Blink: Cardinals 5, Phillies 3

Pit of Despair. bah. Man up and take a real drug – Nihilism – never hit rock bottom cuz there aint a bottom to the abyss.

He will personally haunt all PCs until given a proper burial

My point was more this- I am ok with the mashup in one of the corners, but asking the three of them to handle Right AND Left is looking for trouble.

The trick, as always, is to have the lead at the end of the game. It is just coincidence that in three of the four games one team has gotten out to a first-inning lead and then not held it. What bothers me most about the way the series has gone is the fact that in both games the Phillies lost they had gotten off to such a good start and then hit a wall. You can complain about the lineup but there have been times in those games plus the second half of game one where the lineup was working almost exactly the way you’d want. That is what seems confusing, even to someone who has followed baseball for many years. The pressure to succeed with all the hype surrounding this excellent team may be more than some of the players can handle.

Thanks

Holy crap, Tyson Gillies is still alive?!?

Also, former Phillie Josh Zied is playing

That was about when mine went South too (I felt really good yesterday and thought both me and the Phillies were going to lock something up!)

which might be necessary

Hey have you watched Alphas?

Yes- Halladay sat down 21 straight following the 7th inning hit.

Last year he did NOT set down 27 straight. He sat down 14, gave up a walk that broke the streak, then set down 13.

But not bacon :(

except for the shitty ABs he’s had.

watching the youngin’ homer-thon compared to our the past peaked almost homers doesn’t help either.

.333/.405/.512 line in 143 PAs with the Lancaster (CA) JetHawks. He was named Baseball America High Class A All-Star. And he just turned 20 on 9/18.

End-of-year report on top 50 prospects – includes:

2) Domonic Brown, OF, Philadelphia Phillies, Grade A: Hit .261/.391/.370 with 12 steals in Triple-A, then.245/.333/.394 in 184 major league at-bats. He’ll be fine, he just needs to play.

5 Questions with Tim De Block of The Crawfish Boxes, which includes:

TDB: I wasn’t happy that the Astros went for quantity over quality, and that four of the ten prospects returned were relievers. It appears that they took the Phillies to the cleaners, broke even with the Giants, and got fleeced by the Braves. Obviously, over time those opinions could change, but at this point the Astros did an okay job at the trade deadline. The prospect that looks to be really special is Jonathan Singleton. He’s got the potential to be that elite middle of the order bat that the Astros desperately need.

Do people think he’ll start next year in AA (Corpus Christi Hooks), or stay in Lancaster and maybe move up mid-year?

*we’re not

taint helping

Maybe it’s just me but the Cardinals seem like a much stronger team than the D-Backs as well.

My inner Cthulhu says, “sure why not”

they already compiled their 10 allotted combined duck snorts and infield singles…regression

Ask the 2010 Giants.

I don’t think anything entertains Bud Selig. Except maybe finding new ways to destroy baseball

I am VERY entertained!

Cole would not pitch until Monday either way which means Friday would be his usual pen session either way. He could throw an inning of relief in lieu of the pen session and be available to pitch his scheduled start.

sometimes I wonder if you’d actually be a little disappointed if we won the whole thing.

have some faith.

Yeah, that was basically my thought process too. To clarify, the 62.5 was just my own attempt to guess at the odds. They’re not from Vegas or anything.

I agree about the number, but have more respect for Garcia than you do, as I would give the Phillies about the same chances against Garcia as Carpenter.

Didn’t they also have the Braves and Red Sox at a 100% chance of making the post season?

Hehehe!

What everyone is forgetting is that its NOT the start on short rest that gets to a pitcher, its the next one.

Even though Carpenter only managed 64 pitches in Game 2? Wow, I knew starters starting on 3 days frequently produces bad results, but I did not realize that it was worse on the next start, even given regular rest.

Is there any statistics to back up the whole start after short rest thing? I was looking for them last night and could not find it.

I’d like to see some numbers on Point #1. I’ve seen Halladay say it, but even the smartest humans make anecdotal points that don’t apply to everyone. Needless to say, I’m not too worried about Carp here.

As to #2, I’ve been dying to comment here forever on this point, but our pen is awesome. I know, we have so many blown saves, but the people who come in the game are actually rock solid. I think I’ll post their saber stats below if you guys like because you are vastly underrating it. It’s not like how the Giants O in 2010 magically become good.

