Vicktory!: Phillies 10, Padres 5

I gotta tell you, I was at the Orioles game last night, and never has the trade off been completed so clearly than in Philadelphia and Baltimore.  I sat on the first base side, 100 level, and saw two fights and four cops.  At on Orioles game, guys. Yes, they were playing the Yankees; but I realized that I hate the Nationals and Braves and Mets And Giants and Dodgers and Cardinals and Red Sox and Michael Martinez. But I will never hate any of them like I hate the f***ing Yankees.

Sitting here at this computer, I've learned to stifle those emotions. It's not healthy to clench my teeth for every entire deep count.  But in person... Camden Yards, last night, was reminiscent of my Sunday home game left field seats at CBP I used to have, when you'd realize in the bottom of the 6th that half the people in this section are technically feral.

I really, really missed that. At one point Robinson Cano gave our section the finger and my dad said it was the greatest O's game he's been to since the '70s.

So tonight, switching back to my team, I was desperate for that feeling again.  And tonight, the Phillies scored a bunch of runs in a meaningless game against the Padres.

And it was awesome.

Roy Halladay, continuing the Please Hire Roy Halladay 2014 Campaign tonight, gave up a home run pretty immediately to Will Venable, getting his traditional first inning run out of the way fast.  That was followed by TWO OUTSand then he hit Chase Headley with a pitchAND THEN THAT THIRD OUT.  Six strike outs followed, but then in the fifth, he blew up slightly, and walked Venable, Alexi Amarista, and Jedd Gyorko, then had a brief meeting with Rich Dubee, then Headley.  He was forcing the Padres to score runs to motivate his team. What a leader.  Little surprised Dubee went along with that, but hey.  Roy Halladay.

Doc get yanked at this point, and the subsequent Phillies pitching allowed a sac fly (Justin De Fratus), but combined for nothing else.  Seriously. They didn't let anybody hit and they didn't give up any walks.  Cesar Jimenez, Ethan Martin, B.J. Rosenberg, and Jake Diekman combined for five strikeouts through four innings of work.

No, I won't put down the crack pipe.  Also, they really did.

And in between all of this, the offense was punching in runs like they had a cheat code.  Chooch kicked ass tonight, he went 3-for-3 with a pair of walks; knocking in three runs and scoring one.  Jimmy Rollins, Kevin Frandsen, and Freddy Galvis collected more multi-hit games, while Chase Utley did what he does best and and got the lead back in the first inning with a two-run single like some kind of baseball Jesus (Which was followed by Gregg Murphy interviewing Michael Vick being held hostage by a brood of squealing human larvae).

You know who was fun to watch tonight?  Cesar Hernandez (3-for-4 with a BB and two two-out RBI), when his feet seemed to stop before his brain did to avoid a Carlos Ruiz RBI single going 900 m.p.h. Gary Matthews commented that it was a good thing he did "...or he might not have a head."

Even Roy Halladay had an RBI walk.  Darin Ruf hit a pop-up to left and Amarista somehow turned it into a sac fly.  When the Padres outfielders were finally done fielding line drives and weeping, it was 10-5.

Not a super-encouraging Roy Halladay report, but the Phillies picked him up.

Now, what am I gonna have to do to attract these cops...