Yeah I think at this point, the Phillies are trying to catch the WC. Tell you what though, a Doc, Oswalt, Hamels vs. Hudson, Hanson, Lowe/Jurrjens Postseason series would be all kinds of fun.
That was a hard fought win tonight. A really good game. It could have cost us though. Medlen left early with an injury and Prado hurt his right hand after it got caught under him sliding into home in the 10th. No word on how bad it is yet. I guess Infante will have to fill his spot if he's out for any amount of time. I keep seeing it but I still can never believe how a 20 year old can be so good so consistently in the clutch. What an outstanding AB in the tenth. He makes it look easy.
Lee would have been a free agent after 2010, whereas Oswalt is locked up for two years with Houston paying $11 million of it. Phillies didn't gain much in prospects but haven't lost much either...their best prospect (Dom Brown) was just called up, and they didn't have to give Houston any of their top guys other then Goss and another guy (both in A or AA ball). Oswalt didn't look great tonight, but I remember Cliff Lee getting shelled in his first outing with Texas. Lots of games to play.
Braves just made a trade with Kansas City for Kyle Farnsworth and another player I'm not familiar with. [An outfielder] They gave up Jesse Chavez, Gregor Blanco, and I believe a minor leaguer.
Yeah that was rough. I didn't think they'd recover from such a letdown. He just jumped up there and managed to time everything perfectly.
Heyward is a superstar in the making. Dude has 5 tools, plays hard, and plays for the Braves which puts him into most households in the US via Cable.
Yeah, the Braves don't get as much exposure as they used to but being in first place helps them. Heyward can do it all. He made a beautiful throw to home plate from rightfield for an out early in the game yesterday. The fact that he's twenty and they were talking about Infante just finding a way to get him to the plate in the ninth yesterday says a lot. They're already talking about him like he's a Chipper Jones or something. I hope he wins Rookie of the year but he has some tough competition. Some of the other rookies have caught up to him production wise due to the injury time he missed.
Adventure time! I'm live blogging the return of Kyle I SUCK Farnsworth! [Swear_Filter/ON] -Melky up with the winning run? This sack of **** won't get a hit. *TRIPLE* -Wowza. Now, Bobby, don't over manage here. Let Lowe bat, make the second out, and let Omar see if he could add to the lead. *Now batting, Matt Diaz* -****. *Mets Announcer: Jesse Chavez warming up in the bullpen.* -Wait, we traded him! -I hope it's not... *Kyle Farnsworth warming up.* -Vomit. * "Super freak" plays. Farnsworth enters. * -Maybe I'm 'misremembering' how bad he was. *Before he throws his first pitch of his second stint here, he starts arguing with our all star catcher, CORRECTION, OUR ALL STAR MVP CATCHER, From the ****ing mound.* -****. *He WALKS JEFF ****ING I SWING AT EVERYTHING FRANCOEUR on 4 pitches to lead the inning off* -**** You. You suck. *Sacrifice bunt* -He could get out of thi... *He goes 3-0 on the Mets #8 hitter before allowing a game tying single to FELLOW SACK OF **** Luis Castillo.* -**** you, Farnsworth. Die. You ****. *He goes 3-0 to Reyes, who LOVES SWINGING. Induces pop out.* -Eye roll. *McCann Obliterates a Cris Carter stolen base attempt with a seed to Gonzalez.* -I needed this like I needed to be raped and left in a dumpster in Istanbul.
I can't believe they lost tonight. Just concede the division now if you're going to get beat by Jeff Francoeur. Because you don't have a chance. Disgusting. I'll start calling them the Atlanta 'we can't stand to actually win a **** series anymore' Braves. This just pissed me off a million times more than any of the other recent disappointments. I can't wait for them to find a new way to blow it tomorrow. What piece of crap Met will beat them this time? Now they even suck at home. The worst part of this isn't my disappointment in them, but that it's opening a window for the Phillies who think they're entitiled to the division.
medlen is hurt. They are calling up some kid to start for him and sending kawakami to the minors to work on endurance. Prado is also hurt. Hopefully the rest of the team can step up....
