Rollins_five
Doh. When Humberto Quintero saunters into second base and mockingly high-fives your world-class shortstop, you know it’s not your night.

The Phillies sleepwalked to a 5-1 loss in what was unfortunately a 6 ABC Boscov’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Game:

It’s not really a good game. They’re losing. But you watch. You watch the whole fucking thing, not because it was particularly enjoyable, but because you feel it’s your duty as a Philadelphian. David Boreanaz may or may not be present.

 

No Boreanaz, that we know of. No Phillies, either.

Let’s chit-chat for just a second about Quintero’s high-five: I no like.

Quite honestly, I have no idea if Fiveero and J-Roll™ are friends, but Rollins didn’t look like he was laughing. If I was managing the team, the next pitch to Quintero would have been just below his ear. 

While there isn’t a lot (or anything) to complain about this year with the Phillies, it would be nice to see the pitchers come to the aid of their teammates just once. Before you throw rocks, bear with me for just a second:

The Giants both started and escalated the brawl in San Francisco with no retaliation from Phillies pitching… though one could argue a brawl pretty much evens the playing field.

Chase Utley was unintentionally hit in the head and given a concussion last week. Not so much as a brush back.

Carlos Ruiz was plowed over on Saturday. Nothing.

Quintero’s goofy high-five last night. Nada.

The fact that three of those four examples (there are others, too) were done without any ill intent doesn’t necessarily excuse the action. Often times in baseball, pitchers will send a message to opposing teams – a warning shot, if you will. When Chase Utley gets hit in the head and your lovable catcher gets plowed at home plate, a simple brush back pitch is enough to say, “Hey, be more careful next time.”

The “problem” for the Phillies is that you really don’t want to see any of the aces inciting bench-clearing brawls. And often times, the game is turned right over to Antonio Bastardo and Ryan Madson, both of whom are guys you can’t afford to get injured. When Utley was hit in the head, Jason Heyward led off the following inning against Oswalt. I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want to see nine-foot-two Heyward bearing down on Oswalt and his 92-year-old back. I envisioned him telling Howard to be ready so he could beat Heyward to the mound. But alas, nothing happened.

Still, it would be nice to just once see a Phillies pitcher send a message to an opposing player, most of whom have nothing to lose, about taking liberties with the lineup. Rant complete.

Hunter Pence talked about his return to Houston. Video via Ryan Lawrence of the Delco Times:

CSN Philly launched their redesign today. It’s like NBC Philadelphia’s website on quaaludes (Comcast now owns NBC Universal, in case you hadn’t heard), or a Rubik’s Cube twisted to an impossible-to-solve position. Whatever your thoughts are, there’s no denying this: There are boxes, a lot of boxes. Everything is in a fucking box. 

Philly.com is flanking their page with ads for supplemented, pre-bundled tablets. The economics behind a dying media company supplementing $400 tablets and pre-loading them with required subscriptions to $10 per month apps for content that could be read free elsewhere on the net… well, they can’t be in the company’s favor. Perhaps now would be the time for me to find an investor, hire two writers, and go for the MSM jugular in sports. I’m half-serious, if you know anyone with some dough who likes low-expense, high-margin businesses, my email address is up top.

Finally, speaking of money and sound investments, Philly Sport’s Daily’s Lead Pipe Louie was 5-1 with his picks this week. You might want to take a gander.