I know Doc I know. Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

Baseball can be infuriating.  Baseball’s best closer/highest paid reliever of all time gave up a game winning home run to a guy who has never hit a baseball with a bat in the major leagues.  Luckily, I managed not to throw my television out the window and even avoided making a fool of myself in front of my wife by banging shit around like a toddler who didn’t get his way.

This one started out so well.  The offense scored two runs in the first two innings and had Jonathan Niese’s pitch count up near 100 pretty early in the ball game.  Roy Halladay looked like he put last games abomination behind him and was shutting the Mets out through six innings.  The Mets tied the game with two outs in the sixth on a David Wright double down the line causing my first expletive laced outburst of the game.

The Phillies had opportunities to go ahead in the seventh and eighth innings.  In both instances they had men on third with less than two outs.  In the seventh Hunter Pence managed to hit into a double play with the bases loaded and in the eighth, Freddy Galvis failed to hit a fly ball and Ty Wigginton proved that he is a lumbering oaf who can not slide properly by getting thrown out at the plate giving me a second opportunity to shout at the television.

All this set the stage for some guy who I have never heard of hitting a home run off of Jonathan Papelbon.  It also reminded me that Papelbon takes FOREVER to throw the ball.  This is a tough one to swallow, but hopefully new staff ace Joe Blanton can shut down the Mets tomorrow.  5-2 loss for the Phillies.

“Cliff Lee touched home plate, looked toward the visitor’s bullpen 360 feet away, brushed his right hand with his left hand like a bank teller counting cash and smiled.

It was not a home run celebration.  It was a message to Kyle Kendrick, who was sitting in the bullpen, to pay up.”

–Todd Zolecki

Kyle knew it as soon as the ball sailed off the bat.  Cliff had done it again.

“Woohoo!”  David Herndon exclaimed.  ”This is great!  Pitchers hitting home runs!”

Mick Billimeyer took his traditional celebratory swig from the flask he had duct taped to the bottom of his folding chair.  ”Siddown, Herndon.  Nobody paid to see you.”

Herndon obeyed, while pouting.  ”But what if I go into the game?”

The 20 minutes of hoarse, hysterical laughter from the bullpen coach seemed to indicate that he believed this was not possible tonight.  ”You see the way Cliff’s pitching out there?  Looks like he made a deal with the devil.  And the deal is that Cliff Lee never gets to be nothing but awesome at baseball, the end.”

“Why do you hate us long relievers?!” Herndon shouted back.  The outburst was rare, but not totally unexpected.

Mick stood up.  ”Because seeing you freaks in a game means something’s gone horribly wrong.  You’re like starters nobody trusts enough to start.  Now, fight each other for an inning and half for my amusement!” (more…)

It all unraveled pretty quickly today.  Cliff Lee’s consecutive scoreless innings streak fell by the waste side in the bottom of the third inning, but he had the Phillies in position to win the game entering the bottom of the eighth inning.   (more…)