Wednesday 8/27: Phillies blow 8th inning lead to Mets and lose a winnable game against Johan Santana.
Thursday 8/28: Phillies blow a 4-1 lead in the 8th inning at Wrigley Field wasting another fine effort from Cole Hamels, falling 6-4.
Friday 8/29: Phillies gradually lose a 2-0 lead, and fail to muster any additional runs and fall again to the Cubs, 3-2.
All this on the heels of an improbable win after trailing the Mets 7-0 Tuesday night. You know, the game that was supposed to be so crushing for New York, and a springboard for the rest of the Phillies' season.
Current standings show the Mets are 2 games up on the Phightins this morning after scoring 4 in the 9th to beat Florida last night.
Meanwhile, the Phillies have two more at Wrigley this weekend.
Not much has changed in the standings since my post in July, right around the time the Mets struck gold with a 10-game winning streak, to tie the Phillies atop the NL East.
The two teams enter tonight's opener of a two-game series in Philly tied in the loss column, and the Phils a 1/2 game back overall.
This is a brutal stretch for the resurgent Phightin's (they've won 7 out of 8): Two with the Mets, then four here in Chicago against the almighty Cubs, with series' against Florida (still dangerous), the Mets in New York, and Milwaukee (wouldn't hurt to pass them in the wildcard standings) in the near future.
While Jimmy Rollins has been absolutely brutal -- although he did have a nice game last night -- since his infamous "frontrunner" controversy, the team has started clicking a bit since the Dodgers swept them in L.A.
The starting pitching remains eerily solid. Brad Lidge is back to being dominant at closer. Chase Utley is starting to hit again. And, the Mets bullpen woes continue with Billy Wagner possibly out for the season with his inury, and starter John Maine on the DL with a bone spur in his shoulder.
This is still the Phillies, though, and until they're popping champagne corks officially, there's nothing to get too excited about, yet.
I don't even know the purpose of this post, other than it's helping to settle the nerves a bit to letting out some energy banging away at the keyboard for a few minutes on the day of the series opener against the foes from Flushing.
Moyer vs. Pedro tonight seems like a fair fight...Santana vs. Kendrick on Wednesday, not so much.
Should be a great series. I'm looking forward to reading about each game the following morning.
An already thin receiving corps was dealt a major blow yesterday when it was revealed Kevin Curtis -- the Eagles No. 1 receiver in 2007 -- will undergo surgery to repair a sports hernia.
This is a similar injury to the one suffered in the past few years by teammates Donovan McNabb, L.J. Smith, and former teammate Dirk Johnson.
Curtis will most likely be sidelined for at least 4-6 weeks.
With No. 2 receiver Reggie Brown nursing a hamstring injury, the Eagles are left with rookie Desean Jackson, and the likes of Greg Lewis and Hank Baskett as their top wide receivers.
Further doom and gloom has spread over Iggleland after the proclamation by head coach Andy Reid concerning the wide receiver position, saying, "We'll be fine there."
Reid was asked if they would be looking to bring in a receiver now that Curtis will miss some significant time.
Prior to a recent game against the Braves, this Cubs fan caught a baseball tossed into the bleachers by a Braves player during batting practice...in his full beer cup.
Considering it was probably an Old Style, the dirty baseball certainly enhanced the taste of the beer, so the dude chugged it.
A few extra style points for the brief balancing of the ball on his face following the chug.
This now qualifies as the most memorable moment in the Atlanta Braves' baseball season.
I was in the midst of writing this blog about how fun tonight would be because our oldest daughter was going to participate in a park district Wiffle Ball League...only to find out from my wife that the class had been cancelled due to lack of registrations.
There were two.
Hey, Megan and I do just fine playing Wiffle Ball by ourselves in the yard. My brother and I played many a game in the old days one-on-one. But, only two participants isn't enough for this particular league, so they'll try to offer it again in the spring.
I have mixed emotions about this development. My daughter has been a monster hitter for most of her short Wiffle Ball career, routinely raking my underhand pitches all over the yard, and many times over the fence into our neighbors' yard behind us.
I think I've lost about 3 years on the life of my knees from all of the climbing (not so bad) and landing (bad) I've had to do to retrieve the ball over the years.
It was because of her hitting prowess that we signed her up for this league.
My hope was that she'd enjoy it enough to eventually want to play in a softball league. She's only eight, and has never played an organized sport, and so far has been lukewarm on the topic.
However, already enjoying, and excelling at Wiffle Ball -- albeit in the backyard -- this seemed like a natural, and she was pretty excited about it.
But, the last couple of times we went to the backyard to play, all of a sudden, she couldn't hit anything. Swings and misses at an alarming rate. Had she been watching the Phillies' offense lately?
Hard to say if it was something mental tied to the start of the league, or if it was just a stretch of bad days at the plate. "Whiff"le Ball.
She'll turn it around. Just to be safe, though, I've forbidden her from watching any footage of the 2008 Phillies offense.
Have you ever been Rickrolled before? You know, you're surfing a website, or a blog like this, and someone offers a link for some cool video clip, or hot news story, only to have that link send you to a Rick Astley song on Youtube.
I'm sure Astley doesn't mind. That clip has been seen over 18 million times.
I realize the Olympics are only a few days old, but it's fair to say that the 4 X 100 relay race won by the U.S. men's swim team will live on as one of, if not the most memorable moment.
Almost as shocking as the comeback, is the fact that there is an African-American on the team. Take thatAl Campanis!
Gotta love the reactions from the U.S. team after the race was over.
Since NBC seems to be taking down any and all olympic videos from Youtube, I'm only able to post this clip of a camera pointing at a TV showing the race. Better than nothing.
Besides, I think you can put up with a lack of video quality for the chance to see the French get fried.
