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Winning streak, guys!
Well, such as a winning streak is, anyway; as Liz has noted previously, one win counts as a streak this season. This series has at least been fairly competitive, and the Phillies enter tonight's play with a chance to win a four-game series. I'm not going to do the math, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that this would be, if not a first for the 2013 team, at least a second or third.
It's nice to have the Phillies back as a competent team at least in part for the next song in my "Torch Album" series. In case you don't recall, I'm comparing the Phillies to Tom Waits' seminal 70's lovelorn opus, The Heart of Saturday Night. See the first entry here. The second track of Waits' record is the haunting "San Diego Seranade" -- perfect, I guess, for the Padres, who are not in town. Still, the song is about never really being able to know a thing til it's gone forever: "Never knew the East Coast til' I moved to the West / Never saw the moonlight until it shone off of your breast."
In a lot of ways, what sucks about this season is knowing that, even though we tried so hard to appreciate it while it was happening, we took 2006-2011 for granted. I never knew how much I'd miss hanging on every pitch until it just became kind of disspiriting to do so. I never knew I cared about contention so much (not to mention fearing rebuilding) until we were 21 games back in the standings. The return of vaguely winning Phillies baseball, too, is not helping this nostalgia. Still, as Waits shows, there's beauty in the pain, so root for the good guys and throw back a bourbon and bourbon (but be sure to chase with bourbon). Protip: mute the TV and listen to this or this instead.
Current Series
Phillies lead the series 1-0
| Mon 08/19 | WP: Ethan Martin (2 - 2) SV: Jonathan Papelbon LP: Jeff Manship (0 - 3) | 5 - 4 win |
Colorado Rockies Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013, 7:05 PM EDT Jorge De La Rosa vs Tyler Cloyd
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| Wed 08/21 | 7:05 PM EDT | |
| Thu 08/22 | 7:05 PM EDT | |
PS: Rockies Starter Chad Bettis, despite being a fairly promising minor league pitcher, has a K/9 of 3.86, a BB/9 5.79, and a HR/9 1.45 over four starts and 18.2 innings. That's eight strikeouts, twelve walks, and three home runs. So, uh, yikes.