Phils end 126-year drought, win 2009 Trade Deadline
The Philadelphia Phillies are winners of the 2009 Trade Deadline for the first time in franchise history. The Phils clenched the title with the surprise acquisition of Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco in exchange for dinner scraps, pocket lint, $14 in Monopoly money and Carlos Carrasco.
The Phillies effort in trading for Joe Blanton last season came up short as the Dodgers ultimately came away with the title by trading for Manny Ramirez and his defective lady bits.
Historically, the Phils have helped other teams secure Trading Deadline titles by dealing players like Curt Schilling (to the Diamondbacks) and Scott Rolen (to the Cardinals). Between the two deals, the Phils netted what amounted to a large bushel of pubes while the Diamondbacks and Cardinals both won World Series shortly after each respective deal.
Philly hit with over three inches of Halladay-generated drool
The mere thought of adding Roy Halladay to the defending World Champions’ roster has left some Philadelphians waist-deep in their own slobber and without power last night.
The situation in the Delaware Valley may get worse before it gets any better as more and more fans realize just how freaking incredible the Phillies would be with Roy Hall-of-Fame-some-a-day atop their rotation.
“I was out at P.J. Welihan’s with my boys talking about the whole Halladay situation,” said Ryan Billings, a South Jersey Phillies fan. “The next thing we know, everybody in the bar is talking about it and we’re all wallowing in our own saliva. Sounds really gross, but we didn’t really care. We just want Halladay.”
Halladay would give Phils fans the opportunity to look back 10 years from now and say they witnessed not only the greatest team in franchise history, but possibly one of the greatest in major league history.
By 2019, Chase Utley will have officially become the greatest second baseman to play the game. Ryan Howard will be the most prolific home run hitter since Babe Ruth. Jimmy Rollins will have punched his ticket to Cooperstown with his 3,000th career hit. The rotation of Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton, Jamie Moyer and Pedro Martinez may end up with the largest career win totals of any rotation ever. Jayson Werth will have his own statue in front of The Bank, capturing his signature strikeout, fall-on-one-knee swing and best of all, the Phils will have won back-to-back World Series and quite possibly an unprecedented twelve-peat.
EDITOR’S NOTE TO PHILLIES FRONT OFFICE: Stop farting around and get this done.
Blanton to become next shameless, product-hocking Phillie
After being swept by the Blue Jays, Orioles and Braves over the past few weeks, the Phillies finally played to their potential against David Wright, Johan Santana and a medley of boobs to earn a three-game sweep.
With all of the recent sweepage going on, Proctor and Gamble took the opportunity to sign Joe Blanton as their new Swiffer pitch man. Blanton will follow Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels again (in that awkward ESPN the Magazine commercial I can’t find a clip for) as the latest Phillie to simultaneously peddle a product and embarrass his team and fans when his commercial debuts sometime soon.
Werth comes clean about seething hatred for Blue Jays, hipsters
Entering this season, Jayson Werth had hit three home runs in five career games against the Blue Jays. Then came the series earlier this month against the Jays where he hit three home runs in three games and the questions started rolling in.
“People started to ask me if I held some kind of grudge against the Blue Jays,” said Werth on Monday. “I lied and said I was just getting hot at the right time.”
Fast forward to the most recent series against the Jays where the rightfielder was 6-for-8 with two homers and five walks in the three-game set. After Sunday’s game, Werth finally explained that the increased production was no coincidence.
“It has a lot to do with my hatred of hipsters,” said an obviously agitated Werth. “Think about it . . . if hipsters were birds, they would probably look like Blue Jays. They’re both just flashy for no damn reason at all and sound like dying kittens when they talk. It gets under my skin, which may explain my numbers against Toronto.”
The Phillies will head to Atlanta to take on the Braves starting on Tuesday. Joe Blanton — who is coming off of an excellent seven-inning, 10 strikeout performance — will start for the Phils and face Kenshin Kawakami.
