Game 89 - Monday Night, July 7th in Milwaukee
Record - 38-51, 5th Place, 11 games behind the Braves
One Sentence Summary: Chase Utley's first inning home run, Cole Hamels' effective pitching and Ken Giles' emergence as a potential future closer were the keys to a 3-2 win over the Brewers.
What It Means: General manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. broke his silence before this game, saying what was on everyone's mind when assessing the current roster. "I didn't anticipate our guys being this poor. Because they are. They are this poor. We think that they're better. But they haven't shown it."
Amaro went on to indicate that the winds of change were about to blow through the Phillies clubhouse.
What Happened: For one night at least, everything went right for the team. Utley hit his two-run home run in the first and scored the third run when he came around on Ryan Howard's single. Hamels allowed an earned run in 6 2/3 innings of work while striking out seven. Giles pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings to hold the lead and Jonathan Papelbon closed out the ninth for his 20th save.
Featured Card: Hamels is quietly having a fantastic season, despite only having three wins to his name at this point. This is his 1973 Topps-inspired card from this year's Archives set, which gets the blue behind the left-handed pitcher silhouette right, but that's about it. If Topps was staying true to the original, the position should be in all capital letters, his name should be purple and the team name should be pink.At right is his 2013 Chachi card for reference. If the small staff at Chachi World Headquarters can accurately reproduce a Phillies card from the 1973 Topps set, why can't Topps?
Good question.... Because Topps is focused more on getting these (admittedly cool nonetheless) cards out as quickly and profitably as they can and less on getting them right?
ReplyDeleteJust bugs me. It took me all of an hour to 90 minutes to come up with the template, and I'm not even getting paid for this!
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