Phillies Nation

stop pointing fingers. win as a team, lose as a team.

In a 1-0 game, yes the double play had to be turned. It was not. It lead to defeat. There is no doubt in my mind that Chase Utley is still the best 2nd baseman in the game right now. It was a painful loss and it sucks but why dwell on it? He’s among the best at what he does and sometimes even the best can’t get it done. He’s a hard worker and that’s what helps make this team great. He, the team, the coaches, and the fans all have to live with what happend yesterday. Learn from it, move on, we got a game to play tomorrow.

This is so short sighted. Was it the straw the broke the camels back? For the most part, yes. However, it is merely the last straw and not even close to the weight of the entire haystack.
If you can’t score more than one run against Vicente Padilla then you should always lose. Yes the Vicente Padilla, the one with the 2009 and career splits of:

2009:
Vs RHB: .246/.301/.363, 2.35 K/BB
Vs LHB: .303/.384/.453, 1.54 K/BB

Career:
Vs RHB: .241/.300/.368, 3.03 K/BB
Vs LHB: .297/.380/.479, 1.30 K/BB

Howard hit his long ball, but past that they looked like a little league team out there. This is an offensive loss, and really its not even close.

Utley’s error cost us the lead for sure. Happ’s inability to throw a strike while ahead in the count cost us the game. Walking in a run is inexcusable.

I can tell you one thing right now, no one, and I mean NO ONE, is taking this loss harder than Mr. Utley. He’s going to get about 20 minutes of sleep tonight as he stares at the ceiling, killing himself over what he did. Believe me, he will come back and make up for his mistake. This is Chase Utley. This is the man.

Utley overthrew, Happ missed the plate, but Charlie lost his mind when he pulled Pedro and began a three ring , uh make that five ring, circus with the bullpen. This will only hurt if we lose the series, which I doubt we will. None the less, Charlie has to bear the burden of some real poor managing.

Look to me like he tanked that play on purpose

There’s plenty of people who didn’t step up in the 8th inning, although Chase had the most obvious and serious failure. But it’s important to remember that the Dodgers needed a series of mistakes in the 8th just to squeak out a must win game at home against the Phillies 5th starter. The Phils can’t afford to give games away, but they should still feel very confident against this Dodgers team.

I think you do need to put some of the blame on Charlie! Pedro was in a zone. 87 pitches through 7, I mean it looked like no one in the Dodgers organization had a clue what to do at the plate with Pedro on the mound. I mean in the top of 8th you bring in Dobbs/Francisco to hit into a double play to end inning, Pedro could have bunt Ruiz over and then you have Jroll up with a man in scoring position. If he got out at least you had Howard up in the 9th.

Using 5 pitchers was ridiculous, not keeping Madson in there for Either was stupid, you bring in Happ who is not used to or a clutch guy in that situation. And we lost the game on a bases loaded walk, errors or not.

Charlie made some bad decisions

No, you can’t blame Charlie. If you go back and look at the game tape, you could SEE he was getting tired. He hung a few changeups that he is lucky didn’t end up in the seats.

Either way Phillies win in 5

I agree with Chuck, like it or not, the Dodgers are a damn good baseball team. These two teams are, and have been talked about as being among the best in the Majors the entire season for a reason. Any fan, whether a Phillies Phan or a Dodgers fan that says either team sucks is just a plain idiot. If the Phillies had the bullpen they had last year, the Phillies would be a CLEAR favorite, but the problem is, the Dodgers have that bullpen this year. :( Either way, our Offense as proven in Game 1, can and will put points on the board against the starters AND that Bullpen. Go Phillies!

I know it’s hard to admitt, but V. Padilla was great in Game 2. He threw hard and his pitches had great,late movement. I don’t know if beating the Phillies was step 12 of his rehab program or what, but he was amazing. I am not looking forward to the Phillies facing him again.

-And don’t dismiss Kuroda. He has owned the Phillies. I think the cold/rainy weather hurt his control coming off of the stiff neck injury.

Good thing Ryan Howard or Jimmy Rollins did not make the error that costs the team a game in the NLCS. If one of those two blew a double in a crucial spot in 3 straight playoff games, the fans would be begging for them to be traded for Travis Lee.

