Phillies Finish Game With More Runs Than Opposing Team

Holy crap, its Christmas morning.

Phillies 3, Marlins 2

The 20 run slaughter fest that I assumed would be the method of the Phillies’ slump busting did not even come close to happening.  The packed Sun Life Stadium, filled to its capacity of 37, erupted in a chorus of disinterested moans as the head-in-the-sand Phillies finally managed to grab hold of a lead for dear life and maintain it until the end of a regulation nine inning ball game.

“Huzzah!” the masses shouted.  “Huzzah indeed!  The darkness has lifted the and the slump’s choke hold on us is go–“

Don’t be fooled.  That was no slump-busting baseball.  It was a tooth and nail battle to out fuck-up the Marlins set in the tepid, waterlogged tip of Florida’s dick hole.

What looked like Kyle Kendrick holding the last place Marlins to two runs was actually, as Charlie Manuel puts it, KK just being a pansy.

"“Let me put it to you a nice, easier way: He’s kind of timid.”"

Basically, Charlie thinks Kyle needs to sack up, and Kyle, if he had any sack left, would bother to defend himself.  But he didn’t.  What was getting so under Charlie’s skin was the speed at which Kyle was pitching the game.  For four innings, Charlie was apparently brooding in the dug out, pondering the merits of having Rich Dubee jog out to the mound, kick Kendrick in the crotch, and jog back.

Kendrick’s line was a stagnant puddle, just sort of sitting there–6 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 0 BB, 1 K.  Nothing that makes you jump out of your computer chair with glee, but nothing that makes you jump out of your computer chair with uncontrollable anger, either.  So in this apartment, we call that a win. Meanwhile, meet Jose Contreras.

His hobbies include baseball, defecting from Cuba, and allowing runners on base in the ninth inning. That little endeavor, combined with Raul Ibanez still standing on third base at the end of an inning after being there with no outs, and you’ve got yourself a TBOH-style temper tantrum (shrill and childlike).

But, before you turn all of your attention to just how “fucking amazing” the Flyers are, the best bits of last night’s actual victory were the fact that nobody seemed thrilled about it.  Chase, it seemed, was downright mad.  In fact, the only guy making jokes was Shane Victorino, a guy who some of you may be shocked to see portrayed negatively on these hallowed pages, but I am quickly losing my patience with his cheeky little shenangians

"“I forgot what it was like to high-five somebody.”"

Dawwww, good one, Shane.  Maybe if you weren’t up so late writing awesome jokes you could climb your way out of that horrendous slump. Sorry.  It can be hard to smile at a time like this.  Shane was a primary witness to Jayson Werth killing his beard, so he’s probably still a little traumatized.  Hopefully, this pebble of momentum can get enough force behind it to really start doing some damage.

Doc’s on the hill today, so that will help, and with the fragments of a sheared offense peaking out from under the drought, there is hope. Finally, there is hope.  Which feels a little overdramatic to say after three bad games when you consider what some teams have been through. Of course, according to Charlie Manuel, this hasn’t even really been a slump:

"“People call slumps 0-for-10, 0-for-20. [Shoot], that ain’t no slump.  Take off on an 0-for-54 [slump]. I did that one time.”"

Now that’s baseball.