Game 152 - Tuesday Night, September 21st in Philadelphia
Let's cut to the chase: The Phillies won their ninth straight game last night, increasing their lead in the NL East to five games, and cutting their Magic Number to clinch down to six with ten games remaining. The team is 30 games over .500 for the first time since 1993. It's a very good time to be a Phillies fan. (Should "Magic Number" be capitalized? I'm making an executive decision here and capitalizing it.)
Roy Halladay methodically mowed down the Braves through seven innings, surrendering three runs on seven hits while striking out just three. He became the first Phillie to win 20 games in a season since Steve Carlton did it way back in 1982. He became the first right-handed Phillie pitcher to reach the milestone since Robin Roberts in 1955. Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge pitched the final two innings for the Phils, looking very 2008-esque in the process. Lidge recorded his 25th save of the season.
The Phils jumped on the board first with Jayson Werth's 3-run home run to left center in the 3rd. It was Werth's 25th home run of the year. Fortunately, they added two more runs in the 6th when Raul Ibañez hit a clutch 2-out, 2-run double, scoring Ryan Howard and Werth. The Phillies should have scored a lot more in this game, but they went only 2 for 14 with runners in scoring position. They had at least two baserunners reach in all but the 5th, 7th and 8th innings.
Roy Oswalt goes for the series sweep (!) tonight, hoping to drop the Magic Number down to 4. Go Phils!
1971 Topps: I really like this set. But do I like it more than the 1983 Topps set? I'll be honest, this is going to be a tough call this year for the 2011 Chachi Set Planning Committee. I've already used my all-time favorite Topps designs from the '70s and '80s (1975, 1981, 1976, 1980, 1977) for previous Chachi sets, so now we're getting into designs that I don't love, but I really like. If you catch my drift. Decisions, decisions.
No comments:
Post a Comment