Friday, September 9, 2011

2011 Topps Lineage Mini #102 Cole Hamels

Phillies 7, Brewers 2
Game 140 - Thursday Night, September 8th in Milwaukee

One Sentence Summary:  The Phils defeated the Brewers, 7-2, behind a six-run sixth inning and Cole Hamels' fine pitching performance.

What It Means:  The magic number to clinch the division dropped to 11 and the Phillies are now 92-48.

What Went Right:  The Phillies were missing several regulars (Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Raul Ibanez) but the make-shift line-up put together a big sixth inning to put the game away.  With two outs - Shane Victorino doubled, Wilson Valdez doubled, Placido Polanco walked, Hunter Pence tripled, John Mayberry, Jr. singled, Carlos Ruiz doubled, Ben Francisco singled and Michael Martinez singled.  Hamels ended up making the second and third out of the inning.

Hamels (14-7) threw his third complete game of the season, allowing just four hits and two runs.

Featured Card:  As soon as I saw that Topps Lineage would include mini parallel cards in the style of the original 1975 Topps Mini set, I knew I'd be tracking down the Phillies in the set.  This is Hamels' card from the set and despite some nit-picky complaints (font isn't right, borders are too small, size isn't quite right, backs are wrong), it's still a groovy looking card.

2 comments:

night owl said...

I wouldn't call them "complaints," in my case anyway. "Pointing out differences," was what I was doing.

Now, the fact that Topps got some of the color borders wrong, that is an official complaint.

Jim said...

Agreed. Don't get me wrong either - I love these cards too. And my first thought when I saw them was - Topps got it all wrong. But despite the differences as compared to the originals and the lousy backs (and yes the wrong colored borders) these might be my favorite cards of 2011.

I don't know if that's more a testament to me liking "retro" cards or the fact there weren't a lot of products that really excited me in 2011.