Shirley Crow
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Phillies
Who’s the boss?
OK, David Cruz and Prince Fielder have slugged a few already. Cruz knocked one into the top deck in left and Prince hit the batters’ eye in deep, deep center. Prince also smacked one that was measured at 497…
Miles! Not feet, miles!
No, sorry. That’s made it. It went far though.
Two hitters in and this thing is already dragging.
Oh, get this… Chuck Berry is playing at the All-Star Gala after the game. I happen to love Chuck Berry. I also really enjoyed the Chuck documentary called Hail, Hail Rock-n-Roll, especially the part where Chuck looked like he wanted to throttle Keith Richards for pretending to teach Chuck how to play music that Chuck invented.
So in tribute to Chuck, “Pay me my money!”
Nelly is also playing at the Gala, which reminds me of the 2001 Phillies and their clubhouse after winning games. Robert Person, a St. Louis native, was the clubhouse DJ so he played Nelly, another fella from The Loo.
Anyway, Prince and Cruz both hit 11 homers. If Howard bows out early I’m going to head out and watch Chuck.
“Pay me my money!”
Here's what you can expect to me today from St. Louis:
At least three stories on CSNPhilly.com.
Live updates during the Home Run hitting contest. They call it a "live blog" in the biz.
Musings on the mullet, Colonial-Roman architecture and how both are alive and well in St. Louis.
The coolest wiffle ball field ever.
And, of course, fun times in St. Louis.
The live stuff will start before Chris Berman drops his first annoying cliche. Be ready.
St. Louis in July
found this in my hotel in St. Louis.
All-Star Game in St. Louis
Ball pit…
Doesn’t it drive you crazy when you go for a hike on the Appalachian Trail and wind up in Argentina with some woman that isn’t your wife? Isn’t that the way it always happens?
Nevertheless, make no mistake about it, sometimes it’s just good to get away. It doesn’t matter if it is to meander through rocky trails beneath a canopy of trees or to sit on the beach with the trade winds cooling down a sunny day. Whatever it is, no one wants to hang around the house all day.
So we travel. We take the act on the road to see how green that grass on the other side really is.
Why not? There’s something relaxing about being out there on the road. You don’t have to worry about the mail, cutting the grass or if the neighbors are too loud. If anything happens, like the basement gets flooded, there’s nothing that can be done about it hundreds of miles from home. Worry about it later.
It’s the same thing with a baseball team, too. On the road all the problems of home go away so all the ballplayers have to do is hang around all day and then show up to the park to play ball. Pretty good gig, huh? Better yet, it’s not even like the players have to schlep their own luggage through the terminal or wait for their row to be called in order to board the plane. Instead they get dropped off on the tarmac of a chartered plane so they can fly all over the country in order to play baseball.
There are other perks, too. For instance, before the trip the players are handed $81 in cash for each day they are on the road. For the current trip through Tampa Bay, Toronto and Atlanta, each player was handed a little envelope with $891 cash. That’s for the players to spend on meals, sundry items and any other incidentals that pop up from time to time.
But here’s the thing – even though the players are given $81 in cold, hard cash in which to purchase food, the visiting clubhouses in every ballpark offer catered meals before and after the game as well as all the gum one can chew and all the sunflower seeds a guy can spit.
And guess what? It’s all gratis.
So why should a guy go spending all that cash when he can eat at the park for free? Maybe he’ll want to buy a souvenir at some museum gift shop instead.
Or, maybe he’ll just save all that cash the way Rickey Henderson used to. According to the legend, the newly elected Hall of Famer and all-time stolen base king used to collect those envelopes he was handed before road trips and stash them away in a big shoe box that he kept in the closet of his bedroom at home. As the story goes, whenever Rickey’s kids came home from school with a good report card, he told them to go into the closet and bring out the shoe box stuffed with per diem envelopes for a quick game of “Pick It.”
Rickey held the shoe box open and the kid with the good report card got to dip a hand in and pull out an envelope. Needless to say, the kids were all hoping to yank out one of those 11-day road trip stashes buried in the box.
Still, there is an advantage for a ballclub to play at home and that mainly has to do with the rules of the game. The home team gets to bat last, which puts most of the pressure on the visiting team. Other than that there really isn’t much of an advantage to playing at home. Sure, the home town fans can help intimidate the visiting club, but they also can give a lot of grief to the guys in the home laundry.
