Thursday, June 22, 2006

Phillies Inferno

Now that's domination baby. 5-0 victory. 11 hits, 4 walks, and 1 HBP against 3 hits, 5 walks, and 1 HBP. Wright and Hamels dueled nicely, but.....

Villone was nasty.
Proctor was gritty.
Farnsworth was bullish.
Mariano was.....Mariano.

Philly has a good core of young players and we were lucky to escape from that series with a win (thanks Rhodesie). The thing is, I bet that WIP 610 Radio was wall to wall with doomsday Philles "fans" trying to sort out why the 665 layer of Hell is not deep enough for the team, and why they belong at 666. I would so enjoy hearing that again. It's been awhile.

It's encouraging to see the team win this way. Cabrera and Cairo did the heavy lifting by getting on base while Damon and Jeter did their part in driving them home. Giambi, Posada, Bernie, and A-Rod went a combined 0-15 and we still scored 5 runs. We don't need any other bats. The offense is fine. What we need is a starting pitcher that can go 7 innings, and Dotel. Once those things are in place, we are off to the races.

My last comment for today is right along those lines. Keep the offense as is....the youngsters are mixing and matching just fine. Slide each of the bullpen guys back an inning with Dotel returning, and their workload should decrease a bit. Hopefully Octavio can slow Mariano's IP pace as well with a few saves here and there. Mariano had no business being in that game today. The starting pitcher that could be a fantastic short term fix for us could be available soon. He's a veteran (to say the least) and he knows how to pitch. He's not a front of the rotation guy anymore, but in a pinch he should win some ballgames with our lineup behind him. We won't have to give up the farm to get him probably, and he's a guy that Steinbrenner should relish bringing into the fold for his character and post-season success (15-4, 2.66 ERA, 1.137 WHIP). You know how he loves that.

Go get John Smoltz, Cash Money. I repeat...John....Smoltz.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My roommate is a huge Braves fan and said to me yesterday that Smoltz is on the trading block. Is this true or just a wish? Wondering if anyone knows any substantial evidence to this claim..

Mike Plugh said...

1. Smoltz is apparently on the theoretical trading block, which is to say that it's been floated, but not confirmed by anyone close to the organization. It's one of those things to get the phones ringing without creating a whirlwind of speculation.

2. I'm sure WIP is still spending plenty of time listing the 1,000,000 reasons to hate Michael Irvin. That was the convo when I got to Philly in the mid-90's and it was the convo when I left at the end of the decade.

Thanks guys.

RollingWave said...

AHhahahah 610 WIP... good memeories.