Results tagged “patburrell”

Well, Pat, you've done it again. You've left the building and you've still managed to win the hearts and the horror of little Philly boys and little Philly girls. We all knew you were the dugout stud, but man, the latest rumors of you and Madame Funbags just took that label to another level.

Who needs an RSS feed when you have us? Bringing you the best of the 215...

Who needs an RSS feed when you have us? Bringing you the best of the 215 blogs from the past week...

The World Champion Philadelphia Phillies (that’s STILL fun to say) made some pretty significant moves at last week’s MLB Winter Meetings in Las Vegas. Here’s some of the items that rookie GM Ruben Amaro Jr. got done:

Mayor Nutter defended his budget cuts to an angry crowd again last night. He explained: With tax revenue plummeting and the city’s pension fund taking a beating in the stock market, he has to cut $108 million in city spending over the next seven months and $1 billion over the next five years. Not budging from his original plan, he will freeze planned tax cuts, close 11 libraries, eliminate 800 government positions, and disband seven fire companies, among other significant measures.

As we feared but warned against, many of last week's post-World Series win celebrants got a little carried away (Pat Burrell, sadly, among them). Even Chase Utley couldn't act with complete decorum.

Earlier, we mentioned that Mayor Nutter had a great quote about all the Phillies celebrations going on: "You can be joyous. You cannot be a jackass." We were at the parade earlier this afternoon, and there certainly were a whole lot of joyous people around, and not a lot of jackasses. It was refreshing, particularly after the absolute shitshow that was Wedensday night.

We’ve had some amazing athletes grace our city in the last 25 years. Some of the greatest to ever play their game have suited up and thrilled the fans of Philadelphia.

Well, this Phillyist was going to write a nice little article comparing the Phillies and Rays at each position and determine who has the edge. I had this idea yesterday, but decided to hold off a day on writing it. Unfortunately, the Inquirer already wrote it this morning and I am, as Lao Tzu once said, “shit out of luck.”

I was eight years old when my dad woke me up in the middle of the night to watch Mitch Williams strike out Bill Pecota and send the Phillies to the 1993 World Series. The following week in school, I taught myself to draw the Phillies’ logo for the construction-paper pennants we hung in the windows. To this day, it’s the only thing I can still successfully draw aside from a rather pathetic looking Dachshund.

You gotta give Derek Lowe some credit for taking it like a man. After his sinkerball silenced the Phillies’ bats for five innings, he hung a few up in the zone and suddenly the Dodgers were trailing the game. Even though those homers were just over the wall, he didn’t blame the ballpark. Even though Shane Victorino only got on base in the sixth because of a botched play by Rafael Furcal, Lowe didn’t fume and call out his players like John Lackey did in the Angels-Red Sox series.

What else is there to say after the Phillies ousted the Milwaukee Brewers and are now heading to the National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers? What else is there to say after Pat Burrell lifted the team on his back to become the hero we all knew he could be? What else is there to say now that excitement has reached a fever pitch in Philadelphia with a Pennant win in sight?

-Ryan Howard has always been a great home-run hitter, but before yesterday, we couldn’t call him anything more than "2005 NL Rookie of the Year," and "2006 NL MVP." Boo hoo, we know. But let’s face it, there have been countless rookie greats and MVPs since we’ve been born, and we don’t care to put Howard in the same category as Barry Bonds, because Bonds is a clown. We could introduce him as the...

Since spring training, it’s been the same story for the Phillies – they hit the snot out of the ball, but have huge question marks in the bullpen. Flash forward half a season and the same problem still exists. They're an average team that makes three-run leads in the seventh inning nerve-wracking. In the latest episode of late-inning drama, Geoff Geary has been so bad lately he's shaved his goatee and cut his hair in hopes that he'll get out of his recent funk.

To clear up any speculation of bias, we at Phillyist absolutely love the Phillies. Pat Burrell? Not so much.

by Ryan Dougherty

There's a lot of reasons to hate today. Either you were alone last night or are now hung over from Valentine's Day celebrations. And everyone's cold -- mind-numbingly cold.