But that still doesn’t explain why the Phillies went into Wednesday night’s action with a 24-9 record away from Philadelphia and a 13-22 mark in Citizens Bank Park. That’s the best road record and worst home mark in the league. Explain that
Maybe nothing does because the dichotomy of the records defies explanation. In fact, when the local media asked the manager and players about it last week, the frustration mounted. It was as if Charlie Manuel and Ryan Howard went to the movies with some annoying friend who asked questions about the plot the whole way through the picture.
Talk about annoying. No wonder they were frustrated and losing so many games at home.
Regardless, there has to be a remedy for the losses at home. Like, maybe the Phillies can pretend they are playing on the road even when they are in Philadelphia. Maybe they can wear their road grays and shack up in the Holiday Inn across the parking lot from the ballpark.
Better yet, maybe the Phillies can get their road trip envelopes at home instead. Or, barring that, maybe Charlie Manuel can get out the big shoe box and let the team play “Pick It” if they win a game at home.
There's nothing like that shoe box to motivate a team.
My friend Mike was working on some formulas and quantum physics things that could, if the math is right, add more hours to the day. The month of February might be a casualty in all of this, but the other months will be symmetrical and we very well could end up with some extra time.
It should be noted that Mike is working on this in his free time, which kind of shoots his theory in the ass a bit, but otherwise, this is groundbreaking stuff. If anything it will give the baseball writer-types the much-needed time to watch things like the Joe Buck Live so we can ponder the host’s second favorite web site.
After the five minutes passes that it takes to understand the significance of the sports announcer’s show and the unnatural disaster named Artie Lange[1], we can take a nap with the report on Sammy Sosa and his alleged positive test acting as an organic Ambien.
I almost read the report in The New York Times about Sammy Sosa’s alleged positive test from 2003. I should say that I actually dialed it up on the Internets, looked at the picture of Sammy and Big Mark McGwire smiling together during that summer of 1998, and tried to get through the lede graf.
But then I couldn’t stop yawning. Not enough oxygen to my head, I guess. But the yawns came so frequently that it seemed like a good idea to get up and walk around a bit. Maybe grab a drink with a little caffeine to shake loose the cob webs. Then I could go back and sit down and get through the story.
Only when I tried again I dozed off. The weird thing about this was that I was sitting in the press box at the Phillies-Jays game. There were more than 45,000 people hovering about and there I was drooling on the keys of my laptop. I may have even sprayed Gonzo or Crasnick who usually sit next to me at the ballgames.
What are you going to do? If a Sammy Sosa getting popped for PEDs can’t hold one’s attention, what chance do innocent bystanders have?
Yet refreshed and rested, I forged on. Only instead of reading up on Sammy, I learned that Senator Barbara Boxer from California really has “a thing” about highly decorated military men calling her, “senator” as opposed to “ma’am,” or even, “Babs.”
The distinguished senator from California claims she worked hard for her title, which means she raised a helluva lot of money. In fact, Babs raised so much money that the great state of California has tax rates that make even ballplayers complain. Oh sure, those guys complain about anything dealing with taxes and money and government. It’s like one of those minutemen brigades or something, only the fortified bunkers are loaded with therapeutic tubs and pools, a training staff and all the maple bats a guy could ever want. In the case of the Phillies, sometimes the common area of the bunker (aka, The Clubhouse) has an actual team of ballplayers in it after games, but most of the time the jocks are out-numbered by PR staff members by a rate of 5-to-1.
Anyway, take a look at ol’ Babs giving Gomer Pyle the business:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrpFSfpXD50&hl=en&fs=1&]
Oh, but there was one thing that had me rapt for approximately 10 whole minutes. In fact, I was actually excited to lounge on the couch and read the Sports Illustrated send-up on Charlie Manuel.
Sure, there weren’t too many new stories in the piece, and, in fact, I recall hearing one of them a few weeks ago. In the story Charlie even points out that he told the story a few days prior. Well, he told them to us in the dugout during the early afternoon meet-and-greet he does with the local writing press. The truth is, the guy loves to tell stories about Billy Martin and Japan, and frankly, we like to hear them as many times as he wants to tell them.
Charlie has a few other doozies that likely won’t see print any time soon and haven’t made it into the Sports Illustrated or HBO features. Actually, that raises a pretty interesting premise and that is Charlie likes to talk to the big-time national press.
Bryant Gumble, Frank DeFord and HBO? Sure, send ‘em over. Sports Illustrated? No problem – where is the fitting for the tux? A speaking gig warming up for Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Donovan McNabb? No problem, just get ready for the folksy charm.