Yes be mad at the captain. I am a huge Utley fan. My favorite ball player but come on. Make that throw. he had all night to make and did not. It cost us the game and possible the series. Utley has to be held in this situation. We bash Howard enough. Utley has to be bashed at times. Horrible play.

Utley might hurt. Again, at the end of the season and through playoff play. Wasn’t noticed last year, but I’m sad to say it shows now. He’s not planting his pivot foot when he throws. Definitely is favoring it. Is it affecting his batting? I don’t know. Shouldn’t much in the box, but the effect on his psyche might play a part in his lousy September and subpar postseason. I watched the MLBN crew slo-mo his turns for double plays in this series, and he is definitely off.

I always hear on here about how clutch Chase Utley is. Does anybody have any proof? His big clutch play of the week was fouling a ball off his foot and running to first. And the two seperate umpires blew calls on the play. And the next night, he took a big walk. While they were both plays that helped the team, I would hardly define them as clutch. There are a lot of players I can remember coming with big plays at big times in games. Ryan Howard has more than a few. Werth has a few, Ibanez. Carlos Ruiz has some. But for Utley, I am really blanking on them. He is a hard working guy who makes some great plays, and has a ton of talent. But I am not seeing the clutch aspect of him.

And as we have seen in the past week, big plays in the field at key moments in the game are not his speciality. He has blown 3 this week, and on the Saturday afternoon game in August in Atlanta, he had that play in the 9th where took the wrong angle at the ball and Lidge ended up getting the blown save.

The phils scored one run! That’s why they lost the game, give me a break…

Charlie gets some blame too. You don’t take Pedro out there. Not the way he was dominating and not the way our bullpen stinks.

Okay, in defense of Utley:

firstly, the error in game 1 was completely meaningless. There was no way he’d have gotten Ethier out even with a good throw, and it made no difference whether Ethier was on first or second when Ramirez hit a two run shot. And, of course, the Phillies won the game.

As to what happened in Game 2, sure, Utley bears a big share of the blame. But even if they turn the double play, there’s still Pierre on third with Jim Thome coming up to bat. Thome hit a single off Eyre. With the double play turned, it’s likely that Manuel would have left Park in, but it’s completely possible that Thome would have hit a single anyway and tied up the game. At that point they probably could have gotten out of the inning, but it’s not at all clear they would have won.

As others have said, the real problem on Friday was the offense, which did absolutely nothing (except Howard). If you can only score one run, you oughtn’t to expect to win.

Our overrated team is getting exposed big time

Wah wah wah the nfl won’t let me buy a team

No new posts today???

Your wrong John. Things can change if that double play was turned. Maybe walk Thome, defense in a different postion. Life changes. My best friend got into his car and started on his way to work. He got a block from his house and noticed his cell was not with him. He turned back and grabbed it. He was halfway to work when a drunk driver ran a red light and killed him. If he did not forget his cell or go back for it he would still be here. everything changes. I know thats a rough point to make but its true. Things change by the actions in our lives.

Remember the WS pump fake gun down of Barlett at home….that took some serious stituational awareness and skill in a much higer pressure stituation than these play off games. Remember his hip surgery. Remember his puritical work ethic (which I call overtraining) . Point is, I put the hip before going Knoblauch Block. 1] Mike Lowell (same injury, same surgery), struggled all season with expected, normal post-op hip pain which is why the Red Sox platooned him with Youklis at third. 2] to see not only the two dp throws but other more routine throws that exhibited similar characteristics of errant throws points to adaptive shortening of surrounding muscle to guard instability of the hip joint. The hip is a crucial junction in the transfer of reaction forces between the ground and foot thru the lower body to the upper body in the kinetic chain of movement used to throw a ball or a punch. It may be more pronouced in throwing than batting because there is little if any element of chance in throwing than in batting Batting involves alot more variables than throwing, that is in batting the outcome is dependedant on other factors like the pitched ball whereas throwing primarily depends on the athlete alone unless there are mitigating circumstances.
If the hip is ruled out, then I’d say call a sports shrink cause it’s a case of the “yips”. Either way it’s cause for concern.