Road To 10,000 Losses: Replay, Replay

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. With a4-3 loss to the Diamondbacks last night — the last of a three-game sweep by Arizona — the Phillies stand at 9982 losses, only 18 away from 10,000.

Hey, the Phillies played the same game they previously played against the Diamondbacks again! (Ow. That sentence made my head hurt.) Point is, though, last night’s game against the D-Backs was pretty much the same as Monday’s: Phillies trail by a run or two most of the game, let the game get out of hand late and then rally but lose in the end.

Monday, the Phils were down 3-1 going into the ninth. Ryan Madson gave up 2 runs. The Phillies scored three in the bottom of the ninth but lost, 5-4. Last night, the Phils were down 1-0 going into the eighth, Jamie Moyer stayed in to pitch and gave up three runs in the 8th. The Phillies scored three in the bottom of the ninth, but lost again.

Last night’s goat was Michael Bourn, who pinch ran after Pat Burrell singled home Jimmy Rollins to make it 4-3. Bourn stole second on a 2-2 count with Ryan Howard at the plate pinch hitting. Howard lined the 3-2 pitch right to second baseman Orlando Hudson, in shallow right field with the “Howard shift” on. Bourn was running on contact and got doubled off second to end the game.

Of course, this team makes a lot of mistakes. A lot of stupid mistakes, mental ones, ones that shouldn’t happen once a player gets to the, oh, I dunno, major leagues. An observer might call them “the stupidest team in baseball,” but that would probably be a little nice. (Incidentally, “the dumbest collection of 25 individuals in history” is a bit harsh.)

But whatever. Shane Victorino is a guest DJ on XPN tonight at 8! Yes!

Road To 10,000 Losses: Back To Normal

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. With an 11-5 loss to the Diamondbacks last night, the Phillies stand at 9981 losses, only 19 away from 10,000.

It’s nice the Phillies know how this thing works. After thumping Atlanta in a three-game sweep this weekend, the Fightins have promptly come home and lost two straight to the Diamondbacks. The Phils are now 26-26, back at .500. With 42,000+ Monday night and 27,000+ last night, Phillies fans have returned to their doom-and-gloom ways. The Phils are now 8 games back of the Mets in the NL East.

Ryan Howard almost got hurt last night, too. While the Phils were down about 59-6, Howard dove for a grounder and came up limping. It’s just a cramp, however, so Ry-Ho just wasn’t drinking enough water or something. Meanwhile, backup catcher Rod Barajas is hitting .213 with a .361 slugging percentage. Chris Coste is at Double A Reading.

Bobby Abreu, however, has apparently aged 40 years overnight and is having the worst season of his career. “Finally, the Abreu envisioned by Tampa Bay when it traded him for Kevin Stocker shows up,” Jeff Passan wrote. Unfortunately for the Phillies, the man they traded Abreu for, Matt Smith, has an 11.25 ERA and is in the minors. Ryan Franklin has a 0.90 ERA for St. Louis. Oh, and 2006 first round pick Kyle Drabek is on the DL.

Blah blah blah 75 wins blah blah blah Charlie Manuel blah blah Pat Gillick blah blah Chris Coste blah blah DL blah blah bullpen blah blah Dollar Dog Night blah blah.

It’s amazing how quickly a Phillies fan’s opinion on the team can shift, eh?

Road To 10,000 Losses: A Giant Sweep

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. With a 5-4 loss to the Diamondbacks last night, the Phillies stand at 9980 losses, only 20 away from 10,000.

Well, well! The Phillies finally started playing some good ball over the weekend, sweeping the Atlanta Braves and improving to an improbable two whole games over .500. The Phils beat Atlanta 8-3, 6-4 and 13-6 in the sweep, their first of the Braves on the road since, like, they were in Boston.

The Phillies lost last night despite a furious ninth-inning comeback that had last week’s goat, Rod Barajas, fall a few feet short of a game-winning homer in the bottom of the ninth. The Phillies might have been in a better position if Charlie Manuel had pinch hit for Freddy Garcia in the bottom of the sixth, since the Phillies had the bases loaded and 1 out with the pitcher at bat. Garcia grounded into a double play, but did pitch two more scoreless innings.

The Phils could use wins in the next two nights to win another series before Barry Bonds and the Giants come in this weekend. Also, in an Inquirer story on why members of the Phillies wear certain numbers, Adam Eaton revealed himself to be totally awesome:

“It was the only one that looked remotely interesting. I had 21 in Texas. They gave me 53 in San Diego. You don’t buy numbers from older guys, so I wasn’t getting 21 here. Plus, my number is free. Why spend money? No, there’s really no significance to my number. But I could create some. Let’s see, 53 was my first number in the big leagues. Two and 3 equals 5. Three is the second number in both numbers. Two plus 1 is three. So you can have people draw their own conclusions. Everybody asked why I was 21. Well, five minus 3 is 2. Three minus 2 is 1. It was a progression. And it was available.”

