NATS (14-7) WORSE THAN PHILLIES FOUR DAYS AGO

 not just a sweep by 

 divisional rivals, but 

 painful, ugly sweep 

 last two games - six hits combined 

 for zero runs; still early though 

NATS (14-6) WORSE THAN PHILLIES FIVE DAYS AGO

 offensive goose eggs, 
 two measley ass hits the whole 
 game - the fuck is this? 

 Harper gonna be walking 
 more than prime-time Barry Bonds 

mathematically eliminated #17 the Philadelphia Phillies

Though they made a valiant yet ultimately useless late season run towards a watered down wild card spot, the hole the Phillies dug for themselves in the beginning was just too deep to overcome. Thus, with a simple 2 to 1 loss at the Miami garishness empty stadium of Escobar, on this 28th day of September of the standard western calendar, they are done for the year. Remember when their pitching staff was going to be the most ominously great thing ever in the history of professional team sports on the Earth? That has not worked out quite like they had thunk, no?
Anyways, in honor of the Phillies and their very special fan base, here are some google image search results for drunken Phillies fans...

Blue Jays 6, Phillies 2: Brooms, and Yet Doom Still Probably

brett cecil is like "I totally don't remember us having uniforms this cool"

I am not one to look a giftsweep in the mouth and so thank you very much for this, you Phillies of Philadelphia, and I will also thank Colby Rasmus for the dinger and Brett Cecil for his first start of the season and everything. But man, we are so boned right now. Cecil's 87 MPH fastball and pretty iffy curve are unlikely to do to AL East teams what they did to the Phillies (no diss), and who even knows who even knows who will be starting by the end of the week. But hey, big crowds this weekend and a nifty little sweep, so chin up I guess.


KS

Blue Jays 3, Phillies 0; Blue Jays 6, Phillies 5 (F/10): Oh Man What Is Even Going On Here

sorry skip my arm exploded

So, because of baseball I totally get that clustering is a feature of randomness, and also that random clusterfucks are a feature of baseball, but Jesus Christ what is going on here is a feeling I definitely felt following yet another Blue Jays starter -- this time young Drew Hutchinson -- going down with an injury after basically no pitches and further dooming us. Mike Wilner, who I on the whole do not enjoy, tweeted something to the effect that after the trainer had been talking to the freshly injured Hutchison, he sat down on the bench for a minute and had a few words with Ricky Romero, who then proceeded to bury his head in his hands (like a boss?). After the Phillies (specifically Mike Fontenot) threw that game away Friday night, it was Ricky Ro himself who took the mound Saturday afternoon, and he wasn't all that good. But a J. P. Arencibia tied it late! And Rajai hit the walkoff double in the tenth! But we still don't have any pitchers! What will become of us!


KS 

Cardinals 1, Phillies 0: But Mostly I Still Hate J. P. Ricciardi

A tough one to leg out, especially if your leg explodes en route

After giving up a lone run in the first off a leadoff Rafael Furcal triple and a Skip Schumaker double (lol wut?), Roy Halladay totally pitched like Roy Halladay the rest of the way, even working his way out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the eighth without allowing a run. He was terrific, but not as good as Chris Carpenter, who opted instead for the three-hit, complete-game shutout (an excellent selection, sir, if I may say so). In the buildup to this one, there was a lot of talk in the national sports media about how Halladay and Carpenter are quite close friends dating back to their time together in the Blue Jays' minor league system. Closer to home -- like, literally in my house -- there was also a lot of talk about how galling it was/remains that J. P. Ricciardi wouldn't offer the then-injured Carpenter a league-minimum contract, and instead let a future Cy Young Award winner just walk for nothing when he totally wanted to stay. That is the lens through which I watched last night's game, from earliest goings-on to Ryan Howard blowing out his leg while making the last Phillies' out for the second year in a row. Thanks again J. P. 


Hey, isn't it odd that there are no teams from either the AL or NL East left now? We would have all agreed that those were the two best divisions in baseball this year, right? But the playoffs, man: just a crapshoot, a rad, rad crapshoot.


