It’s been a game of consistent frustrations that your countrymen are currently winning but has produced some of the higher quality tweets of the decade.

Then I’m going to play this game I invented against my hat. And lose that too. That’s what the USA is doing.

— Giancarlo Baumann (@MJ_Baumann) March 10, 2013

Cole Hamels got started early, allowing a lead off double to whoever leads off for the Astros.  After that, he didn’t allow anything ever again.  Well, he allowed the run to score, but nobody ever touched base again; not while Hamels was pitching, not while any of the relievers tapped over the last four innings were pitching, never.

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

And as Larry Andersen noted in the radio broadcast, no, the Astros are not the 1927 Yankees.  But they were the opposing team, and Cole humiliated them, though again, they are the Astros, and they may not even distinguish that humiliation from the many, many others.  And I say that knowing that should we have had to play them during the regular season, they would almost certainly have swept us out of our home stadium.

Cole was sharp, and his successors Tyler Cloyd, Zach Miner, Jeremy Horst, and Justin De Fratus all kept Houston at bay, a task that seems to become somehow easier the further into games you go.  Laynce Nix and Michael Young both went 2-for-3 with 1 and 0 RBI, respectively.  But the real day was had, again, by Freddy Galvis, again; the kid went 3-for-4 with a double and two RBI, one with two outs.

Then, there was the matter of former Phillies farmhand Jarred Cosart plucking Darin Ruf in the elbow, causing him to leave the game.  On the one hand, if the inevitable injuries are going to happen, maybe they should be allowed to happen to the younger, more muscly people, so that they absorb and heal faster than, say, a second baseman made of sand.

Just a thought.  Sort of despicable.

It doesn’t matter; Ruf was fine, thankfully, though he did strike out again today in an 0-for-2 performance.  As of yet, the Freak of the Eastern League isn’t making quite a stir.  He’s just scraping up against .200 for a batting average and completes the slash line with an unappealing .314/.300 combo.  Yikes.

Oh, also, Erik Kratz had an RBI triple.  So.  You know.

Astros, I guess.

As catching prospect Cameron Rupp once famously said he would stay in Clearwater “until they ask me to leave.”  He was asked to leave today after the game.

Also Charlie Manuel was run over by a tricycle.

You would assume that a major league veteran would know better than to have facial hair this terrible. I do not miss you Brett. Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

Pretty much every member of the 2008 championship has earned a special place in the hearts of Philadelphia.  Even Geoff Jenkins, who, by all rights, was a pretty large disappointment from a production standpoint, is not despised.  The pretty much in the aforementioned statement is reserved exclusively for Brett Myers.  I don’t think he ever really got Philadelphia, or maybe he is just an asshole.  Either way, I never really root for the guy to succeed.  We all got another chance to see him tonight, but more on that later.

Cliff Lee looks to have fully recovered his exploded side muscle.  Cliff went eight innings giving up only a seeing eye home run to some fellow named Matt Downs.  (more…)

I noticed a Brad Mills rant or two on your site, centered around the “save situation” argument.  Why do you think guys like Mills and Charlie Manuel are so married to the concept of bringing in the closer only when the closer’s stats stand to go up a notch?

I think the save stat has convinced a lot of managers that a closer must always be used in a save situation, unless your starting pitcher is Justin Verlander or Roy Halladay. Starting pitchers can’t be trusted to finish games because they don’t have that “it” factor that you need to pitch the ninth because that inning is different from all the rest. Because, you know, in the ninth you HAVE to get three outs, whereas the approach in all the other innings is that it’s really not that important to get outs.

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