TBOH Reads New FJM Posts and Gets All Critical of Phils Sweep

1.  Drink several beers

Sure, the Phils haven’t scored yet, but wtf?  Neither have the Braves, and if we’ve proven anything these past few nights, it is that we are clutch.

2.  Read a bunch of the FJM reunion on Deadspin

Man those guys are funny.

3.  Beers

4. This

The Philadelphia Phillies are an unstoppable behemoth.  They are a whirring complex of apocalyptic machinery, gearing to life at just the right moments, all parts functioning on optimal destruction levels, warbling an explosive melody of terror to all those who wander within their borders.  They have pitching.  They have hitting.  They have luck.  They are getting the wins they need when they need to get them.

Now I’m gonna bitch for a sec.

The Philadelphia Phillies are totally lucky.  Martin Prado was inches from a home run in game one of this series that would have made things much more difficult, Jason Heyward never really drops fly balls, Raul Ibanez’s double was an eyelash fair, Nate McLouth should throw a baseball a little straighter, five Braves errors total, Mike Minor’s inability to read the “NO NO I SAID BUNT FOR CHRIST’S SAKE HO SHIT” signal, etc., etc., etc.

“Hey, man!  That’s baseball!”

Yes, luck is baseball.  No, this series was not defined by luck.  It was defined by close, hard fought games, and I am gleeful and yippy and slightly intoxicated that they pulled this shit off.  I am a Phillies fan, so, you know.  Don’t make me puke on you.

But I don’t think Cholly was rearranging chess pieces with Phils and Braves players’ heads on them prior to this series.  I don’t think the idea to put the three starters we love in the front lines against a dangerous Braves squad chomping at our heels was brilliant.  I think it was obvious.

If I was the manager of the Phillies, and I was considering this option, I would have easily done the same the same thing.  I would have also told Kyle Kendrick that there was a Snickers bar for him outside on the giant red “X.”  And then I would have laughed uproariously as the grand piano fell.

I am emotional, profane, and not very strategic.  You should see me play Stratego.  After my first casualty I just claim “nuclear bomb” and hurl the board to the floor.

That, accompanied by 12,000 other reasons, is why I am not a Major League manager.  Charlie is, and Charlie deserves to be.  But anyone with a brain cell would have started those three, and reflecting back on this awesome series, we see two contenders exchanging solid cold death stares, with the only respite being that the Braves happened to blink first, three nights in a row.

I believe we are the better team, because a good team wins the close ones.  All three of these games were close ones.  And in all three, we caught breaks–breaks that one could argue deserved as much credit as the phenomenal starting pitchers we put out there.  Nothing gets all the credit, because a “win” in baseball constitutes stopping the other team from scoring (we did that a lot) and scoring (we did that not as much).

We were limited in this series, because the Braves, even without starting their top pitchers–even starting two rookies–held us to nine runs, averaging to, check your multiplication tables, three runs a game.  For the way this team was a-steamrollin’, that’s not a lot.

I don’t want to take anything away from this, because a win is a win is a win (except for shit like umpire error) and these “is a win’s” were extremely important.

Perhaps I am the result of watching this team spend a season frustratingly not scoring runs for a few fine pitching performances.  I am impressed and ecstatic we pulled off the sweep, but there were plenty of moments in this series in which “brilliance” was not the term on people’s minds.

I love the Phils, and we have been worthy of our theme song.  But

"“Luck will get you so far and then it’ll get you killed.”–Jeff Daniels, Speed"

And Jeff spent that movie getting shot by his own partner and then exploding.  So he knew a thing or two about “luck.”

What the hell am I talking about?  Good night.

5.  Read over post, realize not very strong argument because Phillies are good especially starters, Madson and Lidge, go to sleep.