Incredible game

We've been back from the ballpark for more than four hours, and I still can't believe it.

Except for the 2008 World Series clincher and the 2007 division clincher, this might have been the most amazing game we've ever seen in person.

Despite incredible odds and a feeling of doom all day, the impossible happened - it was supposed to rain when we were at a game and it didn't!

Oh, and the Phillies came to life in the 7th inning to win a game in which they were held in check by the mediocre Doug Davis. Phillies 4, Cubs 3.

The first inning was tortuous, but Roy Oswalt shut down the Cubs for six more innings after giving up three in the first. The Phillies chipped away with a run in the 1st and 3rd, but left eight men on in the first six innings. They finally broke through with two runs in the 7th on a base hit by Ryan Howard. He had a deep double in the 1st that almost went out. (He has a tendency to come through for Trent when his parents have tickets.)

Observations from the stands: The little guy stayed home today even though it was early Father's Day at the park. Pete Schneider got to hang with his son before the game. ... They handed out a white-on-white Phillies hat, better than the hat-on-a-hat they gave away a few years ago. ... The sax player outside the ballpark has gone Hollywood. He had a stool and an amplifier. I liked acoustic stand-up guy better.

The Overbrook High School Overtones sang the National Anthem. I don't remember it. Marc Antonelli sang God Bless America. At first I thought it was long, but then I decided it was good. Everyone loved it.

There was a very special birthday on the screen today. Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz. He's 60. ... This guy in front of us is a huge Nationals fan. He had the shirt, lanyard, cap and even a backpack. ... There was a baby in front of us. Not as a cute as Trent, but made me miss him.

Ryan Madson needs better closing music. Don't Stop Believin' kind of puts the place to sleep. Besides, don't you want the other team to stop believing once you bring in your closer?

Antiquated shirts: Not very many. Most were spotted on the way out of the ballpark when I wasn't taking notes. Pat Burrell, Jim Thome, Lenny Dykstra and Jayson Werth.

Etc.: Everyone around us jumped for a hot dog even though the Phanatic's hot dog shooter couldn't reach us in the 400 level.

Oh well, pretty good game, but we've got a nerve-wracking night and morning ahead of us. Trent's been on the DL too many times this season with ear infections, so we're doing the tube thing tomorrow, but we're sure he'll be hotter than the Red Sox by the time our teams resume play on Tuesday.

Jinxed

Last night, before we watched Ryan Madson blow a 3-2 lead in the 9th - the beginning of a bullpen implosion that ended up an 8-3 loss to the Blue Jays in 10 innings - I asked Christine whether she would blame Scott Lauber or Paul Hagen for writing about Madson's improvement, or me for blogging about it.

She said all three.

I think we can also pin part of the blame on the pitchers themselves because I think they might be going Hollywood with their new TV show. Brad Lidge thinks he'll be ready to return next week. I truly don't know whether that's a good thing.

John Smoltz will also return to the majors next week, forcing the Red Sox to go with a temporary six-man rotation instead of banishing Daisuke Matsuzaka to the bullpen. It will work out somehow.

500th: I've always wondered why they hand out promotional giveaways at the beginning, rather than end, of the game. The trinkets should go to the real fans who stick it out. The Red Sox are using that tact tonight to commemorate Fenway's 500th consecutive sellout. Fans will get a picture coming in and a baseball going out. Cue Van Halen: "They gotcha goin' in. They gotcha comin' out. Same amount, woo! In 'n out."

{The fact that the Red Sox are celebrating this at all just seems lame to me. I'm all about giveaways, but read that blog post from the Globe - the organization is going overboard. What it comes down to is, the Red Sox have one of the smallest ballparks in baseball, thus fewer seats to sell, and an endless number of bandwagon fans who have been willing to shell out ridiculous amounts of money to watch a game there. It just smacks of an organization that is desperate, not one that has won two World Series since 2004.}

Tonight's games: We've had better starts - the Marlins scored first via a two-out walk, then an error, but at least the Sox came back with two runs in the 2nd inning and lead 2-1 in the 3rd. The Phillies also fell behind quickly, but haven't come back yet. They trail the Blue Jays 4-0 in the 3rd. Rod Barajas hit a solo home run. Christine hopes this game gets reset by rain.

Game 2?

I got drenched mowing the lawn this morning. I hope to stay dry the rest of the evening, but that remains questionable. I'll let you know tomorrow. I hope tonight's game - Daisuke Matsuzaka (who is overdue for a good outing) vs. Antonio Bastardo (who has yet to have a bad one) - proceeds uninterrupted.

Replay: I commend Shane Victorino's honesty. Christine doesn't.

"I thought it was way foul, to be honest," said Victorino, who added that first-base coach Davey Lopes agreed.

