Game 87 - Saturday Afternoon, July 5th in Pittsburgh
Record - 37-50, 5th Place, 12 games behind the Braves
One Sentence Summary: The team's struggles continued as they dropped the second game of the series to the Pirates by a score of 3-2.
What It Means: The Phillies are in the midst of a 3-12 stretch in which they've hit .210 as a team while hitting .142 (15 for 106) with runners in scoring position. (Hat tip to Todd Zolecki.)
What Happened: David Buchanan had a decent outing (3 runs in 6 innings pitched), but the Phillies offense was mostly quiet yet again. Cody Asche and Marlon Byrd hit solo home runs to account for the team's two runs in this game.
Featured Card: Is the Phillies season beyond repair? Are we as Phillies fans going to be subjected to substandard play for the remainder of the season while the veterans of the team are unceremoniously traded off to contending teams for prospects? Will the remaining game summary posts on this blog from now until late September slowly devolve into a rambling, incoherent babble of complaints and woe is us drivel?
Some possible responses to the above questions are: Yes, probably. Yes, probably again. And no, not at all.
There's no denying that I'm frustrated and unhappy at the direction this season has gone. But I'm a Phillies fan. I've been a Phillies fan my whole life, and the performances on the field from the Adam Eaton's or the Delmon Young's or the Domonic Brown's aren't going to change that. More importantly, my seven-year-old son Doug has taken his first steps into the world of being a lifelong Phillies fan this season.
Each morning, he asks what time the Phillies are playing. He asks if their opponent is any good. He asks if Cameron Rupp or Koyie Hill is catching that day. He asks if I think it's possible for the Phillies to trade Jeff Manship and John Mayberry, Jr. to the Angels for Mike Trout. And yesterday when I received a small envelope in the mail containing a few vintage Phillies cards I had recently ordered, he wanted to look at them with me.
"That card's cool," he said when I showed him this gorgeous 1950 Bowman baseball card of former Phillies pitcher Blix Donnelly. It sure is. And while I'm bummed that the Phillies season is most likely a bust, I'm thrilled that Doug can now appreciate a great baseball card. It makes me smile when he asks if we can turn on the TV around six so that he doesn't miss the Phillies pre-game show. And he's probably the only seven-year-old in town who knows who Jeff Manship and Koyie Hill are. That's my boy.
It's not so much the on-field performances of Adam Eaton, Delmon Young, or Dom Brown that are turning off Phillies fans as much as it is Dave Montgomery's and Ruben Amaro's insistence that nothing is drastically wrong, and that they can right this ship with little or no changes being made.
ReplyDeleteUntil those 2 are gone, there's not much hope for this organization.
Agreed 100%, Jim. The turnaround can't begin until we have changes at the top. Until then, we continue in year 3 of the 5 year plan of being terrible that Ruben insists the Phillies won't do.
ReplyDeletePhillies Room Jim, that is a cool story about your son appreciating old Phillies cards--congrats!
I'm baffled by the continued endorsement of Ruben by the ownership group. These are smart guys right? They have to know that it's past time for a change.
ReplyDelete