After talking about how much the Phillies have struggled over the past month yesterday, they came out tonight and put on one of their better offensive performances of the season.
The Twins are a very good team, and Joe Blanton has been by far our worst starter this season. I was very happy with counting on Halladay and Hamels to bring in the next 2 games to take the series. Instead, Joe pitched pretty well, taking a no-hitter into the 5th. The offense also showed up, and it was the people that we need to show up that actually did. It's always great when our 6, 7, and 8 hitters can come through for us, but in order to actually put together any semblance of a winning streak, we need the 1 through 5 hitters to get hot. Tonight, they did exactly that. Here are their collective numbers:
9 for 19
9 RBI
8 runs scored
5 extra-base hits
3 walks
1 stolen base
and only 1 strike out
Howard and Baseball did most of that damage, but it was an all-around great performance by the top of the order getting things done at the plate when they needed to in whatever way they could. Five of our 9 runs scored came with 2 outs. Even though I hate this statistic, we were 3 for 8 with runners in scoring position. This is the kind of timely hitting that we need to continue in order to get back to the top of the division.
Other notes:
-This was a great game to watch, despite being one of Thomas McCarthy's worst games. I never know what is wrong with him, but I really didn't know what was wrong with him tonight. I wish I had been writing down things he was saying during the game. He kept doing his signature get-really-excited-and-start-talking-in-a-louder-voice-without-knowing-what-I-really-want-to-say-yet. It ended up with statements like this one:
"And the Phillies have a first inning run! Not only that, but they're leading 1-0!"
Majoke.
-Doug Glanville has written a book about the life of a Major League Baseball player or something along those lines. Guy Smiley, as I liked to call him, was always a nice player to have on the team because he always seemed like he enjoyed what he was doing. And he's a good writer apparently. As for baseball, he rarely impressed when in a Phillies uniform. But as a friend and I always say, he did have 200 hits that one year!
-Joe Mauer, if you didn't know, is the greatest/coolest athlete of all time. In high school, he struck out 1 time. Total. In 4 years. He batted over .500 every season, including .605 his senior year. While doing this, he was named Gatorade National Player of the Year as a quarterback. And USA Today Player of the Year. And he was an All-American. And had a scholarship to play at Florida State. Basketball was his weakest sport, where he only averaged 20 points a game as a point guard and was named to the All-State team his junior and senior years. And he did all this in Minnesota where everyone loves and idolizes him. He then got to continue that success in that same state of Minnesota for the Twins as one of the best players in all of baseball.
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