He was referring to Greg Dobbs' 11th-inning foul ball that Charlie Manuel argued should have at least been sent to instant replay for further review.

I'll let Scott Lauber have the final word:

And, really, if the Phillies hadn't struck out 20 times and stranded 10 runners, we wouldn't be talking about Joyce's call today.

Sour grapes: So thanks to some weird licensing rule, the Rays have final say over the Phillies' single-A team's promotions that feature major league logos. The Rays nixed a promotion featuring a Pat Burrell bobblehead in a Phillies uniform holding the trophy. I could almost understand it until I read they allowed similar bobbleheads for Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley. What, do they think Pat the Bat is such a popular Ray that Floridians will automatically become Phillies fans because of this bobblehead?

All I know is that, thankfully, the Threshers didn't try a similar promotion with Burrell's bulldog Elvis. Christine would insist that we should be on the next plane down to Florida.

A new all-American hero

Big Papi is now Big Daddy, as he became an American citizen today. He didn't make a presidential endorsement. And because he's hurt, David Ortiz didn't get to run on the field with a little American flag, as Manny Ramirez did in 2004.

Also unclear is which Red Sox will be next to pledge allegiance - Daisuke Matsuzaka or Hideki Okajima.

The Red Sox celebrated with a 6-3 win over the Orioles, fetching career win No. 150 for Bartolo Colon. (Didn't he just pitch?)

Things weren't so cheery for the Phillies. Cole Hamels had a strong start - two runs in 8 innings with 12 strikeouts - but his mates abandoned him and trailed 2-1 in the 9th. Erik Bruntlett, on second after pinch-running for Greg Dobbs and a walk by Jimmy Rollins, stole third. Shane Victorino struck out. Bruntlett scored when Chase Utley grounded to short and the Marlins couldn't wrap up the double play.

So the Phillies would have to wait until the 10th to get the lead - just a matter of Tom Gordon in the 9th. Oops. Grand slam, Dan Uggla. Welcome back, Flash. Your ERA is back in the 5's for the first time in more than a month. The Phightin's are now 0-2 since the national media hopped on the bandwagon.

Sox-Phils interleague history, 2003: This is the year things started to get really good between our teams, as they kept swinging haymakers at each other and the Phillies taking the home series 2-1. The series started in June and ended in September.

With a Friday night rainout, Saturday became the first game - the infamous Todd Pratt walk-off homer off of Rudy Seanez (then a Red Sox). Great starts by Randy Wolf and Pedro Martinez yielded a 2-1 Red Sox edge after 7 innings. The Phillies tied it, and the score remained 2-2 into the 12th, when each team swapped runs. In the 13th, the Red Sox scored two runs after the first two men struck out. Jose Mesa, the eventual winner, was pitching. In the bottom of the inning, the Phillies rallied to score three, capped by Pratt's two-run homer. (I kept a pretty good scorecard, but don't know what would have happened if the game went on three more innings.)

We didn't buy tickets to Sunday's game because I worked Sundays at the time. We missed a 5-0 shutout by young Brett Myers. Recently acquired Byung-Hyun Kim didn't fare so well.

The make-up finale was played on Labor Day. It was a Mike Schmidt bobblehead giveaway, which was also postponed from the earlier game. {Schmidt's bat has since been broken on our display model, but we have one unopened in its original box. It'll be our big moneymaker some day.}

Christine couldn't come because she was visiting her newborn niece in Texas. She missed a doozy. It was a great back-and-forth game - Phillies lead 4-0 after two; Red Sox tied it in the 3rd. In the 4th, the Red Sox scored one, the Phillies scored two. After the 8th, the Phillies increased their lead to 9-7 and handed the ball to Mesa to save it. The Red Sox bled in the tying runs off Mesa and Turk Wendell before a Trot Nixon grand slam pretty much ended it. Even Kim, now relieving again, couldn't blow this lead. (He was already in the game and got the win.)

It took forever to get home because without Christine co-piloting, I got lost in Philadelphia. I'm geographically challenged, and somehow this season I've finally learned how to get to and from the park without Christine's help. {Considering that the ballpark is right over the Walt Whitman bridge, this really isn't a huge challenge. But I'm glad Greg has finally learned his way.}

[Photo credit of Papi: Boston Globe]

Finally, a nice day at the park

An innings-eating start by Jamie Moyer, a clutch comeback by the offense and a shut-down performance by the bullpen. It was quite a win for the once-again first-place Phillies, 7-5 over the Marlins. (And, for the first time this year, we went to a game when it wasn't raining, freezing or both.)

