Friday, August 24, 2012

Nationals at Phillies: August 24th to August 26th

Citizens Bank Park - Philadelphia, PA
Friday and Saturday 7:05, Sunday 1:35

Nationals 77-47, 1st Place in the N.L. East, 6 1/2 games ahead of the Braves
Phillies 58-67, 3rd Place in the N.L. East, 19 1/2 games behind the Nationals

Nationals Probables:  Edwin Jackson (7-8, 3.69), Gio Gonzalez (16-6, 3.23), Jordan Zimmermann (9-7, 2.54)
Phillies Probales:  Kyle Kendrick (6-9, 4.20), Roy Halladay (7-7, 3.95), Cliff Lee (2-7, 3.78)

At the Ballpark:  On Sunday, all kids will receive a Jimmy Rollins back to school cooler bag.

Phillies Leaders
Average:  Jimmy Rollins - .239^
Runs:  Jimmy Rollins - 72
Home Runs:  Jimmy Rollins and Carlos Ruiz - 14*
RBIs:  Carlos Ruiz - 58*
Stolen Bases:  Juan Pierre - 31

Wins:  Cole Hamels - 14
ERA:  Cole Hamels - 2.99
Strikeouts:  Cole Hamels - 172
Saves:  Jonathan Papelbon - 27

^Hunter Pence, now with the Giants (.271) and Shane Victorino, now with the Dodgers (.261) have the overall team lead among players with enough qualifying plate appearances.
*Hunter Pence has the overall lead with 17 home runs and 59 RBIs.

1979 Topps #495 and 1979 Burger King Phillies #17
1979 Topps Flashback:  Before looking up his career stats for this post, I had no idea that Hall of Famer Tony Perez spent three whole seasons manning first base for the Expos.  Amazingly enough his game total with the Expos (434 games) is second only to his total games played with his primary team, the Reds (1,948 games).  Perez came to the Phillies in January 1983 and made up part of the Wheeze Kids that won the National League pennant.  In 91 games, as Pete Rose's back-up at first and right-handed bat off the bench, Perez hit .241.

Current bench coach Pete Mackanin spent the majority of his Major League career with the Expos, playing in 299 games with Montreal between 1975 and 1977.  In early September 1978, the Phils selected him off waivers.  He appeared in 5 games with the Phillies in 1978 (2 for 8 at the plate) and 13 games in 1979 (1 for 10).  He was traded to the Twins following the 1979 season.  He received two Phillies cards for his 18 games in burgundy - this Burger King card and a hard to find card within the 1979 Phillies Postcards set.

2 comments:

Jim from Downingtown said...

Perez was the first member of the "Big Red Machine" to depart, as they wanted to make room for Dan Driessen.

Steve F. said...

Man, I love those BK cards. I wish they would issue them again. Here's hoping that if they do, they use that season's Heritage design (i.e., a 49-year-old design) though and not the then-current Topps design. If you say to me, 1979, or 1963, 19955, or whatever, I can immediately think of the design. If you say 2010, or 2004, or 1998, I don;t know that I could picture it in my head without some prompting. And notice how those all have foil on them?