Friday night's game with the Mets was brutal. I was surrounded for some reason by hulking fans of the NY team. I don't care about the hulking; it was the air of contained violence that put me on edge. It's hard to sit next to a guy who seems ready to erupt in fury, and I was relieved when the regulars to my left showed up. I almost asked the Mets fans if they were listeners of the FAN, because if they said something once, they said it three times. So very sports talk radio.
The game started OK, then the Mets scored three in the 2nd and the Mets fans were just so in-your-face. I mean, it's April. I refrained from humming "See You in September" because I did not think these people had a sense of humor. In the bottom of the 2nd, the Phillies scored but they were also robbed of more thanks to a couple of terrific outfield plays by Francoeur and Pagan. A sign, I thought. Then in the bottom of the 3rd, the Phillies abandoned their patient approach with Niese, whose pitch count was already ballooning, and swung early and futilely, giving him a five-pitch inning. Another sign. The last one for me was in the 5th, when Victorino struck out swinging, but Barajas missed the ball. Shockingly, the high-energy Victorino loped towards first and was thrown out. He heard it immediately from the crowd. That was it for me---and I had to leave anyway. In the end it was a 9-1 loss.
I didn't get to tune into Saturday's game until after five, while driving back from the simulcast of Armida up in Moosic. When the score was given (at the time 8-0 in favor of the Fightin's), we all started whooping. By the time I got home it was all over and Roy Halladay had shut out the Mets 10-0 in a complete game effort.
Last night the Mets must have been feeling good, with their ace Santana on the mound against Jamie Moyer. Moyer gave up a three-run homer in the 1st but Polanco clubbed a solo homer to left in the bottom of the frame and Howard added another little oppo to it. So 3-2 at the end of one. The Mets scored again on a two-run homer by Barajas but that only took us to the bottom of the 4th. With two outs, the Phillies put nine on the board and drove a shellshocked Santana from the game. He surrendered 10 runs in all, the highest total of his career. He also gave up four homers, something he had done before against the Phillies last year in Citifield.
The park was rocking when Jamie Moyer came to bat in the 4th with the bases loaded and, shades of Brett Myers facing C.C. Sabathia in the 2008 NLDS, worked a walk. That made it 5-4, as Utley had earlier scored on an Ibanez single. Next batter: Shane Victorino, who deposited the ball deep into left. Deja-vu all over again for sure. And the hits kept coming. After Utley clubbed a two-run homer deep to right, Santana's evening was done. The Phillies added another run in the inning to make it 11-5 and there it stayed. Like the Phillies on Friday night, the Mets went meekly.
Moyer went six and got the win. The bullpen did the rest.
Charlie Manuel called out his team after Friday night's game. Why not? They'd been playing like wet noodles for more than a week. Victorino meanwhile apologized to his teammates and to the fans for his lack of hustle in the game. On Saturday he hit a three-run homer; yesterday he hit the grand slam. That's called stepping it up. He'll be called on to do a lot more of that because the news on the Jimmy Rollins front is not good. Rollins is unlikely to return before the end of May. Joe Blanton, however, will make his season debut tonight against the Cardinals. Hate to say it but Kyle Kendrick should hurry on back to the Lehigh Valley. And he probably would but the news on J.A. Happ, too, was not encouraging.
It's weird that the New York media and fans keep harping on how the Phillies have no pitching after Halladay, when their own staff is riddled with questions and their bullpen has been lucky. I'll give them Rodriquez but he too is a guy who makes things interesting more often than not.
