Posted on 10/27/2008 12:44:59 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Phillies lead series 3-1
Tampa Bay 97-65 (Road: 40-41) 8:29pm ET
Philadelphia 92-70 (Home: 48-33) TV: FOX
TB: S. Kazmir (0-1, 4.50)
PHI: C. Hamels (1-0, 2.57)
>>Come Monday night, the team of 10,000 losses could give title-starved Philadelphia its first champion in any of the four big sports since the NBA’s 76ers in 1983. The Phillies’ only Series victory came in 1980.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
ping
spread the word if you wish
Hopefully the series will drag on long enough so that the inevitable and hopefully long post win party hangovers will suppress the vote in Philly enough to turn PA red.
LETS GO PHILLIES!!!
GO Whoever, like I really care.
It would be nice if they wrap up so 0bama doesn’t get the automatic audience for his half hour dis-infomercial.
Thanks for the ping!
C’mon end it already. It will clear channels for more college football.
The sad thing is all the empty seats due to the financial crises. No one apparently can pay $500 for a nose bleed series seat with all this monetary mayhem. \s
$500? The cheapest tickets are going for $1500 right now!
1. The Rays spent so much of this season belying their history, their collective age and their collective inexperience on the big stage. How strange that near the end of their seventh month of competitive play - at more than 175 games - it seems that they have finally become somewhat shaky. I would not rule out a team that blew a seven-run lead in Game 5 of the ALCS, then lost Game 6, but found the wherewithal to right themselves and win Game 7 to advance to the World Series.3 Up: World Series Thoughts
But there is so much wrong with the Rays' game now, specifically areas of strength for much of the season. Tampa was arguably the majors' best defensive team in 2008. But in this World Series they have been sloppy. Second baseman Akinori Iwamura and third baseman Evan Longoria, in particular, have been unsteady. And pretty much the entire offense aside from B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford has gone missing in action. The main offenders are Nos. 3-4 hitters Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria, whose World Series combined line to date is 0-for-29 with 15 strikeouts. They have that look about them now like they just want the at-bats to end.
The Rays have overcome so much to get to this point, shedding their negative past, pointing to a grand future. But it is going to be pretty much close to impossible to rally to win three straight games and this World Series unless their infield starts catching the ball better and the middle of their lineup starts hitting the ball better.
2. The World Series was supposed to pivot toward Tampa for many reasons, notably a supposed edge in rotation depth. But that has not occurred, to date. The Phillies' No. 3-4 duo of Jamie Moyer and Joe Blanton have clearly outpitched Matt Garza and, especially, Andy Sonnastine. My gut tells me that Moyer and Blanton are helped by having a long history as AL players and, thus, are not overwhelmed when they see an AL lineup. And, of course, the AL lineups they faced were in NL parks, so those lineups were DH-less.
3. You know what this World Series is going to end up being a first step toward: Greater use of instant replay. It is just impossible to ignore how many calls the umps get wrong. So there has to be better training, more demanding oversight and/or a way to aid the umps if split-second, bang-bang calls are just producing guesswork. This is a point I have made a lot over the past two years: The better pictures provided by hi-def TV, enlarging of pictures and extreme slow motion has been an enemy to umps hoping nobody is watching too closely. These technological advancements have underlined the missed calls. So if technology is showing the problems, then perhaps technology needs to be part of the solution.
Exactly. I bet Obama is praying for a Rays win so that people will tune into him before game 6.
Go Phillies!!!!
Instead of having someone “sing” the National Anthem tonight (see last night’s thread), they are going to use four microphones, amplified through a Santana-sized stack of Marshall amps and bottoms, set up directly in front of a wood chipper as they feed it a live water buffalo.
So that it will sound just like last night’s Anthem.
I was there last night when he Phils brought out the whooping stick. Let’s hope for more of the same tonight.
I was begging my husband to mute the anthem last night.
Alas, my ears bled instead.
On the other hand......
Did you witness the soldier singing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch???
Goosebumps...Yowsah!
Be lucky it wasn’t Mariah Carey
Shades of Philly hometown hero Mario Lanzno (well not quite, but still class act).
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