Results tagged “jonlieber”

Coming off a three-game sweep of the Mets, the Phillies headed to Kansas City to face the second worst team in baseball. “Hello, two sweeps in a row,” we thought. Our confidence soared as Ryan Howard hit a two-run home run in the first inning. “They’re not even putting up a fight,” we said, comfortably smirking. Until Freddy Garcia started pitching, with a strained right shoulder. Garcia didn't make it through two innings before he had given up six runs, en route to an 8-4 loss.

already. We might be projecting here.)

by Ryan Dougherty

Phillies pitching pheonom Cole Hamels has been scratched from his Wednesday start after he experienced shoulder pain from, of all things, playing catch. According to MLB.com, “Hamels described the sensation as a ‘pop.’”

A 2+ hour rain delay didn't deter many fans at last nights Phillies/Mets game at Citizens Bank Park. It didn't deter Jimmy Rollins, either. The red-hot shortstop extended his hitting streak to 31 games - tying the Phillies' all-time record - with a first pitch lead-off homerun. The hit put the Phillies in the lead, which they'd hold until the eighth inning when Ugueth Urbina gave up four runs - three of them earned - en route to a crushing 6 - 5 loss to the New York Mets.

It's happened a few times this season: Charlie Manuel makes a bad move. Bill Dancy makes an even worse move. An Ed Wade acquisition, like David Bell or Michael Tucker (better yet, David Bell AND Michael Tucker), hits into a key double play.

If we were old school, we'd believe in baseball gods and Skip Bayless. If were nu skool, we'd believe in Stephen A. Smith and Moneyball. But we sit comfortably in between, so we believe in heartbreaking baseball and anyone but Charlie Manuel.

The Phillies capped off a terrible Labor Day weekend with a heartbreaking loss to the Houston Astros last night, 4-3. The game seemed to get out of hand immediately as an error, as well as two Brett Myers walks, led to four first-inning runs for the Astros. Last week, we agreed with disputed lanky columnist Phil Sheridan that Myers was beginning to look like the team's ace. We started to doubt ourselves after the first inning last night, but Myers came through afterwards, shutting down the Houston bats for the next six innings. Meanwhile, Sheridan don't gotta believe.

. It’s the second in a row of Lieber’s starts where the he had pitched an excellent game and the team could not score a few runs to get him the win. In his last start before last night, the Phillies lost 1-0 to the Dodgers; last night, they lost 2-1 to the Astros. Just score some freaking runs and give this guy a break! Phillies, you have no excuse for last night: you had all of your starters playing (except for Lieberthal, but that’s a good thing), you had an excellent game from Lieber, and you even had that ridiculously shallow 315-ft left-field wall.

The Phillies supposedly have a great hitting coach as their manager, but you wouldn't know it from watching today's Phillies/Dodgers game at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies struggled against Odalis Perez, who had a no-hitter going until the bottom of the sixth, when Endy Chavez caught a break on a third strike that was ruled a foul ball. Chavez bounced a ball over the head of Dodger first baseman Olmedo Saenz to break-up the no-hit bid. It was one of four Phillies hits on the day, none of them producing runs.

