Oct 04 2008
Bushwhacked: Phillies’ offense sputters yet again; Lose Game 3
After dominating the first two games of the NLDS despite a mostly invisible offense, the Phillies had a chance to complete the sweep in Milwaukee and get almost a week off before the NLCS. Now the Phillies look like they will be lucky to advance. Starter Jamie Moyer, who has been so clutch for the Phightins since being acquired in 2006, struggled early on and the Phils never recovered. The Brew Crew played like a team with their backs against the wall and jumped out to an early 2-0 advantage in the first inning on a Prince Fielder sac fly and a J.J. Hardy single.
The runs were more than enough for Dave Bush, who seemed to keep the Phillies’ offense off-balance the entire night. Actually, Philadelphia’s offense has not performed well this entire series despite their two wins. All the Phils could manage on offense tonight was an RBI groundout by Ryan Howard in the sixth inning and they stranded countless runners in scoring position. In 25 innings at bat, the Phillies have only scored in three innings. That is absolutely terrible. They just got really lucky that Cole Hamels and Brett Myers performed as well as they did or they might have gotten swept. By the way, the bullpen served up one of their extra terrible games tonight, which eliminated any chance that the Phillies would be able to steal a win. At this point, bringing in Clay Condrey and Chad Durbin is like waving the white flag. Everyone except Charlie Manuel seems to know that Condrey cannot and will not perform well in big spots and that Durbin’s arm has been totally shot since the All-Star break. Leaving Scott Eyre in to pitch another inning was also a dumb move. There was no reason to leave him in there with all of those right-handed bats coming up. It was just a dumb thing to do.
If the Phils want to think about advancing, their offense needs to get it going tomorrow against a very-hittable Jeff Suppan. The guy is a freakin’ tomato can. The Phillies have roughed him up more than a few times during his career, including on September 14th when they bombed him for 6 runs in 3.2 innings. If they don’t close it out tomorrow, they might as well start making vacation plans because they’re not going to rough up CC Sabathia again. That was a once in a season type of game for the Phillies. I think it will be “CC you later” for the Phightins if they have to play a game five. It will just get ugly.
Tonight was a very discouraging game for Phillies’ fans. Tonight was a very winnable game and they blew it. Tomorrow will be another winnable game. If it goes to Game 5, it will be very unwinnable. I know that many Phils fans will think that they will be able to rough up Sabathia again, but that would be even more naive and idiotic than Barack Obama’s economic and foreign policy plans. Hopefully the bats will come to life and Joe “Exact opposite of an innings-eater” Blanton can close out the game tomorrow or else all the Phillies will have to look forward to is a long flight back to Philly and a couple of sleepless nights before Mr. Sabathia returns to CBP. Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Go Phillies.
