Game 1 - Monday Night, April 1st in Atlanta
Record - 0-1, Tied for 4th Place, 1 game behind the Braves, Nationals and Mets
One Sentence Summary: Despite Chase Utley's best efforts, the Phillies dropped their season opener to the Braves, 7-5.
What It Means: This wasn't the way I wanted to see the 2013 season start, but thankfully there are 161 more games to go. The Phillies and Braves will pick it up again tomorrow night after a maddening off-day today.
What Went Wrong: Cole Hamels allowed home runs to Freddie Freeman, Dan Uggla and Justin Upton. In his first Opening Day start, Hamels (0-1) lasted five innings and gave up five runs on seven hits. Chad Durbin was responsible for the other two Braves runs, and because he didn't retire a batter in the sixth, he starts his season with an ERA of infinity.
On the plus side, Utley had a fantastic game, falling a double short of the cycle. Utley hit a solo home run in the fourth off Tim Hudson, for the 200th home run of his career. He finished with the game with 3 RBIs.
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| 2013 Topps Opening Day Stars #ODS-18 |
Utley's Opening Day card uses the same photo as his base card in the Topps flagship set. Normally I'd be opposed to a card that doesn't show the player's face, but I really like this card. Maybe it's becuase I already know what Utley looks like. The scan of the Hamels insert card doesn't do it justice. It's a lenticular (think Kellogg's) card that gives the illusion of being in 3-D. I so wanted this card to get top billing in this post, but unfortunately Hamels didn't have his best stuff last night in Atlanta.
Memory Lane: I totally missed my four-year blogoversary which passed with little fanfare on Saturday. This is the fifth Phillies Opening Day that I've covered on my blog, and I'm hoping for many more. I know I'm not breaking any news with these game summary posts, but they're fun to do. And as long as it keeps on being fun, I'll keep on doing it. Thanks for reading and here's to year five!
2009 - I wasn't in the habit yet of posting game summary posts back on Opening Day 2009.
2010 - Phillies 11, Nationals 1 - April 5, 2010 in Washington
2011 - Phillies 5, Astros 4 - April 1, 2011 in Philadelphia
2012 - Phillies 2, Pirates 0 - April 6, 2012 in Pittsburgh
It's funny... I could take or leave Kellogg's cards when I was a kid, but now I freakin' love lenticular cards. I might have to buy some more Opening Day.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you. I was never a fan of the Kellogg's cards growing up because I never ever even once got a good player. No offense to these guys, but I'd always get the Tom Paciorek's or the Joe Sambito's of the Kellogg's sets.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on four years!
ReplyDeleteI don't have any of the Kellogg's cards from when I was a kid. I don't know what happened to them. I was so careful with my Topps cards. Now, I find myself looking for Kellogg's Schmidt, Bowa, Carlton and Luzinski on ebay.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the anniversary, and keep it going for forty more!
ReplyDeleteSomehow last year I decided I needed to get all of the Phillies 3-D / lenticular cards of any sort in a binder, and now a year later I have all but the 5 1978 Phillies Kellogg's cards (which somehow have eluded me) and THAT Hamels card, which I didn't know existed until just now.
Well, I left Sportsflics out of my binder because the photo quality/brightness sticks. But maybe I will add those someday.