At least Cody Ross is not longer on the team. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

By its nature the “recap” is supposed to occur directly after an athletic contest to recapture what happened in the game.  I took a day to write this one.  There are some concerns with the Phillies this year; namely their offense and all members of the bullpen not named Papelbon.  Concerns aside it is widely accepted that they will still win the division.  This being said, it is still difficult to watch as things that everyone thought would go wrong start to go wrong.  Four games do not a season make, but it is frustrating as hell to watch Laynce Nix and Jimmy Rollins strike out with less than two outs and a man on third as average starting pitching shuts the team down.  (more…)

“Brilliant,” I thought.  ”It’s funny, and it will be accurate.  I’ll even post a picture of a dead marlin to drive the point home.”

"Tasteless?" Ha, ha. You betcha.

Wow, that is disgusting.

You can get lost in its lifeless eyes as it soul slowly slips into the gathering darkness…

So, instead of a leap forward to bury the closest competitor we’ve got, it’s more like an inching forward to not change anything with a guy who keeps poking us in the arm, annoyingly.

Whatever.

Joe Blanton continued to give me reasons to sing his praises in this somewhat of a yawn of a post season.  Nine K’s, seven scoreless innings, and a slider that snapped shut like a bear trap were more than enough to snare the fish in the first game of a double header, leaving them gasping and flopping on the deck; begging for someone to end it all with a harpoon to the brain.

Unfortunately, that someone was Jamie Moyer.  A man that, yes, has made a career out of skewering the Marlins, but today made his transfer to the bullpen seem all the more appropriate.

No, you can’t put all the blame on his arm.  Anibal Sanchez (2-hit shutout?!) pitched a hell of a game, and we seemed to have used up all the offense reserved for today in the first game.

With two more games under our belt, we really aren’t in any worse or better of a position than we were in when the sun rose over Land Shark Stadium this morning (Which, by the way, is one of the cooler stadium names).  Call it a win.

And a loss.

Magic number’s five!

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