Shut the Hell Out: McCann Slams Home 5-0 Loss

“Heckuva pitchers’ duel,” Tom McCarthy called it.

Yes, he said it today, in a Kyle Kendrick vs. Tim Hudon start.  And he wasn’t even way off base like you’d assume.  This game was scoreless for so long you’d think the Phillies were playing a split squad contest.

Kendrick allowed a single to start things off, creating a wave of salivation on Twitter as we all reached for our Kendrick Jokes Notebooks.  However, the single turned into a double play, and even the base runner Kyle allowed a few seconds later couldn’t pose a threat.  After that, KK cruised through seven, allowing four hits and five strikeouts.

Which is pretty irritating, when you consider how easy it is to blame him for things.  Why, I sent a picture of him to the latest collection agency that’s menacing me and they called back to say they understand completely.

But Ryan Howard re-entered the fray tonight, a fact that during his pregame announcement, initial at-bat, and leadoff double was very exciting.  But the end of the game, Big Piece’s 2012 debut kind of sort of felt like every other chalky, bitter loss we’ve notched this year.

So flash forward seven innings and there’s Antonio Bastardo, trying to give us a reason to believe in something.  Instead, he allowed three walks and even set up a candlelight picnic at each of the bases.  Two outs were recorded in the inning, once Bastardo was already in trouble, which seemed to happen just so we couldn’t get too mad at him.  But once all the Braves were comfortable, he walked Freddie Freeman, then jogged over to third base and offered his arm to Michael Bourn and escorted him home safely.

Once everybody was in the shittiest mood possible, Bastardo then left a fat one up for Brian McCann, who punched it over the center field wall for a bizarre play in which all the players who had been on base were suddenly scoring simultaneously.  Bastardo’s ERA slides to a healthy, pulsating 5.34.

The Phillies were 0-for-8 in opportunities to make the game even a little bit interesting.  Chase got left on base four times all by himself.  Dude is carrying us in that stat.

When It All Went Wrong

Hey did anybody else suddenly hear the sound of, like, trains crashing into each other combined with, like, an off-key marching band playing really fast for the few seconds McCann’s grand slam floated through the air?

Most Attractive Play

Chase speared a Michael Bourn line drive out of the air with the agility of a furious house cat who has been keeping his anger pent up his entire life and will probably die with it all still inside of him.

But the most fun thing to see tonight was a first inning double play in which Jimmy Rollins fielded a grounder, whipped to Chase Utley, who fired it to Ryan Howard.  Even Chris Wheeler had to mention how nice that was.  The game pretty much sucked if you weren’t nostalgic.

Hero

Aww, Ryan.  He tried to hit a home run in his first at bat, but the guy couldn’t come through and we all had to settle for a Michael Bourn-humiliating leadoff double.

Villain

Brian McCann didn’t do very much competently during this game, but man did he ever take advantage of a pitcher who was clearly having a mental breakdown on the mound, had just walked in a run, and may or may not have a dad.