It was like a tennis match: Astros up, Phillies up, Astros up, Phillies up. But when the innings ran out, the Astros held onto the lead to beat the Phils, 5-4, dropping the Phils into a first place tie with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

If the Phillies manage to hold on to this half game lead in the wild card race until the season runs out (pleasepleaseplease), the third inning of yesterday’s 10-7 win over the Florida Marlins will encompass the long strange trip this has been.

Phillyist paid another visit to the nation's capital on Tuesday, and took in the first game of the Phillies-Nationals series along with a humidity-drenched crowd of 25,735 that yet again included a significant number of Phillies fans. While much has been made of the fact that Phillies don't play any games against teams over .500 for the rest of the season, the Nationals boast two quite good players in leadoff slugger Alfonso Soriano and possible Rookie of the Year Ryan Zimmerman.

So the dust has settled. The two biggest moves made by yesterday’s trade deadline were the Phillies sending Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle to the Yankees, and the Cubs trading out Cy Young Winner Greg Maddux to the Dodgers.

Not that we needed it, but this weekend was yet more proof of how being a Phillies fan is by far the most aggravating occupation known to mankind. After interviewing Dawn Staley on Tuesday, Phillyist stuck around in D.C. for the Phils' four-game series against the Nationals. We now realize that, as usual, our optimism of Thursday afternoon was a big mistake.

Every local sports columnist and TV anchor tried to remind us heading into the weekend that the Cincinatti Reds put an end to the Phillies' playoff hopes these past two years. They all seemed dead-on Friday night as the Phillies blew a 6 - 1 lead to fall behind the Reds, 10 - 6. The Phillies, it seems, had blown it again.

The Phillies played in front of the smallest crowd in Citizens Bank Park history last night, but the lack of attention suited them just fine: the Phils, behind winless rookie pitcher Eude Brito, topped the Braves and ace starter Tim Hudson 4-1.

Bobby Abreu’s first inning grand slam off of Mark Prior in the 92 degree heat at CBB gave Brett Myers a four run lead, enough room to pitch with a good amount of sloppiness. Myers flirted with disaster, giving up 10 hits to the 30 batters he faced. But luckily for Myers, and for the Phillies, Myers held off the Cubs without giving up one home run, although he did allow five doubles. The Phillies hit three home runs off of Prior, adding a Chase Utley shot in the fifth and a Todd Pratt blast in the fourth. Because the long ball tallies were all courtesy of the Phillies, the Cubs were never able to score more than 2 runs in an inning. Due to the early Phillies lead, Brett Myers could afford to be a little more aggressive to Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez than he otherwise might have been.

The Texas Leaguer. The Mendoza Line. The Can of Corn. All of these time-tested baseball-isms have their own charm, but the one that has stood as my favorite is: the golden sombrero (sometimes also referred to as the silver sombrero). 4 strike outs in one game. If Ryan Howard hadn’t homered to centerfield, above the Lukoil sign, and instead swung and missed at three straight strikes, the Phillies could have easily followed up with a David Bell pop-up, a Mike Lieberthal fly-out, inning over, game over, and I would have been talking about Ryan Howard’s failure to produce in the clutch, his shiny golden sombrero. That’s a lot of pressure that Ryan Howard was going up against but he handled it with cool assurance. After Howard smacked Yhency Brazoban’s second pitch to the seats, Howard walked slower to first base than if he had struck out. He knew it was gone, as did the Philly faithful, who exploded at the park, but also in front of their TV’s, satellite radios, in their cars or on their headphones.

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.

