Phillies Lose in Marlins Walkoff; Win Game

I was watching tonight’s game on a cell phone, and I cannot recommend a worse way to view the Phillies bullpen getting tail-slapped by a resurgence of bored Marlins.

“Oh, good, its 4-2,” I reported.  The awkward lengths of silence in between outbursts wasn’t cushioned by the soft sound of W.B. Mason commercials, just the hum of the car running over miles and miles of highway.

I don’t care what you’re saying, that “Marlin Week” joke was hilarious.

Phillies 5, Marlins 4

Just after the Phillies managed to birth out two whole runs, after eight hits and, like, six innings, the Marlins reminded them that not scoring runs with no outs and the bases loaded is a costly, stupid, avoidable mistake.

So stupid, in fact, one could almost forget that the starting pitcher was Roy Oswalt.  Looking to bounce back from that start that had idiots everywhere screaming for J.A. Happ’s contract, Oswalt threw a three-hit shutout through seven and had a hell of a time doing it.  Then he learned that valuable lesson every pitcher who arrives in Philadelphia learns about the bullpen, and that is that handing them a lead to take care of as if it is their own is like having a neighbor take care of your dog and then returning its severed head.

I can’t even explain how many times we lost this game tonight.  We lost it when Jayson Werth tried to tap dance his way out of an assheaded pick off.  We lost it when Raul Ibanez turned a possible run into a sad trombone.  We lost it when the Marlins won the damn game (Fair or foul, the ump could have easily called it the other way). We lost it when J.C. Romero came in and promptly handed over two runs, and Jose Contreras followed him and allowed two more.

We lost this game.  Chooch’s home run was timely and heroic, but so’s a fire engine, even if it shows up and the kittens have already burned to death.

When all the information on a matchup is passed on via score updates, you like to imagine the action going down as cleanly and professionally as possible.  When I finally saw the footage of the Phillies’ worst mistakes on Sports Center, I nearly choked to death on my own blood.  That was hideous and dumb and just shitty, shitty, shitty baseball.

I’d love to sit here and compliment the Phils depth over the first two games of this series, as they carry on offensively without Chase or Ryan or Shane.  But if you think breaks like the ones we got tonight are going to shine through the filthy layer of grime that sits over this “win” more than once, you have lost your mind and should be put to sleep.

At least we saw Mike Sweeney’s first Phils AB!  He did nothing.

I’m usually the first guy to throw a few snarky little jokes in there and then finish with something along the lines of “Ha, ha, well, a win’s a win.”

But this I don’t even think qualifies as a win, and according to the stats, it doesn’t count as a loss.  It’s some sort of hybrid combination of the two; a monstrous, decrepit being living under your creepy neighbor’s stairs. Syfy has taught us one very valuable lesson: Cross breeding never works out.

Good god, man.  Just awful.