Finally. Those Phillies have left the cursed confines of Citizens Bank Park, where they are an appalling 13-22. Thank GOD for those games against the Nationals here... I've previously included foolish lines like "tough road trip" in posts just before the Phillies left town for over a week, but we now know that no such animal exists with this team. They live for the road. They are Neal and Japhy, Wyatt and Billy, ... Harry and Lloyd?
Tonight they open a series in Tampa, where we'll see Joe Maddon's thick frames for the first time since, oh I dunno... We stole his World Series lunch money and had a little parade about it. But, perhaps it's not wise to get cocky when riding a 2-8 streak with little sign of life. Despite this being a road trip, we have plenty of reasons to worry that we haven't seen the end of the ugliness. We'll find out shortly.
In case you've forgotten the cast of characters, a brief primer on some of the Rays key players, after the jump.
Ben Zobrist homered to right, originally uploaded by dbadair.
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We all know Evan Longoria and Carlos Pena are the Rays' highly touted sluggers, but the big difference maker lately is lesser known Swiss-Army player Ben Zobrist. In 191 AB, Zorilla has 15 homers and 42 RBIs, batting just under .293 with a team-leading 1.044 OPS. Anyone who watched the playoffs last year will remember that that Bossman Junior Upton hit only nine HR in the entire 2008 regular season, then belted seven in 16 postseason games. He got off to a terrible start this year, but true to our Phillies' luck, over the last three weeks, Melvin Emmanuel (his real name) has heated up, raising his average from .212 to .240, belting three June homers and stealing 11 bags this month, giving him 26 on the season. And that's only good for second on the team in SBs... Carl Crawford already has 37. 37?
The kid David Price is on the mound tonight. Since his late-May callup, Price had been rolling along until giving up 5 ER to the Rockies in his last turn. He's been dishing out too many free passes (other than oddly giving up zero whilst getting shelled in Colorado), which isn't surprising given that he's only 23 years old, roughly half the age of the Phillies starter tonight. One more player of interest... Pat the Bat.
Game time tonight is 7:08PM. You see that? They try to trick you. They want you to tune in at 7:05 or 7:10 or some reasonable round number, then have you look like an idiot for being late or early. With your friends watching! Wait til they get to Toronto, where game times are... 7:07 and 1:07... (The logic obviously being, 7-minute abs > 8-minute abs, etc.).
News
Ryan Howard will be the Phillies DH, with Chris Coste at 1B. So Phils, please, please stop losing. The Mets triple-A affiliate is only 1.5 games back...