Mike Minor is the guy they've called up. He was our 1st round pick last year out of Vandy. Big lefty. He'll start Monday. Funny thing is he's probably been the 3rd or 4th best minor league pitcher for us this year behind Teheran, Delgado and Vizcaino (who's now hurt). Our pitching depth is second to none.
I'd say they stepped up last night. That was a strong way to start the series. Lincecum has generally owned them. It was a gutsy performance from JJ too. I was wondering why Kawakami wasn't coming back into the rotation. I did hear due to his contract they had to get his permission to send him to Gwinnett. It seems like he's being a team player. I hope he can come back and contribute in some way.
Atlanta gave away that game last night to the Giants. They were being more charitable to Philly than the umpires have been. Six of the last ten games of the season are Atlanta vs. Philly. We'll put you back in your place then if need be. You don't get to play struggling teams forever.
That's ok....we are closing ground on the Braves with guys like Valdez, Gload, Francisco and Sweeney in the lineup. Once Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Victorino are back we should pull away. We got scrubs in our lineup right now. Good luck. We already played most of the hard part of our schedule in the first 2/3rds of the season, especially Interleague play The remaining schedule looks very favorable for us.
What are you crazy, only the Phillies have to deal with things like injuries and bad officiating...... The Phillies are beating up struggling teams. And the Phillies aren't behind because of some really tough schedule. They're behind because they were losing four game series to the Pirates. The Braves played an interleague schedule that was probably just as tough. And they held off an assault by the Mets who were padding their record against teams like Baltimore and Cleveland. They're playing a four game series with a team right now that has been on fire for an entire month and doing pretty good against them up to this point. The bottom line is Atlanta has a better team and when it's all said and done I'm confident that will show. Having all of those head to head games late will be key. There will be nowhere to hide. Who cares if Utley and Howard are back. It's not like they both weren't in the lineup when we swept for first place in May.
I'm just confident the Phillies will win a 4th straight NL East title. They play best when it matters most. I also don't think the Braves have had as many injuries to their top three or four guys like the Phillies have.
We're in the middle of a penant race and Bobby's lineup today is without McCann, Chipper, and Heyward. I guess he's satisfied with a series split.
Depends, is Conrad on 3rd? And it is the norm for a Vet catcher to have the day off after a night game in the summer, it keeps them fresh for the stretch run. Besides, Davis isn't a scrub.
I expected Mac to be out, that is normal. I just didn't expect both Chipper and J-Hey to also be a healthy scratch today. Especially Chipper, he's been tearing it up. It just seems more logical to rest them against a weaker opponent like Houston but then again I'm not a Hall of Fame manager.
The best offensive output of the series. I don't know what I was worried about. I forgot how awesome our bench is. We really need to beat up on Houston. I hope they don't waste this opportunity to maybe gain another game on Philly over the next few days.
What a complete meltdown tonight by the Atlanta defense and the bullpen. Five bloop hits with RISP doesn't help either. I wouldn't believe this if it wasn't right in front of me. This is completely embarrassing to get pounded by scrubs like Houston. Their bloop hits were starting to make me sick. I thought this bullpen was good. Tonight's it's disgusting. Also, Kyle Farnsworth sucks.
This team defensively is a joke. They're going to drop another game to Houston because of errors. JJ pitched a gem. Three errors tonight. I believe there were four last night. It's extremely fortunate that LA is doing us a huge favor tonight.
Yeah this sounds a lot worse than his normal nagging injuries. They said possibly a strained knee. I hope we haven't seen the last of Chipper. On a more positive note, our favorite backup third baseman may have just bailed us out tonight. He hit one over 400 ft. to straight away right field. The first pitch he saw. Man he killed it.
Troy's power drought just ended. That was a no doubter as well. Good to see some power from him. And good to see him on a four game hitting streak.
I'm glad Gonzalez is off the hook, he will be the SS moving forwards but he is making too many errors.
They pointed out earlier that the Braves as a team have made the most errors in baseball since the break. That obviously has to change. I agree about Gonzales, he has been the main culprit the past two nights. They mentioned earlier in the broadcast that Brooks spent six years in the Houston farm system. It must have felt great to beat them tonight.
Imagine that, they're playing some real competition for once and it's not going so well. Hopefully the Dodgers will help us some more over the next couple of days.