BABIP doesn’t stabilize in one game. It’s a logical fallacy to assume because we’ve been lucky, we’ll all of a sudden become unlucky. If we played you 100 times, I’d agree. But there’s about as good a chance we stay lucky as if we have a .200 BABIP in this next one game.

1. is basically my point with the BABIP comment except I agree with you. No way they bat like .500 tomorrow. However, Yadi and Berkman are batting .200 so I think it’s fair that this almost cancels each other out on this one

sounds about right

My own calculations, based on the following estimates:
Both teams have equal and average offenses (In reality they are somewhat above average, so my probabilities will be biased in favor of the underdog).
No home field advantage (biased in favor of the Cards)
Both starters will go 9 innings (probably biased in favor of the Phillies)
Bold numbers are the Phillies WP. Here we go…

ERA 65%
FIP 63%
xFIP 58%
SIERA 60%
WPA:56%

I think this is a conservative guess from Philadelphia’s point of view. The bookies have Philly at around 63%, which is probably right on target IMHO.

Interesting. I would have figured it would have been a little higher than that.

that seems way high

So if their probability of winning the LCS and WS are equal, they have a 69% chance of winning each. Yeah, that does seem high.

Of course, their probability each series isn’t equal, I don’t think. I’d put them at 50-50 vs. the Yankees, and only somewhat higher than that vs. the Rangers. The Tigers would be higher but not enough to make the overall odds equal to the NLCS odds. So 75% to win the NLCS? Maybe if we knew it would be the D-Backs, but not with a coin flip between D-Backs and Brewers.

Running on that play really annoyed me. I really think losing Davey Lopes hurt us – we learned to steal from him, but not when to steal. Or something. I’m frustrated and had bad dreams.

pitch looked a little off the plate to me, but pence was definitely safe, he clearly beat the tag

yeah it was a strike, and although Pence was probably out I still say there’s no need to even attempt to steal there. Too little reward for too much risk.

I know when I play Wii Baseball, when I’m up 0-2, my next pitch is a sinker. EVERY. DAMN. TIME. And it always looks like a fastball that they lay off it. And then when they learn my pattern I throw a FASTBALL!! OH MAN!! BEING A PITCHER IS SO EASY!!

Rhodes doesn’t work the corners at 0-2. It’s always the exact same pitch. Slider that starts at the corner and then breaks low and away, well outside the zone.

On an 0-2 count 49% of the time a strike is thrown. It’s the one count your mostly likely to see a ball.

Ha. Well said.

Winning a WS once every four years is acceptable.

Ah postseason.

Well, he wishes the “worst team to win,” and obviously, according to him, that’s US! Yay!!!!

This is OK, it’s not like he’s trolling. And I’m pleased he brought evidence to the table, at least.

I’ve been reading the threads and I saw a bunch of “their bullpen can’t possibly continue this stretch because they are awful” which is mostly a misconception thanks to our April.

The bullpen is very good basically is what I’m saying.

Strike that. It also happened in 1981 vs. the Expos. But some people don’t count that as a “real” postseason series.

I always enjoy reading the blogs on both SBN sites for any big game or series (in multiple sports), it’s interesting to get multiple viewpoints or opinions on big games like this. People seem cool enough over here.

I actually don’t think Utley’s decision was too risky whatsoever and I hope all the various sportswriters don’t try to pin anything on him that he doesn’t deserve. The reason Utley has a lot of fans outside of Phillies nation is because he plays hard and aggressive. He made a great read on Furcal and Pujols made a great read on him — it was really just two great players both taking a calculated risk that could’ve gone either way; each time I see the replay, I’m still surprise the ball stayed in Freese’s glove. Had the ball popped out, everyone would be talking about how great Utley’s read on Furcal was and how Pujols’ should’ve taken the sure out.

just a general rant…I appreciate the gm Roy II brings lately, and Lee certainly can right his ship. My beef is in the ADDED pressure they must feel after watching their teammates flail at the plate.

i hear Charlie Manuel is into that hitting part, also. Too

I was talkin ’bout Shaft…

Was an accident. I got to box, I feel shame.

Hockey game. Accidentally posted in this thread.

Definitely… But the game is being held in a Little League Park.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that

Ivan Nova Happens

0.78 (adjusted for average, but a small sample size)