Wank's World: Braves 3, Phillies 2: I Feel Like I've Seen This Episode Before

The Phillies lost their second series in the last week to Atlanta. That’s not good. There’s a strong part of me that’s starting to wonder if the Braves are simply a more complete team than the Phillies and if things will play out that way as the season progresses. There’s another part of me that believes the Phillies know they are nowhere near full-strength and that they will return the favor to the Braves at a later date. Here’s hoping for the latter.

What went down: Welp, that sucked. Roy Halladay was pretty good, aside from the fact that he couldn’t figure out Dan Uggla. He went eight innings and allowed three earned runs. That should be good enough to win, but with this offense, not only did Halladay lose his second straight complete game this week (are you kidding me?), I’m also forced to dissect and over-analyze every last one of his pitches. I should be commending Halladay for another solid effort, but I can’t seem to resist the urge to criticize him for choking up a 2-1 lead, as if two runs of offensive support were a king’s ransom.

What I liked: John Maybery Jr. It seems like whenever John Mayberry Jr. gets a chance to play that he does something good for this team. And that makes me want to see him more. Mayberry provided the only Phillies offense with his go-ahead two-run homer. He also put together two very strong plate appearances that resulted in walks. For whatever reason, Charlie Manuel has resisted the temptation of playing Mayberry more often. Granted, I think Mayberry has some serious flaws in his swing and with extended at-bats pitchers would soon learn how to work Mayberry, but could it be any worse than what Ben Francisco is doing? Let me tell you something about Ben Francisco. He makes me want to hurt my friends and family. I can’t watch Francisco pull off another slider or foul off another fastball. I just can’t do it. He's woeful.

T-Mac’s Jinx Working in favor of the Phillies. “Hudson has not allowed the Phillies to get any good swings today,” uttered McCarthy during Mayberry’s sixth inning at-bat. And…homer. 2-1 Phillies. Yay. Bask in the McCarthy Jinx working in favor of the Phillies–it’s definitely the first time it has, and likely the last time it will.

1974 “Throwback” Jerseys. They might have played an uninspired and terrible baseball, but at least they looked pretty doing it.

Who or what I didn't like: Roy Halladay. I know. He was good today. I’ll concede that. Now that this is out of the way, I'm going to rip him a bit here.  He was staked a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning and he held that lead for all of four Atlanta batters. He’s got to figure out a way to lock it down there. And while I can understand that he didn’t want to walk Uggla in the eighth, I don’t understand why that required him to groove a belt-high fastball right down the heart of the plate to a guy that can only hit fastballs.

Jimmy Rollins. Have you noticed this thing that Jimmy and I have going on? It’s the ultimate respect-hate relationship. I preface most of my arguments about Rollins with, “I appreciate everything he’s done” followed by a big “BUT…”. Here’s the deal. With Victorino out of the lineup, it was going to be even more difficult than usual to score runs (imagine that). So in order for the Phillies to win, Rollins would likely have to contribute something. He didn’t. He was terrible, in fact. Rollins went hitless in five at-bats. What’s more, he saw a total of 16 pitches in those at-bats. But wait! There’s more! Rollins saw only six pitches in his first three at-bats. If you’re going to swing that early in the count, you better get some hits, or at least hit the  ball hard–not weak popouts or 16-hoppers to second base. K, bud?

Repeating myself. When I talk to my dad, he zones out. We went to lunch yesterday, and I’m pretty sure he couldn’t recall one detail of our conversation. He’s got the attention span of a six-year-old who had one too many bags of FunDip. (P.S. You remember FunDip? The sticks were always the best part.) I work in a profession where all I ever do is repeat myself (I'm a teacher). And so the last thing I want to do on this blog is have to repeat myself. You’re probably reading this and saying, “Wow. Shocker! He’s complaining about a poor offense and Jimmy Rollins!”. And I hear that. I just don’t have it in me to complain about Michael Martinez or Ibanez or those guys. I know they can't hit So it’s harder to get fired up about guys like that, so excuse my apathy towards bad play by bad players.

Can somebody please explain to me: How a guy could throw two complete games in a span of five days and lose both of them?

Now what: The Phillies travel to St. Louis to take on a Cardinals team who was absolutely dominated this weekend in Cincinatti. They’ll score some runs, so the Phillies better, too.