The Phillies hung tough, even after the Marlins took a 5-1 lead in the 3rd. The turning point came in the 6th with the Phillies down 5-3. Geoff Jenkins pinch hit for So Taguchi with Pat Burrell on and two out. Moyer, who had thrown 81 pitches to that point, was on deck. I mused out loud whether Charlie Manuel would let him hit if Jenkins hit a homer. As soon as I said it, Jenkins crushed one to right. (Moyer struck out and then pitched a good 7th, making Cholly look like a genius, according to Christine.) The rest of the game seemed like a formality. It was just a matter of how they would win it.

Burrell answered that with a two-run double to the delight of this guy in our section who must be the biggest Pat the Bat fan out there. He always wears his jersey and starts a pronounced clap every time Don Henley starts playing Burrell's intro music. Although Burrell won the game, it wasn't all good for his fan. A kid about 12 years old dumped some chocolate ice cream on the back of the jersey. (You can see some of it near his left shoulder.) We're not sure if he felt it because he didn't seem to wipe it off.

In-game notes: Ryan Howard made not one but two great plays in the field. A diving catch of a bunt in the 7th. The inning before, he speared a liner and then doubled off the runner at first. ... Marlins CF Cody Ross had a nice catch off Pedro Feliz in the 3rd. We'll be watching Web gems tonight. ... Mike Jacobs' 2nd inning homer hit a billboard that says "great home run." ... Tom Gordon started out shaky in the 8th, walking the first batter and going two balls on the next, Hanley Ramirez. Jimmy Rollins went to the mound. It worked. Ramirez struck out and the next two flew out.

Pre-game festivities: Michael Scott Lieberthal, possibly the greatest Phillie to ever don the tools of ignorance, signed a one-day minor-league contract to retire in the red pinstripes. He threw out the first pitch, then caught a second first-pitch from some corporate sponsor.

Observations from the stands: J-Roll, who had been using the song from the Geico caveman in the airport commercial, has gone back to rap intro music. The Geico music ended just as quickly as it started; it was weird. ... I filled out 19 All-Star ballots. It got tedious, but I didn't want them to go to waste. ... Saw some odd jerseys today. We thought we'd see plenty of Lieberthals, but saw only one on the way out. We did spot a Curt Schilling from his Phillies day and a Daisuke Matsuzaka hat. But the kicker was a couple near us wearing home and away Doug Glanville jerseys.


We thought it was funny because we were at the game when New Jersey native Doug Glanville signed a one-day contract to retire as a Phil. He may have been the last player to do this before today.

Giveaways: Like Mother's Day, Father's Day was celebrated early at Citizens Bank Park. Although not a dad, I'm older than 15 and qualify for the giveaway: a picture of a hat. On a hat. Sometimes the Phillies marketing department is quite clever; sometimes they got nothing. Here's the hat on a hat, next to the pink visor Christine got on Mother's Day. (We forgot to post a picture of it last month.)


Red Sox: Another decent outing for Bartolo Colon and Manny Ramirez's 501st homer led the Sox past the Orioles, 9-4.

Rain, wind but no win

"It's one thing sitting through a rain delay when they win," Christine said after Lyle Overbay hit a pinch hit homer to tie today's game at three in the 5th.

"It's more fun watching the clouds," an angry fellow season ticket holder yelled at the team after the Blue Jays scored three more in the 6th to take a commanding lead.

"We don't leave baseball games early," I implied on this blog in March.

Unfortunately, today we left a game early for the third time in our baseball-watching career. The first one was because of extreme heat, the second extreme cold. Today was extreme rain, even though they resumed play by the time we got home.


We sat through the first two-hour delay, but the skies were so dark and the rain was so hard that we didn't attempt the second. We still can't believe how much rain came down. We got soaked as we ran through the downpour and inches of water on the ground.


While the rain sent us packing, it didn't stop the Phanatic's birthday celebration, although portions were moved indoors because of pre-game rain. All the local mascots showed up - except for the Eagles' Swoop. I wonder what that was all about - maybe he was busy scouting another cornerback (or just jealous of the attention the Phanatic receives). All the mascots, and then Dan Dunn, a "jam artist," painted tributes to the green furball. All kiddies received a paint-your-own Phanatic statue. Christine was jealous.


Despite the rain, the game started nearly on time. The young-gun match-up of Shawn Marcum and Kyle Kendrick never really materialized. Kendrick threw a perfect inning and Marcum struck out three in an inning, but he also gave up two runs, two hits and a walk. Both pitchers were yanked after the first rain delay.

We spent the rain delay watching an inning of Royals-Marlins, then the Richie Ashburn DVD, before the Flyers' last game of the year started. I filled out nine All-Star ballots, and of course, we monitored the Red Sox score - an ugly 11-7 win over the Brewers by Josh "2006" Beckett, who gave up four home runs. The Sox are now in first again after a loss by the Rays.