Ruiz walking around all smug after extending hot streak to two games
Carlos Ruiz raised his batting average by nearly 100 points in two days after turning in back-to-back 2-for-2 performances.
Ruiz entered Wednesday’s contest with a .161 average and left Thursday’s game with a robust .257 mark. ‘Chooch’ also walked twice in each game, which raised his OBP from .278 to .409.
Teammates have noted that the seemingly insignificant streak has started to affect Ruiz’s clubhouse behavior.
“He’s going around asking everybody what their batting averages are over the past two games,” said Ryan Howard, who happens to be batting .000 in that period. “And before you can get it out, he’s like ‘No one cares ’cause it’s definitely not 1.000 like mine is’.”
Jimmy Rollins, who responded with a 1-for-5 night after being placed back in the leadoff spot, also felt the sting of Ruiz’s braggadocio after Thursday’s game.
“I was really about to go upside Chooch’s head a minute ago,” Rollins said. “He said something like ‘Dawg . . . can you remember the last time one of these raggedy-ass pitchers actually got me out? ‘Cause I just can’t seem to recall.’”
In the latest World Series-related distraction that the Phils really don’t need, the team visited President Obama at the White House today and will take on the Nationals tonight at 7:05. Joe Blanton will try and get the Phils back in the win column as he faces off against John Lannan.
Hamels back on mound after slight safety adjustment; Phils down Braves 10-6
After dealing with injuries in his last two starts, Cole Hamels returned to the mound on Friday against the Braves, earning his first win of the season. The World Series MVP scattered three hits and two earned runs over six innings of work while striking out seven.
“Everything felt great,” said Hamels after the game. “The floaties really gave me peace of mind out there.”
Joe Blanton will get the start against Javier Vazquez on Saturday for Game 2 in the series. The last time the two pitchers met, the Phils had to crawl their way back to a 12-11 win, which was their first of the year.
Hamels lit up in debut; Suddenly Myers' opening night start doesn't look half bad
Cole Hamels made his season debut against the Rockies on Friday and was Eaton’d (v. – to have your face beaten in on the mound and get taken out of the game with zero dignity and your tail tucked neatly between your legs) to the tune of allowing 11 hits and seven earned runs in only 3.2 innings in the 10-3 loss.
Hamels was the latest Phillie to take the hill and get Eaton’d worse than the previous night’s starter. Brett Myers kicked the season off allowing a minuscule four runs in six innings followed by Jamie Moyer’s ho-hum four runs in five innings of work. Joe Blanton took it up a notch by allowing seven runs in only four innings of work, then Hamels was like “You think that was pathetic? Check this out” and proceeded to post the worst outing by a Phils starter to date.
“Getting Eaton’d out there night after night is tough,” said Rich Dubee. “At this point, we’ll settle for a Kendricking. What…too soon?”
Panic sets in as Phils winless drought barrels into day four; no end in sight
Jamie Moyer took the mound on Tuesday in hopes of erasing the memory of a painful opening night.
That hope lasted about of 3/5 of a second when Kelly Johnson sent Moyer’s batting practice fast-ishball well into the right field stands to begin Atlanta’s near deja vu 4-0 victory over the Phillies.
Moyer nearly cloned Brett Myer’s pitching performance from Sunday by giving up four runs, but in only five innings compared to Myers’ six. The lineup tried its damndest to clone the output from two days before, but left out the part where they were supposed to score at least one run.
Irate fans are already calling for everyone’s head from Brett Myers and Jamie Moyer to Jimmy Rollins and pretty much everyone that could draw a pulse, both on and off the field.
“Yeah, everybody’s completely freaking out and worried that we’re falling apart or something,” Rollins said after the game. “Keep in mind we lost our first two games last year to the Nationals…and they ended up losing 102 games while we won the World Series. If we lose this next game on Wednesday though…I’d say it’s definitely time to go bananas and completely freak the hell out.”
Joe ‘Babe’ Blanton will take the mound and face Javier Vazquez in the final game of the three-game series against the Braves on Wednesday.