ATLANTA -- So, here I sit, in Terminal D at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, waiting for my AirTran flight to board and still thinking about what happened to the Phillies yesterday. It occurs to me that, last Friday morning, I was in a similar position at the airport in Philly, reflecting on an epic, sweep-completing game against the Mets that had the Phillies back in the race for the NL East.Well, that's meaningless now.
With a bitterly disappointing 2-4 road trip through Florida and Atlanta, the Phillies undid all the good feelings from that sweep of the Mets. Forget about winning the division. And, with a few more losses like this, forget about the wild card, too. Playoff-worthy teams win games when they have an 8-2 lead in the eighth inning. Playoff-worthy teams get the six outs necessary to finish a road trip at .500 and gain a game in both the wild-card and division races. Playoff-worthy teams don't melt down like the Phillies did, even if the Braves won on a slew of broken-bat and infield flares and the head-scratching mental miscues of an overwhelmed rookie right fielder.
As you may imagine, it was a funereal clubhouse yesterday. Charlie Manuel, who has been in pro baseball for about 40 years, kept saying, over and over, "I totally can't believe that." In an upset, chatty Aaron Rowand had nothing to say. Jayson Werth asked, "Did that really just happen?" Tom Gordon said, "A game like that can take all the breath out of you."
I tried to reflect those sentiments in the game story, and I hope I conveyed the Phillies' utter disbelief. They were completely shell-shocked, and I can only imagine what that charter flight home must've been like last night.
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Within the notebook, Chris Roberson explains that he "just rushed out" of the dugout before the eighth inning, leaving his sunglasses behind. It was a big mistake. Huge.
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Adam Eaton won't start Saturday, as scheduled. Instead, he's being pushed back to Tuesday night against Colorado so that he can face the Mets at Shea Stadium on Aug. 16.
Plane is about to board. Meantime, where does yesterday's loss rank on the list of the worst Phillies losses you've seen? Talk amongst yourselves.
4 comments:
Sadly, this loss reminds of many like it in September of previous years... this team is very interested in winning... just not interested enough to win at all costs. All too familiar.
You left the Mets for this, Scott?
Its interesting to note that we passed on "injury-risk" closer Joe Borowski who has a line like this:
3-5, 40 saves, 6 blown, 0 DL trips
Compared to the triumverate of blown saves who, as relievers, combine for:
9-7, 28 saves, 11 BS, 2 DL trips
His team is currently leading their division by 7 games. Hindsight is 20/20, but if we passed on Borowski and accepted Garcia, then our team doctors are morons.
and Borowski's ERA is something like 5.50, so he would fit right in with this bullpen.
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