Go Screw Charlie Hough, Marlins Win 2-1

Roy Halladay pitched against Josh Johnson tonight.  Both giant right handed pitchers allowed one earned run and pitched deep into the game.  One of them was backed by some shaky defense that resulted in an unearned run and a loss.  I blame this all on that stupid Charlie Hough.

He started the inaugural game for the franchise and I have to stare at his stupid knuckleballing face every time that the Phillies step foot in that abomination of a stadium in Florida.  Sure he pitched until he was forty-six years old and he used to smoke in the dugout, but his opening day start for the Marlins has intertwined the two for eternity so I blame him every time they beat the Phillies.

Everything seemed like it was going to be fine.  Ryan Howard crushed a home run to the opposite field in the second inning and the Phillies proceeded to load the bases with no one out.  Up stepped Dane Sardinha.  I should probably mention that Sardinha can not hit worth a shit as evidenced by his .162 batting average.  He proceeded to strike out.  Halladay followed this with a strikeout and Jimmy Rollins completed the shit storm by grounding out weakly to Omar Infante.  Johnson can be flat out dominant.  He was not in this game and the Phillies offense could not capitalize on his mistakes.  It was at this point that I started to get the feeling that the Phils were going to waste a good pitching performance.  The Phillies loaded the bases again in the top of the third and failed to score.  At this point I said to myself “Self, this is not good.”  Apparently I was angry enough to start hallucinating and have a conversation with myself.

Roy Halladay got to watch as Josh Johnson threw a ton of pitches and labored through a really tough two inning stretch.  After ruminating on the bench, Doc walked the pitcher.  This was the first time in his career that he walked the pitcher.  Issuing a free pass to the pitcher almost always comes back to ruin everything.  Johnson ended up scoring after a double from Chris Coghlan and a sacrifice fly from Emilio Bonifacio.  Bonifacio?  Seriously?  The score is 1-1 and I am down a remote control after spiking it off the coffee table.

Fast forward to the bottom on the eight inning.  Who is the last person that you would expect to make an error to put the winning run on base with no outs?  Was your guess Jimmy Rollins?  David Bell?  Did you even listen to the question?  David Bell does not play for the team anymore silly.  It was Jimmy booted a routine ground ball from Omar Infante.  He reached second base on a passed ball and got to third when Osvaldo Martinez grounded out to second.  Chris Coghlan got jammed but still managed to bloop a single into center scoring Infante.  The score became 2-1.

John Mayberry managed to work a walk off of Marlins closer Leo Nunez, but followed that with a pair of weak groundouts.  The final score was 2-1 Marlins.  The Phillies had the chance to pound Johnson (get it?), but let him off the hook.

The Phils have another chance to win the series tomorrow versus Ricky Nolasco.  Hopefully the offense decides to show up for Cliff Lee tomorrow.