I don't have much for you in terms of an insightful recap of last night's 6-4 Phillies win over the Mets, unless you want to read the hung-over, half-remembered thoughts of a guy who watched the game on the TV over the bar at Victory Brewing Company. If so, here are those thoughts.
Roy Oswalt had a respectable follow-up to Cliff Lee's work at the plate on Thursday, successfully laying down a sac bunt that moved Chooch over to where Jimmy Rollins could knock him in for the game's first run. In his next plate appearance, RoyO notched an RBI of his own, singling in John Mayberry Jr. He looked solid on the mound from my vantage, in that every time I looked up at the TV through five innings, there was a zero next to the NYM on the scoreboard.
I couldn't help but to take a second to think, man, our starting pitching really is effing good. Even when they're not at their best, they're still good enough to keep the offense within striking distance damn near every night.
And, it looks like the offense is coming back to form too. In his much more insightful recap of last night's action, Jim Salisbury begins by saying the Phils will soon have some decisions to make. Shane Victorino is in rehab action tonight, and his return to the lineup will cause a bit of a Karl Hungus in the outfield.
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Dom Brown made his case for remaining in the bigs last night, knocking two late hits after coming off the bench. He didn't start because Mets starter Chris Capuano is a lefty, but being able to come up clutch against relievers on his off-platoon nights is exactly what the Phils need to see for Brown to stay up.
Jimmy was the catalyst though, seemingly on camera every other time I looked up. With a pair of hits and three RBI, Rollins had his fourth multi-hit game in his past six starts.
There were some bloopers in the field (3 errors including a JRoll-Chase collision and a pickoff throw that went into CF) and the Phils' bullpen leaked a little (in retrospect this may have been my reason for my moving from Braumeister Pils and Throwback Lager to my hoppy place—Hop Devil on hand-pulled), the bats bailed them out. Michael Stutes had a rough inning, walking a batter and giving up a run on two hits, and Ryan Madson had a Lidge-like save, allowing a run on three hits before closing it out.
The greatest part of the night for me was seeing K-Rod finally wilt to the Phils. Jason Isringhausen blew it first in the eighth (definitely check out Sully's discussion on the Phils strategy with Izzy on the mound, worth its click in gold), but Rodriguez was tagged for three runs on five hits in the ninth. Well in the bag at this point, it was as if the baseball and beer gods were also Phillies fans.
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No brewery tour stops tonight, but the fridge is stocked with some Troegs Sunshine Pils and Dogfish Head 60 Minute for the Union-Toronto FC match, followed by the Champions League Final, and the Phils-Mets in the evening.
Photo: Andrew B. Fielding-US PRESSWIRE