You Leiter Up My Life: Rockies 8, Phillies 5

The Phillies lost to the Rockies 8-5 tonight. That’s just the way it is.

Tonight, the game was on at the same time as “Singin’ in the Rain,” an undeniable musical classic. When Nick Pivetta gave up five runs in the first inning, I switched over. So I didn’t see the Rockies score three more in the third. That’s all they’d get, but that’s all they’d need.

I’m not going to go through the loss blow-by-blow. Phillies lose, pitcher gives up tons of runs, it’s familiar to you by now. (At least I hope so.) Nick Pivetta was bad

There were a few bright spots. Jorge Alfaro, making his first start since being recalled, went 2-for-4 and almost beat out a throw to first in the later innings. Daniel Nava went 3-for-5 with a three-run home run, and Freddy Galvis also went 3-for-5. And Mark Leiter Jr, takinng over in the third inning for Pivetta, went 4.1 innings, gave up just two singles, and struck out nine. Nine! In a long relief appearance! Leiter was tonight’s savior, the only thing that prevented the game from somehow getting worse.

There was a point in the fifth inning where Scott Franzke and Larry Andersen went on a long digression about pitchers (and then position players) with last names that are also colors. That came courtesy of Rockies pitcher John Gray. The best name either one came up with? Jimmy Lavender. Real guy!

Do you want to know about the noise I made when Freddy Galvis, who was batting in the fifth with the bases loaded and two outs, lined out hard to end the inning? No. You don’t. I promise you don’t. It was like a cat being strangled in the throat of a woman vomiting up an eight-course dinner. At that point, I just shoved a bunch of cotton candy in my mouth, because there was a store-made bag of cotton candy in our house for some reason. And since I was watching the Phillies, I felt I deserved it.

The single best moment of the night came with two outs in the top of the ninth inning. Freddy Galvis was batting with Andres Blanco on second and Daniel Nava in the on-deck circle. Galvis hit a pop up to shallow left field that looked like it was going to be caught. And Blanco, running casually from second to third toward home base, wasn’t looking. He assumed the ball would be caught, and about ³⁄₄ of the way to home plate, he started to peel off toward the dugout.

Only the ball wasn’t caught. It wasn’t an out. Daniel Nava apparently had to tell Blanco, and he doubled back and slid into home.

That right there is the 2017 Phillies season in a nutshell.