Can the Flyers Do It?

Sorry for the long time in between posts, guys, but life’s been pretty crazy for all of us lately. Now that the summer’s hit, expect a new post every couple days like usual.

Also, my good friend Dennis McLaughlin will now be joining us on here every once in a while to write about pretty much whatever he wants so keep your eye out for that. He’s a literary genuis.

Now, on to the good stuff.

HOW BOUT THEM FLYERS!? I know this is a Phillies site, but come on. Shit is ridiculous. The Flyers made this series a hell of a good one the past couple days and they couldn’t have done it without the unbelievable play of a couple guys. The returns of Simon Gagne and Michael Leighton and continued excellence from Danny Briere and Mike Richards have put the Fly Guys in amazing position to do what only a few teams have done before them.

Watching the game last night, you could tell the Flyers knew what they were doing was special and that they wanted it a hell of a lot more than Boston did. They out-hustled, out-skated, and overall outplayed a clearly overmatched Bruins team.

Briere’s shots have started finding the back of the net. Leighton picked up right where he left off before his injury, stopping anything and everything shot his way. Even freakin’ Scotty Hartnell has picked up his game after looking like a 15-year-old high school player for the first series and a half.

Games 5 and 6 have been a complete reversal of what the first three games (with the exception of Game 1′s overtime) looked like. Home ice advantage certainly helped last night, but if the Bullies keep playing the way that they have the past three games, it’s not going to matter.

In the history of the four major sports, 286 teams have been up 3-0 in a best-of-seven playoff series. 283 of them have gone on to win. Only the 1942 Maple Leafs, 1975 Islanders, and 2004 Red Sox have come back to win 4 straight. Only 5 teams in NHL history have even made it to this point after going down 3-0.

Not making any predictions because I don’t want karma to bite me in the ass. I’ll just say I’m uber excited for this game. After the Canadiens won last night, 41 people were arrested for rioting in Montreal. Let’s shoot for 80.

Phils Slug Their Way to a Series Win; Rollins, Happ Setbacks

I thought I was going to be right when I said the Phils might not be able to put up a 10-spot on Johan.

I’m happy I wasn’t.

With help from home runs off the bats of Polanco, Utley, Howard, a grand slam from Victorino, and the most epic walk since Brett Myers’s in the 2008 NLDS from Jamie Moyer, the Fightins lit up Santana for the worst start in his major league career.

Moyer started off slowly, giving up a three-run shot to David Wright in the first inning, but Polanco and Howard each hit solos in the bottom of the inning to bring it to 3-2. Phillie killer Rod Barajas (who, I might add, is one of my all-time least favorite players, both for what he does against us and what he did for us) came back with a two-run homer off the foul pole to extend the lead to 5-2.

Then the fourth inning happened.

Moyer’s walk was the catalyst. With the bases loaded, he worked a full count, fouled a pitch off, and then took a fastball inside to walk in a run to make it 5-4. Then, in an at-bat eerily similar to his against CC Sabathia in the 2008 NLDS, Victorino lifted one into the left field seats. Senor Santana was shaking in his sombrero.

When it was all said and done, 13 batters came to the plate in the inning, 9 batters reached safely in a row, and 9 runs, 8 of which were charged to Santana, crossed the plate.

Any slump the lineup may have been in should be over after the past two games. Feels good to come back, win that series, and be back on top of the division.

- In not so good news, both Jimmy Rollins and J.A. Happ will be out a little bit longer than expected.

Rollins has been taking batting practice and jogging, but still has lots of pain when he tries to run or move laterally. Though he’s been out for three of the 2-4 weeks that he was expected to be, indications are pointing to him not being ready until mid-to-late May. If the offense continues to hit like they have the past two games, this isn’t a problem. If they fall into another funk, we want him back ASAP.

J.A. Happ’s setback isn’t quite as bad, but unnerving to say the least. His forearm tightened up while throwing off a mound on Friday, so he will not attempt any throwing activities for the next few days. He will resume in the middle of this week, but no timetable has been set on his return. Joe Blanton will be returning on Monday, which lessens the blow a little bit.

To make room for Blanton, lefty Antonio Bastardo was optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley after the game tonight.

Boatload of Crap 2.0

Incredible sports weekend. Let’s get down to business.

- Continuing their trend of being the most frustrating and inconsistent team in the league, the Fightins came back from a disgusting 9-1 loss to Los Mets on Friday with a vengeance yesterday, throwing up a 10 spot. As if Doc needed it.

For the third time in 6 starts, Halladay went the distance, this time against the hottest team in baseball. I keep expecting him to slow down and he just keeps getting better. His next start will be against a dangerous Cardinals’ lineup, but with what we’ve seen, he can go up against an all-star team and throw a no hitter.

