Phillies

Morning Wood: Old, Wrinkly

By Kyle Scott

Published: Apr 4th, 2013 · 9:36 AM EDT

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I always struggle to handle my Wood the mornings after Flyers and Phillies games. There aren’t typically game recaps on CB, so that’s not the issue. Rather, do I limit the Wood to just Phillies (the usual) or do I include some Flyers links and perhaps a GIF or two because that’s what I would have done anyway?

Today, there’s enough of Wood to go around, if only because, through two games, the Phillies are a cold water splash.

Old Man Halladay (I know, it hurts to write that) fanned nine last night with swing-and-miss stuff… unfortunately, that stuff was reserved for only about half of the batters he faced, as the others tattooed him for six hits and five runs aided by two walks and two home runs. Doc threw 95 pitches in three and a third. His start was pretty much the sum of all fears: Oh hey, the guy who concerned everyone all spring with decreased velocity, an odd illness, and poor starts, who wanted us to believe that everything was cool, came out of the gate clearly not ready for the regular season.

Driving to and fro quizzo, I listened to Scott Franzke and Larry Andersen try to take positives out of Halladay’s start. The strikeouts made it pretty easy, but it was sad to hear LA drop a line like this (paraphrasing): Doc should improve as he builds up arm strength.

Um, we’re acting as though Halladay is coming back from Tommy John here. He’s not. He had a sore back last year and the flu this spring. Sure, he’s a week or two behind, but he’s a workout nut and an otherwise healthy pitcher (supposedly). This is a guy who, 18 months ago, was still considered the best on the planet. Now we’re talking about him as if he’s the grandfather who just got out of the hospital that will be able to keep down solid foods in a week, or two.

After the game, Halladay was still pissed off: [Phillies.com]

“I’m going to fix it. I’m going to fix it,” said a visibly aggravated Halladay in front of his locker. “It will be fixed. And the results will be better.

“I’m frustrated. I should have gotten deeper than that. Not aggressive enough early in the count and went deep counts, and that’s the most frustrating part, really. I’m going to clean that up and be more aggressive. I’ve got to be more aggressive getting ahead of guys and putting guys away. I can’t take three or four pitches to put guys away. We can take ground balls earlier in the count and do something to be more efficient and go deeper. I’d rather get beat 20-0 and pitch eight innings than pitch 3 1/3. So that’s got to change. But I felt good, felt good in the bullpen and felt good on the mound.”

Didn’t look so good, though.

Nats bloggers: Keep taking the bait:

In the park itself, NL East Champion banners now hang above the centerfield gate entrance, above the center field HD scoreboard, and outside the Presidents Club. The giant Scoreboard Walk photo has also been changed to feature Jayson Werth’s walk-off home run in the 2012 playoffs. In the scheme of things, the signage changes are small, which makes the recent whining by a prominent Phillies blogger all the more perplexing.

Flyers: The difference between 2010 and this season is that, three years ago, they had a defense and a well-constructed team that was capable of making a run if they got into the playoffs. This year, they’re decimated by injuries and, well, don’t have a defense. And Ilya Bryzgalov is still nuts. Here’s your $51 million goaltender ducking out of the way of a knuckle-puck:

He was ripped a new asshole by Mike Milbury for this:

“[Goodbye] Philadelphia, hello KHL. This is unforgettable for me. You’re supposed to try to get in the way, Ilya. You’re a goaltender. Get your head in the way, have you ever seen Lundqvist do that? This thing gets deflected, it’s a knuckle-ball. But he can’t wait to get out of the way. You got to be kidding me.”

Video of that is after the jump.

They won, though, 5-3. And they’re going to cock tease us for a couple weeks.

Sportsmenship: This is awesome– Zac Rinaldo asks Brandon Prust which shoulder is injured so that he can avoid hurting him during their fight. Pure class.