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08/04/2003 Archived Entry: "Phillies Journal -2003"
Phillies Journal - 2003
by Max Blue
ROAD TRIP – 2003
Chapter four of Max Blue’s baseball book "God Is Alive and Playing Third Base for the Appleton Papermakers" is entitled "Life of a Fan — How to Root for a Losing Baseball Team." In that chapter is a story called "Road Trip, 2001." The story describes a 10-game early August Phillies road trip that started with four games in New York against the Mets followed by three games in Denver against the Colorado Rockies, and three in San Francisco against the Giants. The Phillies were 4-6 on the trip, and slipped from one game to three games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves. Four of the losses came on walk-off homers — Rheal Cormier gave up two (Mike Piazza and Todd Helton), as did Turk Wendell (Robin Ventura and Andres Gallaraga).
So. Here we go again. Three games in Colorado and three in Frisco. Just like two years ago we trail the Braves, this time by 11, but the difference is that this time the Phillies have a two-game lead over Florida in the wild card race. We still have Cormier and Wendell, but we also have Joe Kerrigan as pitching coach. Joe has made Cormier and Wendell better, but he seems to have made Jose Mesa worse. Two years ago, Pat Burrell homered in all three games in Denver. This year Burrell is striking out about once every three times and is hitting .198 with only 14 homeruns although he did hit one yesterday against Oliver Perez, a 21year-old lefty who struck out 13.
So. Here we go again.
Replies: 1 Comment
who gives a crap about the phillies.
enough of the phillies journal get a life
Posted by nunya business @ 08/06/2003 07:47 AM EST