When you take a closer look at the Phillies' starting lineup from Sunday afternoon’s game against first-place Washington, and you compare it to the Nationals' starting gang, you might get the crazy feeling that the teams are not that different from each other. On paper there are many similarities: a talented, all-star caliber middle infielder (Jimmy Rollins and Jose Vidro), a power-hitting, speedy outfielder (Bobby Abreu and Jose Guillen), and a solid hitting but prone to slumping outfielder (Pat Burrell and Brad Wilkerson). After that, even a lot of gap-fillers and journeymen seem to have a lot in common, including 2 former teammates now at the tail-end of their careers, yet still playing well (Kenny Lofton and Carlos Baerga), 2 pinch-hitters who were swapped for each other in May (Endy Chavez and Marlon Byrd) 2 catchers who were once traded for each other in 2001 (Todd Pratt and Gary Bennett), and two starting pitchers who each lost a game to Boston in last year’s ALCS (Esteban Loaiza and Jon Leiber). The Phillies, on the field, have in no way resembled the Nationals this season until this past weekend. The Phillies borrowed a little bit of the Washington magic and pulled out a win in their second straight one-run game. Prior to this series, the Nationals had been nearly unbeatable in one-run games. Winning close, late games means you have to have timely hitting but more importantly, a solid bullpen. Yesterday, at Citizens Bank, over six innings of relief, four Phillies relievers gave up only one run. Jon Lieber, who pitched well striking out six, gave up three runs in his six innings. To take 2 out of 3 from the first place Nationals would have been exciting enough, but 2 Washington-style wins, with the added treat of seeing Ryan Howard carry the offense with 3 RBIs and a line drive to the shrubs in dead center field, makes the victories that much sweeter for the Phils. They also borrowed another Nationals trope: heroics by players you may not believe are in the major leagues (i.e. Matt Cepicky and Gary Majewski). The Phils pulled it out on a 12th inning pinch hit by veteran role player Ramon Martinez. No, not that Ramon Martinez, not Pedro’s brother who used to pitch for the Dodgers. This Ramon Martinez, a shortstop with no relation to the Martinez brothers, chopped a ground ball into left field in the bottom of the 12th inning to score David Bell, who had driven in the winning run on Saturday. This marks the first series victory for the Phillies since June 10th-12th against the Milwaukee Brewers. In a season that has made Phillies fans feel like they are in the middle of a traffic jam on I-95, with every team in the NL East bumper to bumper, at or above .500 at the All-Star Break, the Phillies will try to stay close enough to the Nationals so that Washington is still in sight when the Phillies match up with them on September 30th through October 2nd, the last series of the 2005 season.

I’ve always been a person of extremes. I believe you should jump in head-first or don’t even bother putting on your bathing suit – and by that I mean, “Don’t swim,” not “Swim naked.” And that is why it’s infuriating to me to see the Phillies be a perpetually mediocre team. If they win a game, they lose the next. I wish that they would either win or just concede the season and become the worst team in baseball. Then, at least they would have some distinction. Last night’s game was a perfect illustration of my point: the Phils decimated the Pirates in the first game of the series and then went on to get shutout last night. What will it take to get a little consistency? Last night started off downhill when, in the first inning, starting pitcher Jon Lieber was struck by a line drive ball on the same elbow where he received Tommy John surgery – a ligament reconstruction procedure – earlier in his career. Later, X-Rays would show no fracture. Lieber will be further examined to determine whether he will make his scheduled start against the Nationals on Sunday. This game should have been titled “The Kip Wells Show,” because that’s exactly what it was. Struggling Pittsburgh pitcher, Kip Wells, was determined to prove himself last night, and came up big. Wells struck out 12 and allowed only 4 hits. He even contributed to the scoring with an opposite field double, from which he would later score. It just seems incomprehensible that this is the same Phillies team that won the game before this one by a score of 12-1. This sort of inconsistency has been present all season. For example, in early June the Phils swept the (at the time) first place Texas Rangers. Shortly after, they went on to lose series against the horrible Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s. The Phils will battle mediocrity again tonight, as the sure-to-lose Vicente Padilla takes on the Pirates’ Mark Redman. I’ll start writing about the loss now.

Charlie Manuel and Todd Pratt defended their pitcher against home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez's tight strike zone. Marquez, though, fought back and ejected both in the second inning of today's series finale between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. The Mets won the series with a 5 - 3 win in today's game. Pedro Martinez pitched six innings for the win. Jon Lieber pitchedo only four innings for the loss. Lieber wasn't bolstered by the support from his catcher and manager. He left pitches up in the zone that inning, as well as in the fourth inning. That was enough for the Mets, who scored all of their five runs in those two innings. Charlie Manuel tried to mix things up with a new lineup that featured Kenny Lofton leading off, Endy Chavez hitting second, and Jimmy Rollins hitting fifth. These three Phils accounted for 6 of the 8 hits that the Phillies had on the day. Going 3 for 4 with an RBI and a run scored, Lofton made a strong case for retaining the leading off spot in future days and weeks. The Phillies started their scoring with a solo homerun from Jimmy Rollins. They chipped away with two more runs, but couldn't make the Mets' bullpen pay. Manuel and his team will return to Philadelphia tonight. They begin a weekend series with the 2nd place Atlanta Braves. Today's loss leaves the Phillies one game above .500 with the Mets very close in their rearview mirror.