Game 73 - Wednesday Night, June 19th in Philadelphia
Record - 35-38, 3rd Place, 8 games behind the Braves
One Sentence Summary: An Ian Desmond grand slam in the 11th downed the Phillies, 6-2, after Jonathan Papelbon blew his second save of the year in the ninth.
What It Means: This was another ugly loss in a season that has so far included a lot of ugly losses. The Phillies had an off day following this game and they'll open a three-game set against the Mets tonight.
What Went Wrong: The first two Phillies batters of the game accounted for all the Phillies scoring. Ben Revere singled and then Michael Young homered, notching his 1,000th and 1,001st career RBIs. After that, the next Phillie batter to reach on a hit was Carlos Ruiz with a 10th inning single. That's not good.
Kyle Kendrick pitched another solid game, allowing just a run over his 7 2/3 innings of work. For the second time in three games though, Papelbon couldn't shut the door, as he allowed a two-out single to Jayson Werth, bringing home the tying run. After the game, Papelbon publicly questioned the apparent lack of baseball fundamentals among his Phillies teammates. I just don't like the guy, and I'm guessing I never will.
Featured Card: Michael Stutes had actually been pitching well prior to this performance. His 11th inning was a nightmare, culminating with the Desmond slam that came one pitch after it looked as if he had struck him out. As Richie Ashburn used to say, the pitch to Desmond was right down the middle of the plate for a ball.
Stutes has appeared in several 2009 and 2011 Bowman releases, and he had cards in both the 2011 Topps Update and 2012 Topps base sets. This 2011 Bowman Sterling card fits in among that realm of Phillies cards for which I have absolutely no recollection of how it showed up in my collection.
With his attitude and public statements like that, Papelbon is running the risk of turning himself into Billy Wagner, part deux.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't like Pap yet, you won't.
ReplyDelete