So here’s the issue… is Charlie spreading himself too thin? Are the Phillies playing so poorly at home because of all the demands on their time from winning the World Series? Undoubtedly, Charlie and the rest of the Phillies will answer with a resounding, “No!” But think about it – how many national TV commercial ads were Phillies players starring in before they won the World Series? Before Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels became pitchmen, was there anyone else other than Mike Schmidt an Pete Rose?
It’s a wonderful thing winning the World Series, but damn if it ain’t time consuming.
[1] Just gonna say it: would anyone give a flying fig about the Joe Buck Live if Artie Lange had not been on it? If the answer is anything other than, “No,” you don’t get it.
OK, I’m back. I had planned on writing a whole bunch of new stuff yesterday until I fell asleep around 2 p.m. and didn’t wake up until 11 a.m. this morning. I guess I’m sleepy or completely entrenched into baseball hours.
Need to find those organic greenies.
Anyway, one of the topics that piqued my interest this weekend was the decision by Bryce Harper to forego his final two years of high school to enter community college. Of course he’s going to get his GED first, which will make him eligible for the 2010 Major League draft.
Cool, huh?
Well, a lot of people don’t think so. But let’s back up for a second and explain who Bryce Harper is since most of us appeared to learn from Tom Verducci and Sports Illustrated last week.
Bryce Harper just finished his sophomore year at Las Vegas High. He’s described as the first LeBron/Kevin Garnet type prodigy in baseball. In fact, scouts suggest that had he been eligible for the baseball draft this year, he would have been selected no worse than third overall.
So rather than sit around in high school where he might have reached his apex as a ballplayer, Harper is going to drop out of school, get his GED and go to community college for a year just so he can be eligible to play pro ball. The rules of Major League baseball state that a player must finish his high school eligibility in order to be in the draft.
High school and a citizen of the United States.
In other words, players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Japan, etc. are free agents from the time they are allowed to sign a contract. So had Harper not been a U.S. citizen or U.S. high school player, he wouldn’t have to get a GED or even attend community college. Instead, he would have been available to the highest bidder.
But since Harper is from Las Vegas and plays baseball, he is forced to go to school even at an age where he can drop out and get a job anywhere that would hire him.
Apparently education – at least high school education – is important in order to be drafted to Major League Baseball, where, according to estimates from The Wall Street Journal, only 26 players and managers have a college degree.
No, that’s not 26 percent. It’s 26 total. Like one more than 25 or .03 percent of the current 25 man rosters in the big leagues. So yes, you can see how important education is to MLB.
Look, I’m not denigrating higher learning or the level of education of most baseball players. Far from it. The truth is there are more opportunities for kids Harper’s age by going to school for as long as possible than not. In fact, there was a story in The New York Times last year about how there are many more opportunities for kids to get scholarships, grants and aid through academics than through athletics. This is despite the notion that in order to get a scholarship or money for school one has to be a top athlete.
Actually, the opposite is true – one has to be a good student no matter what. That’s the key.
But if Bryce Harper is as good as everyone says he is, why does he have to go to school? Sure, there are the ancillary benefits to being around kids his own age as far as socialization and mental health, etc., but where were these people making the same argument about child actors or even ballplayers from other countries?
Matt Stairs did not graduate from high school and as the statistics show, most Major Leaguers didn’t even bother with college and those that did didn’t finish. These days a lot of kids drafted out of high school have money allocated for education written into their contracts. Kelly Dugan got one from the Phillies when he signed last week, but then again most guys make enough money to send their entire families to school for generations.
Besides, for every stereotype about the dumb jock, there are plenty of guys who set those clichés on its head. Stairs, for instance, is pretty sharp. Scott Rolen, the son and brother of teachers, turned down scholarships to play baseball or basketball at big schools because “it wasn’t the dream.” If he wants to go to school now, however, he can. According to Baseball-Reference, Rolen has made more than $83 million in salary from playing ball.
Then there is Randy Wolf, who spent three years at Pepperdine before being drafted by the Phillies. When that happened he never went back… or looked back. The same goes for Lance Berkman who says he majored in “eligibility” at Rice.
Certainly the odds are pretty fat for most sophomores in high school to even be drafted let alone actually make it to the big leagues. 99.9 percent of kids that play ball need something to fall back on. So too do the same amount of kids who take drama lessons or pick up a guitar.
And no really seems to care about whether or not their favorite actor or musician went to school when they were 16 or not. Sure, we like it if they did, but there are lots of different ways to get an education.