Sometimes there is a dramatic difference between a first and a last place team - just look what happened when the Phillies played the Red Sox. Other times, there are subtle differences that differentiate the two. Last night’s game was a perfect illustration of the latter. The game was not a blowout, but the Washington Nationals displayed the well-tuned playing style that keeps them in first place. The Phils showed the sloppy playing style that holds them in last. The Phils’ usually-competent rookie starter Robinson Tejeda had a very rough outing. He lasted only 3 1/3 innings and gave up 5 earned runs. This was clearly his worst start as a major leaguer. It seemed that Washington knew exactly how to play him: they saw that he was getting frustrated and just kept taking pitches, forcing Tejeda to get behind in the count. The thing that lost this game for the Phils was a series of small mistakes that stacked into a mountain. Their catching deficiencies were once again obvious as they blew a play-at-the-plate – a mistake they make routinely – that cost them a run, a run that would be the difference in the ballgame. In addition to player errors, there were also management mistakes that cost them big. For example, the Phillies waved Pat Burrell around third toward home plate where he would get gunned down by a perfect throw. Everyone knows that Burrell is not a fast runner, yet they sent him anyway. The Phils also got David Bell caught in a run down between third and home when they used the contact play - the contact play is when the runners are told to run as soon as the bat makes contact with the ball, regardless of where the ball goes; it's usually used in 2-out situations - on an infield grounder. Washington, on the other hand, did what they do best: close games. They brought out their all-start closer Chad Cordero and shut the Phillies down. There was a brief moment in the ninth when it looked like Ryan Howard had hit the game-tying homer, but it was caught at the fence by Brad Wilkerson. Howard (and just about everyone watching) thought that the ball was going to leave the park. Wilkerson later joked, "Probably in our ballpark it would have been 20 or 30 feet short," which is a jab at Philadelphia's hitters paradise, Citizens Bank Park. On a side note, relief pitcher Geoff Geary fouled a ball off home plate that bounced up and struck him in the eye. Geary left the game and was taken to Wills’ Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. We will try to get a follow-up on Geary’s condition. The Phillies should look at the Nationals as a model of what they could be (or even be better than) if they tuned their game. If any of the Phils’ aforementioned mistakes were avoided, they could have won this game. Instead, the errors – mostly the management errors - grew into a large handicap that cost Philadelphia this game. Can we please have a new manger now?

WIP is reporting that Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins and Phillies closer Billy Wagner will join the National League's 2005 All-Star Team. The two are expected to join as replacements for Los Angeles Dodgers SS Cesar Izturis and New York Mets P Pedro Martinez. Rollins, who was recently inked to a contract extension by the Phils, is actually having a subpar year, especially compared to his career-year last season. His fielding is still strong, but he has struggled to get on-base as the Phillies' leadoff hitter. Rollins, however, finished second in the players and coaches voting. Typically, the runner-up replaces an injured All-Star. Wagner placed fourth in the MLB's "Final Ballot," where fans get to vote one of five players onto the team as its final, 32nd player. Brett Myers, a Phillies starter, was also on the ballot. He finished in last place. With 3 representatives (RF Bobby Abreu was voted as a starting outfielder by the fans), the struggling Phils probably won't see any more All-Star additions. There may be further changes and additions to the team, but it's unlikely that the team will be tapped for any more players. If, by chance, that does happen, likely additions are Myers and OF Pat Burrell.

Today, all of us suffering from the heartbreak of watching the Phillies come off of a 12-1 homestand in early June only to plummet to last place in the NL East were dealt a very small dose of relief as Brett Myers and the Phils shut down the Altanta Braves to escape last place. Could this be the beginning of the next great Philadelphia winning streak? Probably not. The Phils really needed a win today and Brett Myers came up big for our struggling home team. Myers pitched a stellar game, where he gave up no runs and only one hit going into the ninth inning. It looked like he would pitch a complete one-hitter. Unfortunately for Myers, he struggled in the ninth, giving up 3 runs. Fortunately for the Phils, Billy Wagner was able to close the game. Myers was even able to contribute to the scoring with an RBI single in the fourth. Other Phillies’ runs came from a 3-run homer by David Bell, a solo homerun from Pat Burrell, and an RBI single by Jason Micheals. Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox said of Myers, "That's one of the best jobs against us all year. He was absolutely dynamite." Dynamite, indeed, Bobby. May you receive many more poundings like this one from Brett Myers. The only way the Phillies could avoid being demolished this season would be to have more pitching performances like Myers’ today. Maybe seeing today’s performance in contrast to yesterday’s shelling of Vicente Padilla will inspire the Phillies to make some big moves for starting pitchers before the trade deadline. Even with this pitching clinic that Myers put on today, this writer refuses to get his hopes up. Too many times have the Phils looked like they were going to pull themselves together only to fall short. We'll see what happens tomorrow as Robinson Tejada takes on the Braves' Jorge Sosa at 8:05pm.