Game 64 - Friday Night, June 10th in Philadelphia
One Sentence Summary: Roy Halladay had another fine outing and Placido Polanco hit a grand slam to lead the Phils over the Cubs, 7-5.
What It Means: The Phillies improved to 38-26. It appears as if the Braves will win their ballgame tonight, so they'll maintain a two game lead over the Braves in the East.
What Went Right: Halladay (9-3) pitched seven shutout innings, allowing six hits while striking out nine. For the first time in a while, the offense was powered by the long ball. Domonic Brown hit a two-run home run in the second and Polanco hit his slam in the seventh.
Michael Stutes bailed out the bullpen, retiring his four batters before turning the ball over to Antonio Bastardo who recorded the one-out save.
What Went Wrong: Jose Contreras and J.C. Romero retired just one batter between them, while allowing five runs on three walks and four hits. What should have been a laugher for the Phillies quickly became tense due to their ineffectiveness.
Featured Card: I'd like to believe this relic card from 2011 Topps Heritage features a piece of a Polanco game-used bat, but the small print on the back tells me, "The relic on this card is not from any specific, game, event or season." Reading between the lines, the small piece of wood ("relic") glued to the front of the card may or may not be a bat and it may or may not have been a bat at one point used by Polanco. I think I'll stop reading the backs of these relic cards and just enjoy the fronts from now on.
There's another reason why Topps is doing this: laziness. In last year's Allen Ginter set, there is a framed bat relic card and a framed jersey relic card for Ryan Howard. With the exception of the relic clipping, the cards are absolutely identical, thanks in part to the generic verbiage that's also on the Polanco card in this post. Topps did the same thing with Chase Utley in the Gypsy Queen set: there are framed relic jersey and bat cards for Utley that are otherwise absolutely identical. Never let it be said that Topps doesn't know how to take every shortcut it can create.
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