Bullpen Latest Set of Phillies to Ruin Everything

Well, I think it’s fair to say we’ll all be seeing Brad Lidge’s head on the body of a giant spider in our nightmares again.

I don’t want to spend another season bitching about Brad Lidge, and you certainly don’t want to read it.  Why would you?  It’s bleak and pointless and I run out of jokes by mid-July, so really, I’d despise being forced into that position.  And I already used the “giant spider” joke so clearly my A-material is almost out.

But after a little horse shit ballet he performed in the final moments of the first Twins game on Friday, and the sequel with the dark ending he put on last night, I look to the horizon and see a future heavy with blown leads, despondent post game interviews, and a division lead that keeps slipping further and further away, just because that one final out is, like chasing a sexy model through the woods in a cologne commercial, so very, very elusive.

Twins 13, Phillies 10

Now this is incompetence I can stomach.  Or at least, that I’m used to.  The same soul-dredging, mind-melting mistakes we saw lo those not many months ago, as the impossibility of our closer to close stares us directly in the face.

At least it wasn’t the offense who failed last night.

It could have been a comically ridiculous bat-drought, so I guess we should consider ourselves…lucky?…that the incompetence was sequestered to some panicked shit-eating in the last moments of the game, rather than smeared over the entire contest like a fine paste.

After mounting a comeback while facing a confident five run deficit, the Minnesota Twins looked at the 9-4 lead, and merely shrugged.  Jim Thome shrugged first, and he shrugged so hard he put a Jose Contreras pitch over the wall to shrink it to 9-6.  So, logically, the next great idea is to bring in Brad Lidge, a guy who’s made a career out of getting out of sticky situations.

Until last season, when the Phillies would have to engage in a game of musical chairs every time he would be brought into a game.  Except in this particular game, there are no chairs, and everyone cries the entire time, and it doesn’t end.

With a smaller lead, Lidge went on to give up his own little set of earned runs–two–and the lead was down to one lonely run.

Chad Durbin, not to be left out, entered the game and promptly surrendered four hits, one of which was, ha ha you got it, a home run.  At this point the score may as well have been 412-9 because it was clear the bullpen had held a meeting prior to the game and decided that if they were to receive any kind of pressure, they would immediately implode with absolutely zero explanation.

Esepcially when your ace in the hold move is to truck in some Danys Baez to cover your ass!  Surely, the man whose ERA people can’t look at without gasping in horror will end the madness.

He gave up three runs.

And you can’t even get out of this game without mentioning the stellar performance of Cole Hamels (7 IP, 3 ER, 5 H, 2 BB, 7 K), and the resurging offense still doing its thing.  Ryan Howard had a home run, but Ryan Howard hits home runs.  Raul Ibanez and Jayson Werth have not been hitting home runs, and even they came through.  WILSON VALDEZ HIT A HOME RUN. That’s so uncommon he had to have the rules explained to him again regarding what to do in such a scenario.

Also, Ross Gload.  Ross Gload hit a home run.

So you see, there’s no lengths the Phillies won’t go to to enforce the policy of all fans leaving the stadium muttering/screaming “God DAMN it.”  And now, on this most hallowed of Hallmark holidays, we celebrate our fathers.  Who knows what gasket will blow today?  You’d like to think the bats will stay lit.  With Roy on the mound, you feel like your starter will be in control.  Honestly, where will it all go wrong?

Let’s wait and see!

Happy Father’s Day.