Takin' Care of Bidness

The Phils are certainly "takin' care of bidness" just as former Eagles' head coach, Ray Rhodes urged his teams to do. won the last 2 games in methodical fashion.

The Phils won 5-2 Friday night behind Ryan Howard's laser shot, opposite field homer and the phenominal performance by Cole Hamels. I love that hitters are sitting on his change up, but they still can't hit it. (Maybe he should give Madson some tips on how to throw his former out pitch.) I also love how a guy at work calls him "the Dreamboat" because of how much the young chicks love him.


Today, the Phils took another one from the Marlins, 8 to 6. The Phightins jumped out to a four run lead and Lieber pitched seven outstanding innings before Uncle Cholly turned it over to the 'pen and they did their best to make the game interesting by giving up 3 homers in the last two innings. The batting hero today was backup catcher, Carlos Ruiz, who had a couple of clutch hits and racked up three RBI's. When you are in a postseason chase, you NEED guys like Ruiz to step up. I just wish he'd rub off on Delucci and Burrell. As for Howard, he didn't do much today. I wonder if it had anything to do with his trip to Chickie's & Pete's to celebrate after Friday's game.

One encouraging sign for them making the post season is that the Phils are winning games like the White Sox did last year and the Twins are doing this year. They are good starting pitching and enough big hits out of Howard, Utley, and Conine. Plus, they are playing great infield defense. I never realized how much a difference Nunez would make as a replacement for Bell at 3rd. He is HUGE upgrade. He also allows J Roll to play a shade more towards second instead of having to cover for a statue at 3rd like Bell was. I can live with Nunez's .250 average since he became an everyday player.

As I predicted earlier this week, I believe the Phils need to go 6-4 over their last ten games and they are now certainly off to a good start to the final push for the postseason. So good, that I think I might change my prediction to a 7-3 finish. They just need to continue to get the starting pitching that they've been getting over the last month and hopefully getting some meaningful contribution from Delucci and/or Burrell. They are too good to be just totally written off....aren't they?

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to retire to do some scoreboard watching.