Perhaps most importantly, we don’t really need anyone telling Bryce Harper’s parents what’s best for their kid. It’s easy to tell someone that their kid he’s a dumb jock just as it is to tell them the kid spends too much time studying and not having fun.
As far as divisional series in June goes, the Phillies’ three-game stand in New York City against the Mets is pretty big. The Phillies, of course, have a three-game lead in the NL East while the Mets are doing what they can to hang on in the wake.
With all the injuries and typical drama that plagues the New York teams, the Mets aren’t doing all that badly. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that the Phillies overcame a six-game lead in late September of 2007 to win the division by a game.
Besides, the Mets don’t flop until the end of the season.
Nevertheless, despite the key injuries to reliever J.J. Putz and overrated shortstop Jose Reyes, things aren’t all that bad for the Mets. Sure, Chipper Jones claimed that third baseman David Wright was complaining about the pitching-friendly dimensions at Citi Field, it could be worse for the Mets. The funny thing about that is Charlie Manuel says back in his day, every stadium was the size of Citi Field.
Hey, it can always be worse.
What the Mets have going for them (of course) is Johan Santana. He’s been as good as the Mets had hoped and has already stuck it to the Phillies once already this season.
Still, if the Phillies can get Brad Lidge and Jimmy Rollins squared away, this race could be over quickly. Oh, they might not say Rollins’ and Lidge’s slumps are concerning, but that can’t be totally accurate… right?
Maybe. After all, despite his 6-for-36 (.167) in his last eight games and demotion out of the leadoff spot for Sunday’s victory in Los Angeles, the Phillies’ offense appears to be potent enough to withstand an extended jag by Jimmy Rollins. That doesn’t mean Charlie Manuel doesn’t need Rollins to start hitting, because he does. The numbers bear that out. When Rollins gets on base and scores, the Phillies win. It’s as simple as that.
Not so simple is the slide by the closer Lidge. Apparently he is making up for lost time on the blown saves front after going a perfect 48-for-48 last season. This year the stats don’t look too great after he blew back-to-back saves last weekend and is 13-for-19 in save opportunities with a 7.27 ERA.
However, Lidge spoiled the Phillies last year because blown saves are inevitable. Just look at Mets’ closer Francisco Rodriguez, who set the Major League record with 62 saves last season. To get those 62, Rodriguez needed 69 chances. In fact, the so-called K-Rod has never blown fewer than four chances a season during his career and though he’s a perfect 15-for-15 this year, his save percentage is just 87 percent. That’s slightly better than Lidge’s career mark, though it is worth noting that K-Rod saved eight games last year in which he didn’t go a full inning.
Moreover, the last time Rodriguez went more than one inning to get a save was July 1, 2007.
Goose Gossage he is not.
Regardless, it should be a pretty interesting showdown in the fancy, new Citi Field (new Yankee Stadium it is not).
Matchups:
Tonight: LHP J.A. Happ (4-0, 2.48) vs. LHP Johan Santana (7-3, 2.00)
Tomorrow: LHP Cole Hamels (4-2, 4.40) vs. RHP Mike Pelfrey (4-2, 4.85)
Thursday: LHP Jamie Moyer (4-5, 6.27) vs. RHP Tim Redding (0-2, 6.97)
Working on the weekend
The popular sentiment during the weekend was that the Dodgers-Phillies matchup was a preview of this year’s NLCS… sure, sounds right to me.
Nevertheless, if the season were to end today (it doesn’t) the playoff matchups would have the Dodgers hosting the Mets and the Phillies in a rematch against the Brewers in the NLDS.
In the American League the matchups would pit the Yankees against the Tigers and the Red Sox vs. Rangers.
Why mention this? Well, 28 years ago tomorrow playoff spots actually were decided on June 10. Yep, on this date in 1981, the players went on a two-month strike that did not end until July 31. As a result, the owners decided to split the 1981 season into two halves, with the first-place teams from each half in each division (or a wild card team if the same club won both halves) meeting in a best-of-five divisional playoff series.
It was a terribly flawed system because the Cincinnati Reds finished with the best record but didn’t make the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals snuck in with a 50-53 record.
The Phillies also got in thanks to being in first place when the players walked out on June 10. Eventually, they lost in an entertaining five game NLDS series to the Montreal Expos even though the St. Louis Cardinals finished the season with the best record in the NL East.
Weird, wild stuff.
