One Loss Away From 10,000 - Time to Ice that Sour Milk
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by user Christof
NINTH IN A SERIES
On 7/7/07, the Philadelphia Phillies lost game number 9,999 in its history. The Phillies are only one loss away from 10,000 losses! No other professional team in North America has ever reached 10,000. The Phillies will be the first, and may do so before this day is done.
Loss number 9,999 did not get off to a bad start for the Phillies. Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard both homered in the first inning. For Rollins, this was his 100th career home run. With Rollins and Howard going yard, the Phillies were up 3-0. They even had two more base runners on board. That is, until the rains came. A big thunderstorm caused over an hour long delay in play. Upon the game resuming, the Phillies bats went silent against the Colorado Rockies. Once again, the Phillies bullpen gave up runs. Hence, a promising start resulted in yet another loss for the Phillies.
The Phillies are now 43-44 for the season. They have lost eight of the past eleven games. Today’s game versus the Rockies will be the last for the club before the All-Star break. After the break, the Phillies will return to action at home against the defending World Series champions, St. Louis Cardinals.
A cynic would say that the Phillies brass has asked the Phillies to lose these last few games, in order to get to 10,000 losses on the road. And if Charlie Manuel rests any of his starters today, you may have to wonder if that is not true. With that said, the real reason the Phillies have collapsed over the past two weeks has been due to pitching, or really, lack thereof. The bullpen is just awful, and is getting worse by the day.
And to think, the NL East is ripe for the taking. The New York Mets have serious clubhouse and chemistry issues. The Atlanta Braves have injury issues. Yet, the Phillies cannot pull it together.
Hence, not only is the Phillies losing causing them to get close to history, it is also causing them to lose any legitimate hope of winning the division. For a club that has not seen the post season since 1993, I do not know which of those two are the worse result.