Road To 10,000 Losses: #@@$&(#^#!!!

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. With a 5-4 loss to the Marlins last night, the Phillies stand at 9979 losses, only 21 away from 10,000.

The Phillies lost again, dropping their record to 23-24 and once again failing to improve to better than .500. But they way they lost it was distressing. Shall we do a little recap?

• Phillies got on the board early and led 2-1. A Jeremy Hermida two-run double put the Marlins on top, but the Phillies tied the score on a J-Roll sac fly in the top of the sixth. Oh, yea, and before that the teams almost got into a fight. Both benches cleared, supposedly somebody on the Marlins threw a punch, but nothing major.
• Miguel Olivo tripled to lead off the bottom of the 6th. Joe Borchard grounded right to first-baseman Chris Coste — who scored on the sac fly earlier. Coste fired it to Rod Barajas, who had Olivo out at home. Then he swung his glove over lazily and Olivo kicked the ball out and the Marlins regained the lead. Yes, Rod Barajas made two terrible plays at the plate in consecutive games.
• In the top of the 8th, Chris Coste walked. Michael Bourn pinch-ran for Coste, who went 2-for-3 in his first start of the season. Pinch hitter Greg Dobbs doubled, and with no outs, third base coach Steve Smith sent Bourn home. He was out by a mile. Shane Victorino then singled to score Dobbs and tie the game.
• The game ended up going to extra innings, of course, and the Phillies loaded the bases in the top of the 11th but didn’t score anybody. The Marlins won in the bottom of the 11th.

I apologize if I got any of that wrong, but it was a bit of a frustrating game. Plus it’s 3:30 on the Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend.

After the jump, the beginnings of a bit of a trend.

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Road To 10,000 Losses: Wait, That Was A Win?

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. After splitting the first two games of the Marlins series, the Phillies stand at 9978 losses, only 22 away from 10,000.

The Phillies are never going to top .500. The 23-23 Phillies have hit the .500 mark at 20, 21, 22 and 23 wins, but have lost the next game each time. The Phillies, though, have kept creeping back up to .500, including an 8-7 10 inning win last night.

But, right. Last night’s ninth inning could leave the Phillies in trouble for a couple of weeks. The Phillies scored three in the top of the ninth. In the bottom of the ninth, two bloop singles and a triple made it 7-5. Hanley Ramirez grounded to Greg Dobbs, who threw home instead of taking the easy out at first. Dobbs was remorseful:

“I’m sick to my stomach,” said Greg Dobbs, who was responsible for one of the two defensive lapses. “I want to eat, but can’t. I feel tremendously responsible for that inning because we should have had three outs.” [...]

“I wasn’t,” he said. “Quote it. Print it right on front page. ‘What was Dobbs thinking?’ I saw it all happen right in front of me in super slow mo. As I released the ball, I went ‘whyyyyyyyyy. What are you doing?’ I should’ve taken the ball and either tagged Ramirez or gone to the bag, instead of being way too aggressive. It was just stupid. Afterward, I was so disgusted with myself that I just started walking in circles, thinking ‘Did I just do that?’”

Okay, calm down, Greg. It’s okay. We forgive you.

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Road To 10,000 Losses: Finally, Mediocrity!

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. Finishing up a 7-3 homestand, the Phillies stand at 9977 losses, only 23 away from 10,000.

Hey, how about that! When they returned home from a road trip for a 10 game homestand, the Phillies needed a 7-3 homestand to get to .500. And then, wildly, they actually went out and did it, losing only one game to Chicago, then-NL leading Milwaukee and Toronto.

Last weekend was when teams supposedly played their natural interleague rival. Since the Phillies lost Baltimore — who now plays Washington — the rivalry went to Toronto, as baseball looked to match up two teams in a rivalry almost as fierce as that yearly Colorado Rockies-Kansas City Royals dustup. (Okay, the 1993 World Series, but, is that it? And the Phillies were called the Blue Jays for two years in the 1940s. One of the all-time great rivalries!)

The Phillies are now a whopping 22-22, and have gone 18-11 since a 4-11 start. As Rich Hoffman writes today, though, the Phillies 7-3 homestand improved the team from 6 1/2 games back in the NL East to… 6 1/2 games back in the NL East. And since the Mets have both starting pitching, offense and a bullpen, the Wild Card is pretty much the best case scenario already. And it’s May.

The important thing about today’s Phillies game is, well, there isn’t one. And so, for the first time all season, the Phillies will spend a full day with at least a .500 winning percentage. Baby steps, people.

Fleece Blankets Are The New Bobbleheads

With Ryan Howard on the disabled list, it appears Phillies fans — at least those of the female persuasion — are set to move right on over to Chase Utley.

Case in point: The eBay auctions for the Chase Utley fleece given away to women over 14 at yesterday’s Phils game.

