Fundamentals: Phillies 8, Mets 7

Oh, Phillies.

I really wanted to spend time talking about Ryan Howard's two-homer, four RBI day, and his utter ownage of Dillon Gee. Jonathan Pettibone's six strong innings. Michael Young's homer. Dom Brown's two hits. Bastardo's impressive inning.

But no. That's not what we're doing, apparently. Because the Phillies won't let me. That's right, they won't let me. I want to talk about those things! Those are nice things. Great things! But damn you, Phillies, you won't let me focus on them.

The story of this game really begins in the seventh inning, when Michael Stutes continued his recent stretch of shitty pitching, walking two and allowing a single to Omar Quintanilla. He left the bases loaded for Justin DeFratus, who gave up a double to Eric Young (still evil, by the way) and an RBI ground out to Jordany Valdespin (also evil, stay tuned for more). Jake Diekman finally ended the seventh inning, which lasted a disgustingly long time. When the top of the seventh began, the score was 7-1. When the inning finally reached it's midpoint, the score was 7-5.

This would matter, of course, because of Jonathan Papelbon. Jonathan Papelbon, who the Mets broadcast booth called "the Emily Post of baseball fundamentals", had more problems today. Jordany Valdespin, the second batter Papelbon faced, sent a pitch out of the ballpark, bringing the Mets one run from tying the game. Had the umpire not messed up a very close call the batter before, Valdespin's swing would have tied it up. The game was actually tied up soon after when David Wright reached on a Michael Young error (why Freddy Galvis isn't used as a defensive replacement more often is beyond me), and Wright would speed around to score from first when Ben Revere misplayed a ball in center. I wonder what Papelbon will have to say about that. I hope that whatever he has to say he starts with an admission of his own issues, because this is his third straight shitty appearance.

But in the end, Kevin Frandsen, his lumberjack good looks, and his mighty bat saved the day. (Seriously, Kevin, I love the way you're looking. Don't change a thing.) He hammered the first pitch he saw from Carlos Torres into the second deck for his first ever walk-off home run. Phillies win 8-7.

It's really tough to feel good about a win like this. Walk-offs are fun, but they're less fun when your team blew it and needs to be bailed out at the last minute. I feel like the 2013 Phillies specialize in wins you can't feel good about. We need to have a stat for that.

Source: FanGraphs