image from mobilwi.typepad.com
To be honest, I’m not even sure how to approach covering the Phillies right now. Gone is the lovefest with each and every player. Gone is the desire for nonstop, around-the-clock team updates. Gone are the days of… winning. For now, at least.  

It’s an odd position we find ourselves in– significantly disappointed through the first two months of the season. But it’s a long one, these baseball seasons, and we can’t be too reactive. A week-long win streak and the Phillies are right back in the thick of things. Chase Utley and Ryan Howard may not be the saviors the team needs, but they will most certainly be better than the slop Ruben Amaro signed in the offseason. Roy Halladay will be back, and most likely pitch at a very high level. Cliff Lee will win a game this season. Cole Hamels is pitching for a contract, so he’ll be fine. And Jimmy Rollins can’t suck forever. 

So we won’t overreact too much… at least over what’s happening on the field. Because it can't get worse (we think). But we will certainly overreact about the broadcast team, who during even the best of days were annoying. Now, Tom McCarthy and Chris Wheeler are damn near offense. We’ll let reader Matt address the issue. Unedited, of course: 

Can one of you please, PLEASE start turning up the heat on Tom McCarthy?  We’re in the midst of the season going to hell and the man has absolutely no pulse on the frustrations of the city he calls for.  After blowing their 3rd lead in a row, Tom is more focused on ice cream and Wheeler’s balls than the game.  I swear to God if they just let a few fireflies out of a jar in the booth he’d be entertained for hours.  Oh, and he literally just mentioned that heading into Interleague play, the Phils feel like they have an advantage because they have Jim Thome to come into the lineup as a DH.  DO THEY REALLY TOM???  THAT BUCK-EVEN BATTING AVERAGE GOING TO STOP THE SKIDS, IS IT???  Harry K at least had the decency to echo the emotions of the moment, through good and bad.  Tom is calling every game like the Phils are 18 up in the division.  Harry would be Harry Doyle’ing his way through games by now.  Please get this man off the air.  If we’re going down in flames, we at least deserve a decent play-by-play account of the crash and burn.

Matt

 

We agree with everything Matt said.