Alert reader anonymous reader IMs:

anonymous reader: nb: i really want a chutley blanket to cozy up in, but they are going for FIFTY DOLLARS on ebay

reader: fifty dollars!!!
pwddmac: i’m bloging that
reader: good
reader: i’m pissed!
reader: i want to wrap myself in chutley but i’m not going to whore it out for fifty dollars
reader: i wouldn’t even spend that much for tickets to the game where you got that blankie for free!
reader: seriously
reader: WTF
reader: what is wrong with our culture?

Search: chase utley blanket [eBay]

Road To 10,000 Losses: Coste With The Most

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. With a 4-1 loss to the Cubs yesterday, the Phillies stand at 9975 losses, only 25 away from 10,000.

It was Mother’s Day. There was a packed house. The Phillies actually won three straight games heading in to the game. They could sweep the Cubs and move within a game of .500. Every woman 15 and older had a Chase Utley blanket to wrap themselves in.

The Phillies responded by scoring just one run, on a throwing error in the bottom of the 8th inning. With the Phillies down, 4-1, Utley singled with two outs in the ninth and was thrown out trying to take second. The Fightins failed to get their first sweep of the season, their first since a sweep of the Marlins put the Phils into the Wild Card lead with a week to play last season.

But all is not lost! The Phillies might not even lose 25 more games this season, as they’ve called up the savior. I’m referring to, of course, Chris Coste, who was called up when Ryan Howard went on the DL. Howard hit a pinch-hit grand slam on Wednesday to help the Phils beat the Diamondbacks but has been having quad problems. He hurt the quad because he ate too many Big Macs instead of Subway sandwiches.

Coste hit .328 in 65 games for the Phillies last season. The 33-year-old rookie also drove in 32 RBI, and although he’s hitting .233 for the Phillies’ AAA affiliate this year, he’s become the rallying cry for everything that’s wrong with the franchise by fans and bloggers alike. If my calculations are correct, Coste will hit .368 this year with 17 homers and 107 RBI, playing first and, when Howard returns, third.

World Series here we come.

A word on numbers: Unless I did something like add incorrectly — which is perfectly possible — the numbers I have are correct. See this post for more info.

Howard goes on the shelf; Phillies recall Coste [Beerleaguer]

Road To 10,000 Losses: Replay

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. With a 3-2 loss to the Diamondbacks last night, the Phillies stand at 9974 losses, only 26 away from 10,000.

PHOENIX — For the first time since 1947, two major league teams agreed to play “pretty much the same game” for the second night in a row, as the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-2.

“I don’t really know why the players wanted to do it,” said Phillies manager Charlie Manuel. “I was reading on the SABR-L listserv about the ban on fraternization in the rulebook, and I really don’t get why our boys wanted to do this, but they figured they were gonna lose anyway and could use the day off.”

The Phillies lost the previous night, 4-3. While the runs were scored in a different manner and fewer relievers were used last night, the games took essentially the same form: Diamondbacks lead early, Phillies rally to tie it twice, but fade away in a late one-run loss. At no point did any Phillies fan watching believe the local nine would rally to win the game.

With the deal, Greg Dobbs got to hit his first home run of the season, while Chase Utley was allowed to hit his fifth. The Diamondbacks wouldn’t agree to a pinch-hit Ryan Howard homer, a stance than nearly blew the deal.

“Not even I would give up a home run to Ryan Howard at this point,” said rookie D-Backs pitcher Micah Owings.

Phillies pitcher Adam Eaton was also allowed to make a “quality start,” defined as three runs or fewer over six-plus innings. Eaton went 7 innings and gave up 3 runs, but did pick up another loss.

The Phillies return to action tonight at 6:40 p.m. No word if a deal has been made for tonight’s game, but it’s likely the team has actually already left on a chartered plane to Philadelphia and the last game of the roadtrip will be played by Phillies impersonators and Rod Barajas.

Update, 2:00 p.m.: Mike’s Baseball Rants notes if the Phillies lose by one run tonight, the Diamondbacks will pass the Phils in winning percentage in all-time one-run games.

Road To 10,000 Losses: Blah

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. With a 4-3 loss to the Diamondbacks last night, the Phillies stand at 9973 losses, only 27 away from 10,000.

Ahh, yes. Last night Freddy Garcia recovered from his pathetic cart injury Sunday and was able to pitch against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The righthander actually pitched his best game of the season, giving up 2 runs in 6 innings, but the Phillies were unable to score any runs until late and lost, 4-3. The Phils are now 3-5 on their 10-game roadtrip.

The Phillies tied it up at 2 in the 7th and at 3 in the 8th, but the Diamondbacks came right back each time, as Antonio Alfonseca and Francisco Rosario (who the Phillies acquired for cash earlier this year) each gave up a run. What a bullpen, eh?

The Phillies did manage to lose in incredibly boring fashion last night, and in utterly predictable fashion, so there’s really not much else to say. Hey, at least the Phillies are making losing boring now, so there’s absolutely no reason to watch.

Arizona 4, Philadelphia 3 [AP/Yahoo! Sports]