Screen Shot 2013-04-02 at 9.55.03 AMWhen Cole Hamels took the mound yesterday sans the mustache that was set to hypothetically tickle the loins of Phillies fans everywhere, you knew it was going to be a rough night– five runs in five innnings for Mr. Colbert, a 7-5 loss for the Phillies.

Let’s fucking panic.

I kid.

Cole will be fine (since 2009, he has an ERA well over 9.00 in his first start of the season), and the offense… well, they didn’t look half bad, and Chase Utley… he has knees.

Let’s Wood!

Utley, dreamboat The ball was certainly carrying in Hotlanta, where the Tomahawk Chop and Chipper Jones are of cultural significance. But still, Utley’s fourth inning blast was the sort of thing that he could not do in 2011 and 2012. That pitch and subsequent swing were the same ones that he performed late in Game 5 against the Cardinals in 2011… the same ones that couldn’t even produce a rendezvous  with the Citizens Bank Park warning track and extra innings for the greatest regular season Phillies team ever.


Last night, they produced jet pack that rode a baseball over the center field wall.

Utley, in a contract year, also had and RBI single and turned an easy double into a The Man triple, nearly hitting for the cycle on the first day of the season. He looks beefier than the last few years, and though he generally loses weight and muscle during the grueling 162-game schedule, it’s nice to see that he still has his pop. And his sexiness.

Man crush on high.

T-Mac yell: Tom hasn’t missed a beat, seamlessly transitioning from heightened yet monotone conversation to [commence T-Mac yell] GOOOONE, A FIRE-BREATHING BALLOON HEAD WITH NO FEEL FOR THE MOMENT SO HE JUST YELLS WHILE A SOLO SHOT CUTS THE BRAVES’ LEAD TO THREE.

Speaking of the goofballs in the booth: Chris Wheeler was especially annoying for this early in the season…

… but Sarge, who was so thrilled to have received a call from Hank Aaron earlier in the day, who got inexplicably mad at T-Mac when T-Mac said he didn’t think Dale Murphy was a Hall of Famer…

Screen Shot 2013-04-02 at 9.44.03 AM…was a bit off his game. When T-Mac explained that teams around Major League Baseball, in both the National and American Leagues, were wearing patches to commemorate Sandy Hook, where horrific shootings killed both teachers and students, that took place in December of 2012, Sarge went to show his to the camera… only to learn that he forgot to put it on:

patch

Nice going.

Gregg Murphy’s notebook: Murph has a thankless job. He has to travel to ballparks around this great expanse and Canada, do sideline-style reporting not from the sideline, and get harassed by opposing fans. And he has to read that ridiculous, sponsored notebook, which could easily be renamed, Things You Read Online 12-24 Hours Ago, Brought to You By Some College.

Miss America: Wheels somehow kept his composure while Miss America – from New York, thanks to T-Mac’s research in The Cloud – was cleaving out of her tight t-shirt, which makes for a great GIF:

America_sing

Semis:

Chad Durbin wasn’t so good.

Utley talks about being sexy.

The Pirates played an April Fools joke on A.J. Burnett.

Justin Upton absolutely destroying a baseball.