Game 140 - Wednesday Night, September 4th in Philadelphia
Record - 63-77, 4th Place, 22 1/2 games behind the Braves
One Sentence Summary: After starting pitcher Roy Halladay battled through six innings, the bullpen allowed two Nationals runs as the Phillies lost, 3-2.
What It Means: There are mercifully only 22 games left this season. The Phillies need to go 19-3 from here on out to finish with a winning record. Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes.
What Went Wrong: Halladay was shaky again, but he did have a stretch between the second and sixth innings where he retired 12 of 13 batters. He left after six having allowed a run on three hits. He also walked five and hit a batter. Zach Miner allowed a solo home run to Ryan Zimmerman in the seventh to tie the game, and Jake Diekman allowed a run in the eighth to give the Nationals the lead.
Featured Card: The only two Phillies runs in this game came courtesy of Cesar Hernandez's second inning, two-run double. This is his card from the set with the best design of the year, according to yours truly.
That _is_ a nice-looking design. I was at my first IronPigs game a couple weeks ago and I should have picked up one of those sets. (Actually, had I been thinking, it would have essentially been free. My Reading Phillies set had a 20% off your $50 minor league team store purchase coupon which I realized driving home sat unused in my wallet, even though I bought about $60 of souvenirs for myself and my kids. D'ohh!)
ReplyDeleteThe R-Phils (th F'in' Phils, as my friends in Reading now call them) put out a second series that is attractive as well, but not as nice as the first series. Every year they have a baseball card kids giveaway, and we always try to get up there that day with my extended family so the kids can get free baseball cards. (I like it because my daughters could care less about theirs and I buy them from them for a few bucks!) One or two years they had several different players in the giveaway set than in the regular set, so if you wanted a Reading card of one of those guys, you needed to be there that particular day with a child in tow (or else buy it on eBay). Every other year the giveaway set had the sponsor's logo on either the front of the back, so at least it was a different card. This year version two of the set for sale had an advertiser's logo on the front, which is the first time I saw that (but is consistent with the Ironpigs card you posted). Well on giveaway day this year, very disappointingly not only did the giveaway set feature the same player choice and photos as version 2, but it even had the same ad on the front. So there was no difference whatsoever from the $10 gift shop set (which of course I had already bought and paid for). Boo. First the name change, now this.
I caved and bought one of the Fightin Phils' update sets on eBay. One of my collecting weaknesses is feeling the need to add every Phillies minor league set to my collection each year.
ReplyDeleteI'm drawing the line with a Lakewood BlueClaws SGA that I've seen on eBay, which has a different design but appears to use the same photos as the normal set.