Phightins

Honest to God, deal. Get Cashman on the phone.

The Phillies could use '09 Ho in their bullpen right about now...

Whatever. We'll be alright. Repeat that third period 6 more times and we won't lose in our building.

Contreras has been fabulous this year, it was not just a one night thing. Arguably the best "minor" signing of the winter. I don't want to see the Phillies trade for Bobby Jenks or someone of that ilk just for the sake of having a "proven closer". I'd take Contreras as my closer over anybody who could possibly be traded this deadline. If Heath Bell is available I'd reconsider, but it looks like the Padres will be in contention. And even if he was available, the Padres would ask for way way too much.

Middle relief is basically it, unless there is a significant injury elsewhere between now and then. The hitters will come around and the rotation has been fine (and showing a surprising amount of depth). Even if Brad Lidge is bad, I don't think they will trade for a closer since I really don't see any better "option B"s out there than Jose Contreras. But if they can find a sucker to take Ibanez's contract, I'd be shocked if they don't go for it. That will not happen, though.

There is certainly no doubting who the better pitcher has been thus far this year.

Not to take anything away from Jimenez, but you are only saying that because you are a Rockies fan. I think most neutral fans would still take Lincecum (although that is up for debate as time goes on). If Jimenez proves me wrong and is better than Lincecum for a significant period of time, then I will reevaluate.

Jimenez is [expletive]ing disgusting, but I still take Lincecum. And I still think Lincecum finishes this season with better numbers across the board than Jimenez, and probably wins the Cy Young. Lincecum is having some control issues right now but that will straighten itself out. One thing is for certain, seeing these guys go head to head frequently for the next decade will be a lot of fun (assuming the Rockies can keep Jimenez).

Damn, HHH still trolling.

Clever on their part. There are plenty of people stupid enough to buy those.

Unbelievable. I have seen some bad slumps over the past 4-5 seasons (the time that this basic core has been in place), but nothing anywhere close to this. Just brutal. The one thing that has always carried the Phillies through the bad times in the past has been defense, and even that doesn't appear to be there now. Well, the one bright spot I suppose is that they can play this poorly for this extended amount of time and still just be a half game out of first place. Too much talent on this roster for this to last forever, one would think. They will snap out of this. But for now, they are horrific.

Yeah, I'm not sure if I really buy most of this. The connections you are drawing seem very loose, at best. Not really any solid evidence there, just a lot of coincidence.

Before the game today, Brad Lidge was activated from the disabled list and Nelson Figueroa was DFA'd. Guess that shows how little confidence they have in JC Romero, that they decided to keep Antonio Bastardo around instead of Figueroa.

Slightly different lines tonight: Carcillo-Richards-Carter Gagne-Giroux-Asham Hartnell-Briere-Leino Powe-Betts-Laperriere

Looks like Carcillo and Bartulis are in tonight and JVR and Parent are out.

First of all....learn the right place and time to use the small violin joke. If you're trying to be funny, epic fail since that joke does not really work here. But anyway, I don't think it's particularly fair either, but it's no more or less fair than any of the things I listed. I guess this just means we'll have to win the division by more than 3 games so we won't have to listen to Jeff Francouer and the rest of the sandy vaginas all winter. But yes...this works out great for the Jays actually. They get most of the revenue, and it is three guaranteed sellouts. They will wind up doing better off of this series than they would have if it was played in Toronto. Major League Baseball is a money driven enterprise, so it's no surprise why the Jays agreed to do this.

Matchup for Phillies-Braves series: Tomorrow: Joe Blanton @ Tommy Hanson Tuesday: Cole Hamels @ Tim Hudson Wednesday: Kyle Kendrick @ Derek Lowe Hopefully Placido Polanco returns at some point this series.

Also, I don't want to hear one more person complain about the Phillies having the three extra home games against Toronto. It is no more or less fair than the Braves having three more games against the Pirates than anyone else in the NL East, or that the Phillies play the Cardinals 8 times this season while some other NL East teams play them as little as four or five times, or that the Phillies interleague schedule includes 12 games against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Twins. As long as there is interleague baseball, the schedules will never be completely fair.

It always sucks when it's your guys getting screwed, but unfortunately that's how fan voting works. The All Star starters are rarely the guys who deserve it, but rather they are the big names from the big markets. If you allow fans to vote the starters in that is how it will always be.

Too bad there is a no-refund policy on the Raul Ibanez contract. Ugh.

RIP Fantasy team.

Interesting fact. Out of the 20 perfect games in MLB history, 6 have been 1-0 games. And in all 6 of those games, the run scored was unearned.

Doc!

Less than an hour...

No chance. The Nationals have money. And even if they didn't, they'd find a way to make it happen.