- Phils are going up against Johan tonight on ESPN. He has a career 4-1 record with a 2.90 ERA against us so I wouldn’t expect another double digit run game.  Sure would be nice to take two out of three from the Mets early in the year.

- Ryan Madson is a moron.

- Kentucky Derby and the Mayweather-Mosely fight were both pretty legit. This is a baseball/Philly blog though, so go elsewhere if you want to know about them. I’m probably not the guy you want analyzing a horse race.

- Flyers went down 1-0 to the Bruins yesterday in OT, which, by the way, was one of the best overtimes I’ve ever seen in any sport. Look for them to bounce back tomorrow.

- Go Phils. Go Flyers.

D-Backs win finale, take series

This was a bad series for the Fightins.

Arizona is a middle of the pack team..when fully healthy, and they’re currently without two all-stars in Edwin Jackson and Brandon Webb.  On top of that, two of the three starting pitchers this series were former Phils (Kris Benson & Rodrigo Lopez), with the former not even being able to crack our 25 man roster in 2008 and the latter being used as a spot starter in 2009. For the D-Backs, well they’re the 3rd and 4th starters, obviously!

There were not many positives in this series. Hamels went back to giving up long balls after his stellar outing last week, Kendrick went from 8 scoreless in Atlanta to letting Arizona have a 5 spot in the 5th, our offense continues to still sputter, and the bullpen cannot sustain any form of consistent pitching.

The Phils have a moderately difficult schedule coming up with the Giants, Mets (they’re playing better!), Cardinals, Braves, and Rockies.  In the beginning of the year, and still my opinion now, I have the Cardinals winning the Central, Rockies winning the West, and the Braves/Giants taking the Wild Card. We’ll see how it all pans out, but there’s no denying these are the upper echelon teams in the National League.

On an unrelated note, you are a giant dick, Mark Teixeira. Grow some balls and learn to get hit by a pitch without acting like a pansy.

Bullpen blows it… again

For the second time in five games, the Phillies had the lead heading into the later innings and for the fourth time in five games, the Phillies came out on the losing end.  After a great 8 inning outing from starter Kyle Kendrick (why they didn’t leave him in to pitch the 9th, I have no idea), Ryan Madson came in to attempt to collect his fourth save in as many chances this season.  As it turned out, the Braves had different plans.  Troy Glaus hit a two-out, two-run homerun and immediately following, Jason Heyward added to his legend by depositing a changeup into the right field seats at Turner Field.  After a 1-2-3 inning pitched by Billy Wagner, Jose Contreras gave up a walk-off home run to struggling right-handed hitter Nate McClouth.

Enough about the Phillies…

How bout them Flyers baby!

They’re up 3-1 in their opening round series with the Devils after winning convincingly by a score of 4-1 last night.  While watching the game, I couldn’t help but notice the way that the officials tried to insert themselves into the game.  There were 16 minor penalties last night… IN A PLAYOFF GAME!  Nobody wants to see that crap.  Unneccessary calls disrupt the flow of the game and isolate the true hockey fan.  The Flyers will try to eliminate the Devils tomorrow night in game 5 of their series at the Prudential Center in Newark.  They will have to do so without the help of both Jeff Carter and Simon Gagne who are both out with foot injuries.

On an unrelated note, how gay are Pittsburgh Penguins fans?

Starting Pitching Woes

When the Phillies added Roy Halladay to the rotation this offseason, I don’t think many people expected the starting rotation to be the cause of the most worry out of any section of the team. I certain didn’t. Welp, I was wrong.

It’s not that all the pitchers have pitched especially bad; Halladay has been the best pitcher in the league and J.A. Happ has yet to give up an earned run. The trouble comes in when you see that Halladay is the only pitcher to make it out of the sixth inning, and Jamie Moyer is the only other to make it a full six.

The bullpen, with the exception of yesterday’s meltdown against the Nats, has been unbelievable. However, you cannot, and i stress, you CANNOT expect them to keep this up until both Romero and Lidge return. I might be talking out my ass, but with the personnel that the Phils have in the bullpen, starters have to start making it into the seventh inning or a few games are going to be lost, as we saw yesterday. The bullpen arms simply won’t be able to hold up with that much stress being placed on them.

I hope I’m wrong. I really do. Maybe the first 9 games have just been a fluke and the starting pitching will start to hit their stride and begin to go a little deeper into games. Maybe the bullpen really is as good as it’s shown. Maybe I’m just a stupid kid who thinks he knows a lot more than he actually does.

Or maybe Chase will just keep hitting home runs and we won’t have to worry about Danys Baez giving up another one. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Roy’s on the mound today. Check out David Murphy’s blog “High Cheese” for an interesting insight on a slight rotation shift.

8IP, 2ER, 8K, 1BB. Phils win 6-2.