Grunt: Marlins 5, Phillies 4

Phillies and Cole Hamels lose. Soon someone who saw the game will discuss what happened. In the meantime, chat here.

**** Late edition by Wet Luzinski ***

Life can be a challenge, life can seem impossible, but it’s never easy when there’s so much on the line.

A poet once said this. And famous people struggling to look authoritative when they were really off partying somewhere else, have used it to cover for themselves, stall for time and space. And so must I.

The fact of the matter is, no matter what WholeCamels said above, I didn't watch this game. But I saw highlights, and I've read the comments posted so far (as of Sunday night at 11 p.m.) And what I've read infuriates me! The Phillies had a 3-0 lead! Cole Hamels let it all go dingering away! And yet- and yet! - the Phillies had chances to win this game. Lots of chances. According to Fangraphs, it nearly got back up to a win expectancy of 50 percent. That's pretty good!

But allow me to pause for a spell on this: "The Phillies' late rally falls short against the Marlins." For this is what I heard, post-graduation party, as I tuned into KYW Newsradio early yesterday evening. And it brought to mind the following:

"But a great deal of us is together, and we can but abide by it, and steer our courses to meet soon. John Thomas says good-night to Lady Jane, a little droopingly, but with a hopeful heart."

Thus we can think of the Phillies in myriad ways: first, as spent and limp; second, like Clifford Chatterly, paralyzed by injuries, and last, as something merely pornographic masquerading as uplifting art for the masses. After losses such as these mount on this budding, late adolescent stage of the season, I'm more put in the mind of U.S. Senator Reed Smoot, who said, "I've not taken ten minutes on Lady Chatterley's Lover, outside of looking at its opening pages. It is most damnable! It is written by a man with a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would obscure even the darkness of hell!"

This man, of course, we can imagine as some many-headed hydra of Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro, Manager Charlie Manuel, or President David Montgomery.

We fans, furthermore, can imagine ourselves, a la Lady Jane, as lying back and thinking of England as prancing Marlins like Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes preen and hug one another in public, their big black bats glinting in the late afternoon son.

Were that there only some tonic, some little pill, to enlengthen our comebacks, uplift them and all of us, and send our jolly balls deep into night.