Ardor Cooled Successfully

Micah Owings- a proud son of Tulane- is aptly described in today’s Daily News: Owings, a legitimate power threat - he hit .335 with 33 homers his last 2 years at Tulane and later tripled in the sixth.

I guess pitching five innings of one-run ball doesn’t merit much mention when a National League pitcher flashes a thunder bat. Also, he’s left handed- and the Phillies just kinda take the night off when a semi-quality lefty strolls to the hill- so Micah loses points right there too. I mean, a LHP really ought to turn in seven-eight innings of dominating baseball against the Phillies to be considered pitching “well”.

Gosh, the Phillies have done their level best to cool the ardor of the fan base after their glorious sweep of Atlanta- by reverting back to the quality of play they exhibited just a week ago in Florida: endless errors, guys getting caught stealing down four runs, more and better and interesting bullpen meltdowns.

It is a long season- and if you wanted to humiliate a Phillies team that figured to be a little flat after their big weekend- you might try throwing a pair of solid lefties at them surrounded by a hot ballclub. It worked here certainly. And frankly, Leiber been darn good as a bottom-of-the-rotation starter; he’s probably allowed a bad one without me killing him. That is part and parcel of being a slightly better than .500 club- faced with good starting pitching, or you play poorly, you’re gonna lose two in a row a lot. And what you did the series before has little to do with the series you’re in. The Phillies are good…. sometimes.

I won’t rehash today’s other article in the PDN- which centers on the above factoid: LHP pitching kills us. I will say that obviously Howard (.133 versus lefties) can’t sit against LHPs- but would it hurt so bad to move him out of the freakin’ four hole until he figures it out again?