Finally, look at how sad this Phillies fan with the profane flask is:

The flask is asking to much of this man right now

KS

Cardinals 5, Phillies 3: Go Squirrel!

go squirrel go squirrel go squirrel

For the second day in a row, a squirrel -- the same squirrel? --- stole the show in St. Louis, and I am all for it, let me tell you. Tuesday night, s/he bombed around the infield and booked it down the left field line; last night, the marvelous creature you see in the above photograph made an appearance whilst Skip Schumaker took his cuts. Other cool things that happened: Shane Victoriano fell all over himself trying to get the ball back in from centre, and ended up throwing it behind him, which is not something you see every day; Albert Pujols pulled off the bag at first on a throw from short because he saw the runner at second breaking for third, gunned it, and got the out, which was amazing, frankly; Scrabble struck Ryan Howard out swinging in a key at bat late; and David Freese went berserk with a three-run home run and an RBI double. From that catalogue of notable occurrences, you might conclude that I have hopes for the Cardinals, but that is not in fact the case: it is entirely my hope and desire that Roy Halladay best Chris Carpenter Friday night in a winner-take-all showdown of former Blue Jays starting pitchers whom I will never forgive J. P. Ricciardi for losing. Play ball!


KS


UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 


Here's Victorino:

also there is SQUIRREL GIF:

HERE HERE HERE is a link to some squirrel video, and below you will find an outstanding single frame from that video, which I have captured on my own using advanced computer technologies.

Phillies 3, Cardinals 2: Pitchers' Duel, Motherfucker

I left my heart in Ben Francisco and you know what, it was incredibly erotic.

If you wanted to be a jerk about it, you could point out that there were an awful lot of baserunners for a game that I am calling a pitchers' duel, but when you are scoreless headed into the seventh in the playoffs, then mister, you've got yourself a pitchers' duel as far as I'm concerned. Yesterday, the contemptible Tony La Russa, who is also a genius according to sportswriters who are fools, decided that there is just no way you can let a monster like Carlos Ruiz beat you, so you put him on, basically, never mind that, although the pitcher's spot is up next, Cole Hammels has thrown like 117 pitches so they would obviously go to the bench for a bat, right? You ignore that, because it isn't important. So then Ben Francisco comes up, and guides a three-run shot just over the wall in the left-centre, and that's pretty much the ballgame. Good game Tony! Really managed the shit out of that one! In his defense, it is entirely possible he was blinded by sublimity at the time. I mean, look:

Above: Baseball, a game played in the interest of awesomeness.

KS

Deal With It

I guess I will have to!


KS

Cardinals 5, Phillies 4: Kind of A Hell of A Game, Actually

yer out

Stake Cliff Lee to a four-run lead early, and you're good to go, right? Apparently not so! The Cardinals put together a three-run fourth that ended with Jon Jay tagged out at the plate, gunned down, as they say, by Raul Ibanez to much bellowing of "Rauuuuuuuuuuuul." Or were they saying "Ruuuuuuuuiz?" As you can infer from the above photograph, it's kind of amazing Carlos held on, really. Jay brought the Cardinals even in the sixth, knocking in Theriot, and then in the seventh Pujols brought in the winning run. Notably, the win went to Octavio "Don't Ask" Dotel, who was repealed in the eighth in favour of Mark Rzepcynski; both of these fine gentlemen, as you will no doubt recall, were until quite recently members of your (which is to say "my") Toronto Blue Jays, and so are of particular interest go me. Good job, fellows! Also, the ESPN Radio broadcast kept talking about how Chris Carpenter was picked up for nothing after the Blue Jays decided to be dumb. That's totally what happened! I remember that vividly!


Also, and in closing, I hate Tony LaRussa, because he is literally the worst.


KS

Phillies 11, Cardinals 6: "That's More Like It"

Pictured above: baseball

The monster three-run shot Roy Halladay gave up in the top of the first -- off the bat of the surprisingly excellent Lance Berkman -- completely silenced the Philadelphia crowd and upset the WPHT radio guys like I had not previously heard the WPHT radio guys upset. "Roy Halladay just doesn't do that; he doesn't give up three-run home runs," they quite rightly observed. It wasn't just that the Phillies were behind, which would be understandably disappointing to them; it was that the fundamental order underlying the universe that keeps hamburgers from taking bites out of us had been undercut by Roy Halladay allowing a three-run home run in the top of the first inning. When the tide turned in the sixth on home runs from Howard and Ibanez, I honestly lost track of how many times the WPHT crew said, "That's more like it," but believe me when I tell you that it was kind of a lot. Halladay was Halladay the rest of the way, and finished the night with a completely respectable line of just those three runs on three hits and a walk, striking out eight. In the end, all was well. But for about an hour there, the very fabric of space and time was nearly rent asunder, or something. 

More riding on that right arm than you can ever imagine.

KS