They Feel Our Pain

Turns out we in the blogosphere aren't the only ones underwhelmed by the Phillies' inconsistency over the first half of the season. Today's Inquirer features several team members voicing disappointment in the squad's performance, going much further than Larry Bowa, who has treaded pretty lightly this season.

The Phils' lackadaisical play was on full display Saturday, when I was in Minneapolis to watch them play the Twins. It's difficult to decide on the bigger disappointment -- the Phillies' docile acceptance of their 6-1 defeat or the dreadfully synthetic, Arena Football-like venue that is the Metrodome. The game's storyline was pretty simple: Curtis Silva handcuffed the Fightin's, while Kevin Millwood was doomed by one rough inning.

Now, when I played freshman high school baseball many years ago, our coach, Mr. Burrough, occasionally would spy his players mentally drifting, shall we say, on the field or in the basepaths. He'd pop out of the dugout, cup his hands together, and boom, in a voice that carried like a foghorn across the water, "C'MON, [OFFENDING PLAYER], GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME!"

That phrase was on mind in the sixth, when Bobby Abreu took the bat out of Jim Thome's hands with his unsuccessful attempt to swipe second with two outs. If you're going to run when you're down by four and your biggest power threat is up, you'd better damn well make it. Thome, leading off the seventh, naturally fired his 399th career homer over the rightfield wall, but instead of trailing by just a pair of runs, the Phils were still three behind, thanks to Abreu's brain cramp, and never threatened again. Some Shallow Center readers have written to defend Abreu after a previous post about his taking plays off; well, this is exactly the kind of stuff I was talking about. Bobby, get your head in the game.