When Jamie Moyer got his 250th win, they gave him some of that special 250 champagne. You know… the good stuff.
Ellen in pre-op before having her appendix removed. The doctor said her appendix was “unusually large.” Just the thing a lady wants to hear.
The White House briefing room with my crappy Blackberry phone.
Truman Balcony from the South Lawn. The grass was so soft and green, but it didn’t matter because the weather was so humid.
The Rose Garden and Oval Office from the South Lawn. That’s about as close as they allowed us…
Believe it or not, this is the best Shea Stadium ever looked.
Here come the Mets.
Or should that be, HERE COME THE METS!
Certainly the last one seems to be the sentiment of folks from New York City. In fact, it's trickled down this way that the Mets' fans are so fired up that the TV station carrying the game took out special ads featuring Cole Hamels calling the New York team, "choke artists."
Apparently the truth doesn't always set some folks free.
Though the Mets' players have been quite chatty lately in regards to the Phillies, the Phillies didn't seem so geeked up about playing the Mets. Of course the clubhouse was virtually bare of ballplayers after the loss to the Nationals last night, but the guys who were around just kind of shrugged off the prospect of the bug weekend series against their arch-nemesis.
"I think you guys have more fun with it than we do," Canadian Matt Stairs said.
Stairs, of course, is a reasonable man. He rarely flies off the handle unless he's talking about post-homer celebrations in the NLCS or hockey. Otherwise, Stairs is as cool as can be.
But on the other hand, Stairs has only faced the Mets once as a member of the Phillies going 1-for-2 with an RBI (no, it wasn't a homer) in a doubleheader last Sept. 7. So maybe he's not the best guy to weigh in on the topic.
"I'm not going to approach the Mets any different than Washington or San Diego or whoever it is," he said. "The crowd is going to be into it and have fun with it."
But guess what? Stairs' sentiment is pretty much the norm in the Phillies' clubhouse. Mets? Yeah, big deal.
So since there wasn't much interest in the Mets' arrival at the Bank this weekend - or the Phillies' first trip to Bailout Ballpark next week, I thought I'd just trot out something I wrote last January.
Call it a virtual rain delay.
Here it is:
Trading places
A friend from New York City called the other day with an intriguing question. Now before I get into the actual question, it's worth mentioning that the friend has spent the past two decades working in the sports media, including the past three covering the New York Mets.
Yes, those New York Mets.
So for the past three years this friend of mine watched from the inside as the Mets choked in a seven-game series to the Cardinals in the NLCS in 2006, choked during September with a 6½ game lead and less than three weeks to go in '07, before pulling the trifecta in '08 by choking a 3½ game lead during late September.
Needless to say, my friend has seen that the Heimlich doesn't always work on a baseball team. No, these have not been happy times for the Mets, especially considering which team went on to win the World Series last October.
Those elements make the question so much more interesting.
"Tell me," he said. "Are Phillies' fans as obsessed with the Mets as the Mets' fans are with the Phillies?"
See, it was a really good question. It was such a great question that there really wasn't any way to answer it. After all, does gloating count as interest? Does finally feeling like the vindicated underdog constitute as interest?
Is it fair to answer a question with another question or is that just some sort of a trick?
C'mon, man... what's with all the questions?
But for lack of anything better to say, I answered, "Yes." Albeit hesitantly. A very unsure yes like I was trying to convince myself of my answer as I was giving it. Kind of like when you visit someone's house for dinner and they say, "Hey, would you like a second helping of Brussels sprouts?"
Uh, yes? Please...
Anyway, I couldn't convince myself if Phillies' fans are obsessed with the Mets. Oh sure, fans of the local nine really, really despise the Mets. Probably in much the same matter as they dislike the Dallas Cowboys. But, more importantly, unlike those Dallas Cowboys fans, the New Yorkers are thinking about the Phillies. They're losing sleep, tossing and turning with angst over Cole Hamels' nasty changeup, Brad Lidge closing out the ninth and a batting order with Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard.
Yes, how's that for changing times... New York is worried about Philadelphia.
For so long it was always the other way around. Whenever the Mets turned up to wreak havoc on our friendly little hamlet, they always brought a cavalcade of weirdos. Yes, there was Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden in the 1980s, and then Mike Piazza during the last decade. There was even a few that traded places like Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell joining up with the Phillies while Billy Wagner took the long money for three years of falling short.
They had Tug McGraw, but we kept him. He's ours.
