Braves Series

The last two games against the Marlins are tough ones to handle. Moyer had a horrible first inning on Saturday night, but he came back and pitched very well for the rest of that game. In other words... So other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
We shouldn't expect to win a game in which our starter gives up 5 runs in the first inning. We also shouldn't expect to go 8 2/3 innings without scoring a run. This is a game that can actually be blamed on both pitching and hitting, something that rarely happens to the Phils.

Sunday's game was a different story. It was a great pitching performance to see live. It was a game where I actually felt like I was witnessing something great. I would be the greediest person alive to ask to see a better game than that by Cole Hamels.
The offense, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. We had only 4 hits in the game, 2 of which were infield singles. Obviously that is not going to get the job done. It was as if the Phillies read my blog after Friday night's game and said, "Oh wait, we aren't expected to hit this well every night?" So I apologize to everyone for making them aware of their overachieving.

We have the Braves coming up now in Atlanta. I have heard a theory that the Phillies hit a lot better in warm weather. Judging by the season so far, I can believe that. So luckily, Atlanta should have some warmer weather than experienced in Philadelphia over the weekend. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, but Wednesday and Thursday temperatures will be up around 75-80 degrees. So, hoping that that was the problem, we should not have a problem hitting.

We have 3 interesting matchups in this series:

Kyle Kendrick vs. Tommy Hanson - Count this game as a loss. I'm not saying we're definitely going to lose, but we should in no way expect to win. Go in with that attitude and be open to a pleasant surprise. Kendrick has been awful, and Tommy Hanson had a great rookie year last season and has started off this season just as well.

JA Happ vs. Tim Hudson - There are questions about whether or not Happ will actually start on Wednesday due to a shoulder injury, but until we hear more, we can expect that he will. He has yet to give up an earned run this season, but he lacked control in the last game while walking 6 batters. He may be a question mark for us considering those two problems. Hudson is an above average pitcher who the Phillies have performed above average against. Our expected lineup for this game has a .294 career batting average against him. Ryan Howard has a .353 average with 5 home runs in 34 at-bats. He is still a good pitcher, though, so we cannot necessarily expect this type of success to continue. This game is pretty much a toss-up.

Roy Halladay vs. Derek Lowe - We know all we need to know about Halladay up to this point. We can expect a win solely based on the fact that he is pitching. This could be an uncomfortably good game, though. We have often struggled against Derek Lowe and his sinkers. Our best hope with a sinkerball pitcher is to get his pitch count up and do one of two things: 1) Get him out of the game to face the bullpen or 2) Have him start elevating pitches so we can hit balls in the air. With Lowe, most of our success has come from the latter. I think this team this year has done a much better job of taking pitches and working counts than in the past, though. I would say this game is ours as long as we continue playing the way we have been (in warm weather, at least).

Wednesday night's game is on ESPN so we get a break from Christopher and Thomas. I hate when games are on ESPN or Fox because it actually makes me appreciate those 2 and forget how bad they are.

One exciting note from being at the Cit on Sunday: I got paid $1 to get myself an authentic Chase Utley jersey. True story. I'm just going to leave it at that rather than giving an actual explanation. Either way, you're jealous