When play resumed, Chad Durbin continued where Kendrick left off. He yielded his first walk in the 3rd and no-hit murmurs started before Rod Barajas doubled with two outs in the 5th, which started a three-run rally. The former Phil drove in a run the next inning.

In the 6th, trailing 6-3, the Phillies attempted a rally. They had one run in, runners on first and second with Pat Burrell coming up. That's when the rains came. We fled. We could see the sun in the distance as we left the stadium. Listening on the radio, we heard Roy Halladay coming in to pitch to Burrell as we pulled into our neighborhood. We couldn't believe the bad weather cleared that quickly.

Observations from the stands: After Pedro Feliz got a hit in the fourth, the PA system played Feliz Navidad, ending abruptly with "Feliz." That was the highlight of the sound system on a day when it was awful - lots of crapping out. ... A few people were nodding off in the stands - not just the head bob, but full-blown conked out. ... Christine gave me a poke in the ribs when she correctly read my mind that I was thinking of my fantasy team when the Blue Jays eliminated the possibility of Marcum getting a loss. But she was wrong: I was thinking about a save for B.J. Ryan. He nearly blew it but managed to save the game, giving the Blue Jays a 6-5 victory.

Hat update: Christine finally found a new one she likes. It's tan with a brown P and says Phillies on the back.

Baseball Mogul update: I'm still in the NLCS against the Diamondbacks. I was up 4-2 in game six and called Christine in the room to see the Phillies go to a World Series. You'd think a Red Sox fan would know better. Hopefully game seven goes better.

A win is a win

The pitching duel between Cole Hamels and Tim Lincecum fizzled today, but we'll take the walk-off 6-5 win for the Phillies over the Giants. And for the first time this season, we weren't shivering in the stands.

At times it looked like the young aces were pitching to expectations, but each got tagged for four runs in six innings. Each had stretches where they struck out five in three innings, but that represented all of their K's in the game. Neither pitcher issued a walk until the fifth. And, truth be told, Lincecum had a better game. All of his runs were unearned, although he didn't help himself with two wild pitches in a two-run fifth.

We have seen lots of extra-inning or walk-off wins from the Phillies through the years, but this might have been the most anti-climatic. Eric Bruntlett and Chase Utley led off the ninth with flyouts. Ryan Howard then drew his third walk of the game (he somehow managed to avoid strikeouts despite ugly swings). Pat Burrell followed with another walk. "Star of the game" Geoff Jenkins grounded to second, which should have sent the game to extra innings, but second baseman Eugenio Velez (never heard of him or 3/4 of the Giants roster) misplayed it, ending the game.


Observations from the stands: Why do people cheer Aaron Rowand? Why aren't they bitter he took a little more money to play for a team that has no chance of winning? And even if you cheer him once, you have to stop by the third game of a series. ... It's odd to be hoping that Howard somehow prolongs an inning so Burrell can bat. ... Before the game, I had a no-hit premonition and was nervous when Hamels set down the first five. ... It was Mother's Day a week early at the park. The Phanatic's mom got flowers; Brett Myers' mom got roses; all other ladies 15 and older got pink visors. Christine doesn't like pink hats. {Worse yet, the name of the sponsor of the day, Mortrin IB, is prominently displayed on the side of the visor.}


When filling out our first all-star ballots of the year, Christine and I negotiated which Phillies I would vote for and which Red Sox she would vote for. When discussing AL third basemen, I said she could choose her own because Mike Lowell hasn't played much and there's no chance Alex Rodriguez won't win it. An usher overheard the conversation but thought we were talking about NL third basemen. "Even though he's a Met, you have to vote for David Wright. He's our Chase Utley," she said. Christine disagrees. {Maybe he is their Chase Utley, but you do not vote for a rival. And whoever is in charge of the music at Citizens Bank: Stop playing that stupid "Everybody clap their hands." Everyone associates that with the Mets and Shea, and I don't want that in my ballpark.}

Finally, based on the amount of harassing I have gotten from stupid Phillies fans this year who don't like seeing a Red Sox fan in their park, Christine isn't looking forward to the June interleague series. I don't get it - except for that friendly mid-season competition, we're friends until the World Series. ... Speaking of which, both teams are in first place.

All-Star voting: National League: C-Carlos Ruiz; 1B-Adrian Gonzalez; 2B-Utley; 3B-Bill Hall; SS-Hanley Ramirez; OF-Burrell, Justin Upton and Shane Victorino. American League: C-Jason Varitek; 1B-Kevin Youkilis; 2B-Dustin Pedroia; 3B-Mike Lowell; SS-Edgar Renteria; OF-Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew and Jacoby Ellsbury (write-in); DH-David Ortiz.