Roy Halladay Too Good to Win Baseball Game

If you were wondering how J.A. Happ is doing in rehab, he’s doing justy grand we are all very proud of the work he’s contributed in Lehigh Valley, thank you very much, not that its any of your business.

[Slams door in your face]

Look the truth is, he’s got an ERA of 6.98 through all five starts in the minors.  He’s got 16 K’s in 19.1 IP and all of his runs (15) were earned.  He could star once more before July 7, or he could request for a long stint in rehab, or he could just come up to the Major League level and get torched already.

And quite honestly, I’m running out of lies to tell the neighbors.

[Slams car door]

AAAA GOD DAMN IT

Reds 4, Phillies 3

Roy Halladay pitched a complete game with 10 K’s and a career high 13 H; Dane Sardinha gave us brief glimmers of hope early on with a three run home run.  Those are both the things that happened today.

In a series that saw Chase Utley and Placido Polanco fall to the DL, Roy Halladay lose a complete game, and Brad Lidge give up the lead in the bottom of the 9th, I’d say that we are a club that could stand to get some good news.  But where? Where could this nugget of joy come from after only taking one of three from the Reds?  Whence will this niblet of happiness creep out from the shadows?

It’s certainly not with Happ.  It’s probably not with Cliff Lee.  In fact, let’s just steer clear of our division rivals altogether.

Maybe its that our bench, one of the three areas of focus before the trade deadline, has started to perform admirably. Yes, Greg Dobbs is still losing the good fight over at third.  He’s still hitting under .200 and he’s still only here because the baseball gods seem to have put a lot of their eggs in his basket.

He still hasn’t spread whatever he’s diseased with around the clubhouse, surely, so one could hand him a biscuit for that.  And he even got a base hit today.  Biscuits for everyone!

I’m talking more along the lines of Brian Schneider, Wilson Valdez, and today, Dane Sardinha.  These are bench players–in Sardinha’s case, that bench was still in the minors–who, mere moments after Utley and Polly slammed into the DL, we stepping up and producing offense at a much more fervent clip than any other point this system.

Yes, it’s been three days.  If you think that’s not long enough, try watching Valdez ground into a double play again.  If you can do it without getting lockjaw, let me know your methods.

My point is, we can walk away from this (lost) Reds series knowing our bench seems to be up to the task, for now, of filling in for the seemingly limitless casualties, especially compared to their earlier season antics (“antics” in this case meaning “no activity whatsoever”).

Valdez:  4-for-10 with a BB, 1 HR, 4 RBI

Schneider: 3-for-7, 1 HR, 3 RBI

Sardinha:  Well, just today, he had that HR.

Wow, am I that starved for offensive depth that I’m saying those numbers are good?  Schneider’s stats are pretty much just the ones for Tuesday’s game, because on Monday he did nothing but strike out and GIDP.

“Hey, that’s my thing that I do,” Wilson Valdez complained.

Not good enough?  Fine, watch Dom Brown do crazy things.