Do the Phillies get to the playoffs in '07 and then win the World Series in '08 with Wagner instead of Lidge? Let's just say the Phillies got the better deal with Wagner going to the Mets.
Still, when the Mets came to visit, they emptied out the outer boroughs and caravanned down the Turnpike. In most years, the New York faithful outnumbered the Phillies' fans, which was really, really annoying. No, it wasn't annoying because Mets' fans out-numbered the hometowners. That's fine. After all, the locals knew that Matt Beech and Gregg Jefferies weren't getting it done. Actually it was annoying because the New Yorkers were hardly good guests. They came early, stayed late, made themselves a little too comfortable and generated way too much noise.
They acted like they owned the place, but in some sense they did.
So the very idea that a New York dude who has an affiliation with Mets asks if the Phillies are as "obsessed" with their team as the New Yorkers are over the Champs, well, that can only make a Philadelphian smile a little bit. Yep, for a change they're thinking about us...
How sweet is that?
Just think how good it is to be a fan of the Phillies these days... go ahead think about it. First, the most bitterest rival is actually jealous of a Philadelphia team. When does that ever happen? Secondly, the Phillies built their new stadium and funded it properly at just the right time. Look at the Mets - they're going into their new park named for a bank that pulled a choke job worse than anything their owners pulled in any September.
Shoot, the new CitiField ought to be called Taxpayer Ballpark. Better yet, it ought to be repossessed and given back to the hard-working folks in Flushing, Queens.
But to paraphrase W.C. Fields' epitaph: "Here lies the New York Mets. Wouldn't they rather be living in Philadelphia..."
Crazy day at the old ballyard yesterday. So crazy that I had four different stories written during the game based on the outcome only to scrap them all when Raul Ibanez smacked his grand slam and when we learned Brad Lidge had an MRI, a cortisone shot AND was taking anti-inflammatory medication.
So yeah, crazy day at the ol' ballpark.
"Good ol' slugfest," Charlie Manuel said.
Charlie calls these early hot days "hittin' weather." He's certainly right about that considering the ball seems to travel a little bit longer when the winds are calm and the temperatures higher at Citizens Bank Park. Ibanez says he noticed the ball carrying well during batting practice earlier on Monday afternoon. But even Ibanez or Manuel would have had difficulty predicting the long shots belted by the Nationals and Phillies.
Not only did two shots clear the center field fence and strike the batter's eye (Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard), but the Nats clubbed two upper deck shots - one to left by Zimmerman and one to right by Nick Johnson - and blasted one onto Ashburn Alley by Elijah Dukes.
Clearly the Nats gained more yards in the air than the Washington football team did all of last season.
Though the Phillies offense seems to be clicking after the two losses to the Brewers late last week and the first part of the Marlins games, Manuel is clearly concerned about the team's pitching. The staff's ERA is far and away the worst in the National League and only the Rangers and Yankees have a worse mark in the Majors.
"Looks to me like they are leaving pitches out over the good part of the plate," Manuel said when asked about his staff's troubles.
And by good he meant from a hitter's perspective.
At this point it seems as if the manager has little flexibility in regard to his staff. J.C. Romero is still serving his suspension (he has 32 games to go), Lidge might have a DL stint coming and the starters aren't giving the relievers too many breaks. So far the Phillies are fifth in the league for innings by relievers and 14th in innings pitched by starters.
Unlike with hitters, Manuel can't sit pitchers when they struggle. In fact, it might be the exact opposite - if a pitcher is struggling the manager might opt to get him more work.
You know, depending on the circumstance.
Surely the pitching will be a topic to rear its head again soon...
* Not messing around... Speaking of J.C. Romero, the suspended reliever is not messing around with his law suit against the makers of the supplement 6-OXO Extreme as well as the retailers that sell the product. How so? Consider that he has Howard Jacobs as one of his attorneys.
For anyone who follows cycling, track or doping cases, Howard Jacobs is the go-to name in law. It seems as if he has represented everyone from Tyler Hamilton to Floyd Landis to Marian Jones. If there is one lawyer who knows about the ins and outs of doping tests and drugs in sports, it's Jacobs.
Better yet, Jacobs was a competitive triathlete so he understands all of the aspects of doping and athlete's rights.
The presence of Jacobs on Romero's legal team as well as thoughts from several attorneys weighing in on the case indicates that the pitcher has a strong case.
Still, one lawyer said if the supplement company advertised its product as something that complies with the MLB testing regimen, then yeah, Romero has a case. Otherwise, he might be losing even more cash.