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.

"Yeah Chooch, I think that Uggla is funny looking too. Good thing we are covering our mouths so he can't he us making fun of him." Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-US PRESSWIRE

The Braves really should have made the playoffs last year.  Their manager proved to be an imbecile as the wheels completely fell off for them down the stretch.  He overused two young bullpen arms and could not rely on them when it mattered most.  Thier terribleness was also the reason that the St. Louis team that I will hate forever made it into the playoffs.  This is just another, in a long line of reasons to hate the Atlanta Braves. 

Brandon Beachy has a stupid alliterative name that gets stuck in your head.  He is one of those players whose name you will attempt to use in trivial pursuit answers thirty years from now.  He has also become a pretty solid major league starting pitcher.  Today, he managed his way through seven innings giving up only two runs and leaving the game with the score tied 2-2.  Just because he is good doesn’t mean that we can’t all irrationally despise him, so hate away everybody.

Cole Hamels did not have his best stuff today.  The broadcast team let us know that he was “grinding.”  He struck out six batters today including inducing a few swings from Dan Uggla that made me smile.  Any time a pitcher can strike out Dan Uggla it makes me happy.  Its true that Cole had to work a little harder than normal in this one.  (more…)