Mayberry Jr. Wins Game…..Seriously

Baseball players have the market cornered on terrible facial hair.  Brett Myers is a thirty year old man with an absolutely despicable growth emanating from his face.  I am of the opinion that he and Ryan Franklin pinky swore that both men would maintain their beards in an attempt to start some sort of beard craze al la Jason Werth or Brian Wilson.  Makes me wonder if either man ever comes near a mirror.

Today was opening day for the Philadelphia Phillies, putting an end to an offseason of varying degrees of predicted success and violent mood swings.  The Phillies started Roy Halladay, last year’s Cy Young award winner and picture of intensity against the aforementioned former Phils first round draft pick Brett Myers.  Myers has previoulsy stated that he wants to “stick it” to his former team.  God forbid that a team would cut ties with an underperforming starting pitcher coming off a major injury with personal problems.  Brett Myers has officially been added to the list of baseball players that I hate.

Halladay looked like Halladay today tossing six innings, giving up six hits, one run and striking out six.  Shockingly, Myers DID stick it to the Phillies, matching Halladay in his seven innings of work.  The Phils only managed three hits off of Myers making the portly right hander look like former Astros right hander Mike Scott.  When all you want is the bloody dismemberment of the other team’s starting pitcher, not pounding the shit out of him in the first inning is frustrating.  Extrapolate that feeling out for seven innings and you have a fan base screaming incoherently at their house-cats to rectify the team’s offensive woes.

In the top of the sixth inning, the Astros finally got to Halladay.  Angel Sanchez singled to start the inning and was moved to third on a double by the most awkward looking human being playing professional sports:  Hunter Pence.  After Carlos Lee popped out weekly to second, it appeared that Doc could escape from the jam unscathed.  Up stepped Bill Hall.  Bill called out Cole Hamels in spring training because he thought that Cole threw at him.  He started to exact his revenge with an RBI ground out scoring Sanchez.  Hallday escaped further damage, but the lifeless offense could not touch Myers.

The Astros opened up their lead by exploiting the Phils bullpen for three runs in the top of the seventh.  J.C. Romero came in to face the left hander Brett Walance, promptly gave up an single, gave way to David Herndon who gave up a single, a triple and a sac fly making the score 4-0 and proving that Michael Borne is really fucking fast.

The Phillies scratched two runs across against Myers in bottom of the seventh with a sacrifice fly from Howard and an RBI ground out from Raul Ibanez.

The score entering the ninth inning was 4-2.  Enter Phillies relief pitcher Danys Baez.  Remarkably, Baez pitched a clean inning surprising everyone who watched him pitch last year.  In the bottom of the ninth, Jimmy Rollins singled off of Astros closer Brandon Lyon.  Captain Big Bat (Jamie Kennedy should jump off a fucking building) followed with a single.  Ben Francisco, Chooch and Wilson Valdez all singled to tie the game and set the stage for pinch hitter John Mayberry Jr.  Mayberry singled over the head of Michael Borne and won the game, earning Danys Baez his first win of the year.

There were some definite positives from today’s contest.  Ryan Howard was 2-3 with an RBI and Jimmy Rollins was 2-4 with two runs scored out of the three hole.  Doc Halladay was strong and Ryan Madson looked good in his one inning of work.

It is certainly a negative when you can’t hit Brett Myers and it is a little disconcerting when David Herdon is used in a critical situation.  Bad offense and a bad bullpen.  Lets hope that this is not a harbinger of things to come.

Next up Cliff Lee makes his Phillies re-debut tomorrow against Wandy Rodriguez at 7:05 P.M.