Phillies Win Streak Called on Account of Kyle

The NL East lost some stank as it dumped a bag of shit this week, and I haven’t touched on it yet.  My close personal friend, Mets underperformer, and all around douche-canoe Jeff Francoeur was rocketed from a sinking Mets ship to a bolstering Rangers cruise line, headed confidently toward the post season.

"“Obviously they see that I don’t fit in the plans next year here… This is going to be obviously a good opportunity for me to go play obviously against some lefties and go to the playoffs,” Jeff said."

Man, if only you could do more than one thing, Jeff Francoeur, you gutless, whiny little pipsqueak.  He also didn’t like it when a Braves fan hurled a bottle at him:  “You can boo me, but don’t throw a bottle at me… That was classless.”

It’s extremely classless, Jeff.  Do you know why?  Because you have no class.

Obviously.

Brewers 6, Phillies 2

Yesterday, in a game I did not recap, Roy Halladay came out and gave up the most home runs of his career (four), and still managed to get the win.  Even when he loses, he wins.

Today, the hands of fate had turned back to Kyle Kendrick, and it was once again KK’s turn to sigh, gulp, and trot out to the mound to hopefully not do what we all sit in fear of him doing every time he starts.

He did it.

Let’s take a peak under the covers at his numbers, shall we?  We shall:  7 H, 5 R, 4 IP.  God, that’s… that’s so bad.  Why are you so bad, Kyle Kendrick?  I’m no anti-booer, but when a guy is getting his first round of harassment from a home crowd, I’ll take the time to consider if it is deserved, and join in if it is.

This was far from Kyle’s first bucket of crap, and certainly not the first time he’s been seen through our crosshairs.  It’s borderline undefendable.  What do you expect, Kyle?  You get better, you get worse.  You get worse, you get better.  You’re behind three of the best pitchers in baseball.  We’ll cheer when you win, we’ll boo when you lose, because quite frankly, this is a playoff race, and we’re sick of it.

“Thank god the Braves lost too,” is not a long term solution.  Given their affinity for comeback wins, it is shocking they didn’t grill the Fish today after coming back from five down to tie it.

It would be so easy to stick Kyle for this one.  So I will.  The officially “sticking” goes to Kyle.

But while we’re pointing fingers and shouting as we type words on our Phillies blogs, let’s not forget Ryan Howard, who has been dropping baseballs like their eggs and he’s a calendar-illiterate Easter Bunny.

When you’re watching a game via Gamecast and “Error on Ryan Howard” appears on the feed to start an inning–on a day that Kyle Kendrick has started, no less–it’s infuriating.  And for whatever reason, with Ryan’s annual September surge beginning to rumble, he’s started to slip in another key area of baseball:  fielding the baseball.

We saw the outskirts of a Phillies squad putting post season hurt on late season victims.  Chooch came through, as he always does.  Jayson Werth threw Corey Hart out at home.  That was neat.  But as before, any efforts to victory can be quickly unraveled by the paced ineptitude of “serviceable” Kyle Kendrick.

People like me may expect/demand to win every game, but when that fifth slot in the rotation rolls ’round, even my hilariously biased expectations of baseball collapse.

GIMME A ROY.

When I first told my parents TBOH was on Twitter, it was tough.  But they got through it.

Image courtesy of Sports Buy