative of the fact that while the rest of the support cast was downgraded from series regular to recurring, the fighting Jamseses may well just be gone.
• Even more fraktacular than Weeds, in my humble opinion, was the midseason finale of Battlestar Galactica. I'm of the belief that the statute of limitations on posting spoilers is 72 hours, so I will not hesitate to discuss the goings-on of said episode of BSG. I can't say I'm terribly surprised at the discovery of a post-apocalyptic nuclEarth, as it was the resolution to the search least likely to spark riots among fans...it's hard for anyone to be too upset about the discovery of absolutely nothing. I'm curious if the Manhattan skyline whose remnants were revealed to us at episode's end were particularly meaningful or, more likely, a joint attempt to establish this as having once been an Earth which would be recognizable to the actual citizens of earth and a reference, of course, to Planet of the Apes. Regardless, I could not be any more supportive of the decision to give us Earth with an ample amount of time left in the series' run, as especially given our newly formed tentative alliance, the discovery of Earth is only as meaningful and as entertaining as what it means for the characters who form the foundation of BSG.
• The Phils are 3-6 since leaving Atlanta last week, and while I would be kidding myself if I said I wasn't the slightest bit concerned, I don't yet see any reason panic. They lost 2/3 games each in Florida and St. Louis, at least 2 of which they had within their grasp and gave away in extraordinary fashion, in addition to 2/3 at home to the best team on earth, the defending World Series champion Red Sox. Despite their less than stellar results during this, their hardest stretch of schedule this season by a longshot, they hold a 2-game over Florida in the division, with another 3.5 games of cushion between Florida and the Mets and Braves, teams which still possess losing records and more injuries than the 2006 Eagles could shake a stick at. What this week will amount to, in the long term remains to be seen, but if it teaches the Phillies a lesson in plate discipline, it would've been worth getting swept by the Sox. If it ever decided to uniformly work counts, this offense could become a hell of a lot scarier than it already is.
• My boredom should subside, to say the least, over the next 10 days or so, with a midnight Get Smart tonight and, much more excitingly, Virginia Beach with the original NYU crowd for a week beginning Saturday. It's unfathomable for me to think that we'll top the time I had as a member of the Air Jamaica Six, but I'll be damned if we're not gonna try. Until next time, someone PLEASE derelick my balls...I'm fuckin bored.

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