Bummer

The Phillies went down in flames last night unfortunately.  Pedro did not have real good stuff as pointed out by Joe Buck time and again.  His velocity wasn’t much better than BP speed.  Ryan Howard actually made his first contribution to the offense late in the game, FINALLY hitting a home run but it was far too little too late.

Winning the series two years in a row would have been a hell of an accomplishment.  I think there were a few reasons the Phils fell short.  The biggest was pitching.  The inability of Cliff Lee to go on three days rest set up a domino effect where the Phils were going deep into their rotation while the Yankees were able to stick with their best three pitchers.  The Phillies staff in general, especially their relief staff just wasn’t good enough.  Having Lidge and Hamels performing nowhere close to their prior years performance really hurts.

  On offense there were a few chokers.  Jimmy Rollins did far less than a lead off hitter of his caliber should do. Ben Francisco??? Nice job on going 0-fer the post season.  And of course the biggest choke of all was clearly Ryan Howard who tied the all-time strike out record for a World Series, ouch.

Oh well in the big picture it’s all good.  I like the character of the Phillies team and if a few of their players get their heads screwed on straight and bounce back next year there is no reason they can’t be right back in the mix of things next season.

Witness the joy of fire ants.