I should have gone to this one: Phillies 8 - Rockies 5

So, originally my plan this week was to go Thursday and Saturday to the Phillies games. A bout of insomnia Wednesday night made me decide to switch to Friday and Saturday and just write the Thursday and Saturday recaps so I could just enjoy Friday. Thursday was par for the course for me, recapping a Phillies loss. Sadly Friday was also par for the course. You see, I’ve been going to Phillies games for four decades or so and I have never attended a win. Now, I haven’t gone to the huge number others have, I’ve lived most of my adult life (and closing in on half my total life) outside of Philly and a third of my life with no MLB team within a 4 hour drive, so it took a good bit of effort to get to a game. So, I’ve got, maybe 12-15 games under my belt.

Now, living in Colorado I get a Phillies series every year about a half hour from my house. I’m not going to recap Friday, Phrozen already did that and you are all certainly well familiar with what went down. I will say that I was satnding by the Right Field foul pole with plenty of view to really drive home that I was one strike away from attending my first win.

I walked to the car, past the crime scene (not a joke) and drove aimlessly (I do not know LoDo well and the crime scene blocked the road I do know there) turning my 30 minute drive into something more like an hour. Sure I could have used GPS, but I like figuring things out and I did, eventually. Getting home around midnight (game ended a little after 10:00 here).

I then had to get up early today for some plans out in the mountains. Piece of advice, when you’re 2 miles closer to the sun, don’t use expired sunscreen. So, between a lack of sleep this week, a soul-crushing loss Friday and a pretty bad sunburn. I decided to watch this game on the couch.

Through three innings it looked like a wise decision with Blackmon hitting another HR, Tapia getting a little league homer and Nola scuffling a little (he looked better, but still doesn’t look like the same guy). Then in the Fourth Inning: Hoskins ropes a single, Realmuto singles and Quinn bunts for a single, then Phil Gosselin got to continue to live out a dream by smoking a double and clearing the bases. Suddenly it was 4-3 Phillies. In the 7th inning the Phillies had a good, ol’ 2 out rally as Cutch singled, Cesar singled and Harper hate murdered a pitch from Dunn into the Right Field seats.

The Rockies made it a little interesting in the bottom of the 8th as all of their worst hitters set up Blackmon. Hampson singled, Drew Butera got his revenge by also hitting a single, Ian Desmond hit a Sac Fly and Blackmon tripled. That made it 7-5 and with the Phillies bullpenning this year anything shy of a double digit lead makes me a little nervous. Andrew McCutchen tacked on a solo shot in the top of the 9th for insurance and Hector Neris had a, more nerve wracking than it sounds, 1-2-3 ninth inning.