Phillies Win Despite Doomsday Scenario

Maybe its not the prettiest picture in the world; maybe when Charlie said at the beginning of the season that the bench would see more playing time, he was eerily aware of the crippling hex soon to befall his Phils.

From a healthcare perspective, there’s not a ton going right in Philadelphia. Fortunately, for the last 18 innings, we’ve managed to scrape together enough runs to escape with the W.  Of course, with Roy Halladay on the mound, victory is just a series of wind-slashing cutters away, and sure, we were facing Sean West, a guy who had yet to record a decision in 2010.

Maybe its not the prettiest picture, but it certainly is a picture.  So let’s all stare at it and smile until it falls off the wall.

Phillies 6, Marlins 1

As the Phils upgraded Howard’s status from “not dead” to “moderate ankle sprain,” Doc took the mound in his realm of perfection.  7:05pm hit the clock and the Roy Halladay Machine geared up, efficiently humming to life through seven innings, 9 K’s, and 1 ER, earning himself a victory, a smile, and an enthusiastic handshake from his manager.

With so much going right on Roy’s end, it makes sense that you would assume everything morphed into shit on the offensive side.  Maybe the gravitational pull Placido Polanco’s forehead finally got him a concussion?  Maybe Jayson Werth somehow struck out on two pitches with the bases loaded three or four times?  Perhaps Carlos Ruiz decided to go headfirst into third and inadvertently slid past the bag and into Sam Perlozzo’s knee caps, breaking a combined 140 bones between the two of them.  Down in Atlanta, Jeff Francoeur shits himself laughing at the display.

Come on.  Something had to go bat shit, god awful, wrong.

Well, it did, but fortunately, it was all for the Marlins.  Chooch had a four hit night with a double, home run, and 2 RBI.  Benny Fresh stepped into his “Sure, I could play every day” campaign with a dinger of his very own, and even Roy Halladay came storming through with a hit and 2 RBI.  Which was nice.

Chad Durbin was the only scent of the bullpen we got last night, and he didn’t allow the pungent stench quarantined behind the outfield gate to waft too far into the game.  Through two innings he struck out 4 and allowed 3 hits, puffing his playing time out there to a somewhat elongated chunk of time, but escaped with more runs than the opposition, and that, people, is how you define a “win.”

In that brain clenching way that baseball can twist on you, I found myself rooting for the Mets last night… and not only the Mets, but Jeff Francoeur and his ignorant mouth breathing face.  Its that portion of the game that leaves a puke taste in the back of your throat and a rat scurrying around in your mind.

In a swirl of good [I guess] luck, Francoeur and his empty talent came through for the first time since the All-Star break, and the Mets took down the Braves 3-2, allowing the Howard-less, Utley-less, Victorino-less Phils to snarkily crawl up another notch on the road to NL East  supremacy.

I know I don’t have to say this, but it needs to be out there.  The Mets can go right ahead back to sinking to the ocean floor like a school of dead fish in a toxic river after this Braves series.

Congratulations on your first decision, Sean West.

Awesome photo courtesy of The Geek Whisperer.  Follow TBOH on Twitter on Facebook, like a good sheep.