Allow me to begin tonight dwelling on the injury du nuit with an homage to William Carlos Williams by way of artistic tribute to Joe Blanton's sore right elbow, a body part belonging to tonight's named starter. After warming up in the bullpen, Blanton informed the coaching staff 20 minutes before game time that his elbow was too sore to pitch, thus giving Kyle Kendrck, who tends to feature prominently in my game recaps anyway, the surprise start. (Postgame, Phillies GM Ruben Amaro addressed the press with a satchel full of smugness and said that Blanton and Victorino (hamstring) will go on the DL tomorrow. But he knew what you're thinking! and said Dom Brown was "not ready" and wouldn't be called up. Ohai, then, Delwyn Young. Brandon Moss? The mind reels with possibility.)
But I digress, and so to the bonus baseball-themed homage poem:
The Sore Rightelbow
(h/t William Carlos Williams)
so much depends
upon
a sore right
elbow
wrapped in ice
water
clothed in red
pinstripes.
More after da jump:
So, as I said: Kyle Kendrick was thus pressed to enter the Vortex of Suckitude. Joe Blanton's injured? That sucks. It's about to pour rain that they'll play through anyway? That sucks. What, Todd Helton won't play tonight? I'm okay with that, you know why? Jason Giambi will play first. And he sucks! Indeed, the 40-year-old Giambi entered the game for the cranky-backed Todd Helton sporting a lusty .115/.258./.231 line after 31 PAs so far in 2011, and nary a hit to his name since April 10. But the sight of Kendrick must have somehow stirred his 2001-era loins, and he just murdered two of his sorry fatassed fastballs high into the right field seats, the first above the Budweiser sign in the second deck, the second just below it deep into the first deck of seats. And then Danys Baez came in to relieve Kendrick, and with Giambi's home run pinata already dripping candy on the floor, he threw another homer to knock in all seven runs for the Rockies tonight.
Lost amid yet another dreary offensive performance by the Slumpbots is the fact that Jhoulys "The Unpronounceable Kid" Chacin is a pretty damn good pitcher, one of a string, Jake Westbrook aside, the Phillies have faced in the past week or so. He wound up striking out 9 and walking one (Rollins!), giving up four hits and avoiding whatever glancing contact the Phillies bats could muster.
Oddities abounded:
- I come not to bury Kendrick, Who Is What He Is, and had a pretty tough draw tonight. He was also not helped on the second Giambi home run because Michael Martinez really has little business trying to field hard hit balls to centerfield off the bats of the likes of Carlos Gonzalez.
- Cliff Lee came in as a pinch-hitter in the third inning in the driving rain, coincidentally at about the same time the Rockies were calling in Carlos Gonzalez into the dugout to minimize the damage from an apparent groin injury to their major long-term investment.
- On the one hand, the Phillies really should have scored more than one run, as Raul Ibanez's 2-out RBI double in the 4th hopped over the wall and would have scored Ross Gload. On the other hand, while the Phillies amassed more than 5 hits for the first time since the end of Prohibition, the hit that put them over the top was erased in the ninth on a double play. So I say it doesn't count.
- Ibanez had two hits!
- Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta is not very good at baseball lately and may be playing in a profound drunken stupor. Or at least that's how it looks on TV. Golden Sombrero'd.
- Scott Mathieson (Mathieson!) surfaced from his cave under the bullpen mound and pitched well.
- Michael Stutes, last seen with a sore side, came in and pitched well.
- J. C. Romero, deployed against lefthanders, was effective.
As if that's not enough fun for a week, hey hey hey, it's time for Interleague Play! Roy Halladay vs. C. J. Wilson and the Texas Rangers tomorrow.
