Worry Up
After abusing Montreal pitching for two games, the Phillies' offense ran out of gas last night. In their 6-3 loss to the Expos, the Phils left 13 men on base and were a completely futile 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position. So while Tim Worrell's eighth-inning implosion will earn him lots of pointed fingers, the bats played an equally significant role in the defeat.
I'm just glad I'm not the only one who's worried.
(An aside: D.C.-area residents salivating over the prospect of the franchise's move to the capital may insist on calling them the Senators, but that name is so burdened with a losing legacy it's hard to imagine anyone embracing it. Maybe the legislature's lower house would prove to be a stronger good-luck charm. Okay, then: the Fairfax Congressmen it is.)
Meanwhile, amidst All-Star hand-wringing -- Phillies management crying about Jim Thome's lack of support, Salon's King Kaufman advocating for Bobby Abreu -- more substantive concerns about the team are beginning to appear, and not just in the perpetually glass-half-empty blogosphere. Phillies hitting coach Greg Gross, for example, is worried about team's tendency to loft soaring, but catchable, fly balls, while the Daily News's Sam Donnellon hangs his qualms on inconsistent starting pitching:
Said [Randy] Wolf, "I'd rather have four or five starters who give you a chance to win every night" [instead of a single ace].
Theoretically, at least, the Phillies have that right now in [Eric] Milton, Wolf, [Kevin] Millwood and Brett Myers. All have the stuff to keep their team in games, and yet 30 times already this season, including last night, the Phillies' starters have failed to finish the sixth inning.
An ace like [Randy] Johnson would help those numbers.
A second half of the season in which the staff pitched to its potential would, too. The Phillies shouldn't need an ace to reach the postseason.
Then again, they shouldn't score 31 runs in two games against the Expos, yet still manage to be playing only .500 ball against them over the last 9 days.
posted by The Art of Rory @ 2:31 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
from what i've been able to catch sort of half-heartedly following this DC/Expos thing, if the team comes to the area, it will almost definately end up out in dulles. selig is pretty close to peter angelos and won't screw him. angelos is convinced a DC team would kill his revenue base, so much so that he has gone to great lengths the past couple years to wipe away most references to Baltimore and present his team as a more regional franchise, not a one-city franchise. Notice they took "baltimore" off the dugouts and the scoreboard. he even asked the guys in the booth to say O's and refrain from saying baltimore (seriously, there's a memo on that somewhere).
a team way out in dulles would be death for nova traffic for sure, but would be a slightly more agreeable case for angelos/selig, plus they seem to have more money and more autonomy as to how the facility is built (try working with the DC City council sometime). biggest problem right now for both DC and Dulles is there's no place to play in the near future except (ack!) RFK. see above comments on Angelos.
personally, it pains me to see arlington get dropped as a site; i could have walked to the park from my house.
greg
also, i think the texas rangers guy still owns the washington senators name and won't give it up or wants an arm and a leg. i think the proposed name was northern virginia diplomats or nationals or something like that.
greg
Shallow Center -- Uniting baseball fans from Philadelphia to Northern Virginia. . . .
chris - where do you live? i reside in courthouse. that whole dulles area blows and louden town center or not, going out there would most definately be craptastic. maybe i could drive out the toll road, paying dough for the privilege of paying for parking so i can sit in a seat i paid for. what is this, the EU all of a sudden?
greg
chris -- The Bromptons! That's the new townhouse cluster across from el riddiccio (or however its spelled). is that name supposed to be a cross between Brand New, Hamptons and Compton? the further bethesda-zation of northern virginia can only be helped by a ballpark in dulles. i feel myself become more against the idea with every passing day. i live in one of the townhouses at lee highway and north adams, in front of that big apartment building overlooking 66.
chris-
yeah, that's the 7-11. what was the deal with all the fire trucks tonight? i didn't see any fire or smoke. maybe somebody like me was protesting late-90s style townhouse clusters and big box development.
we gotta hang sometime. preferrably before le phils are out of le playoff picture.
greg
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