More of the same

Continuing their maddeningly inconsistent season, the Phils lost Friday night’s game and then rallied to win on both Saturday and Sunday.  Friday’s game, chronicled here by Shallow Center, featured a monster home run by Sammy Sosa off of Ryan Madson, an actual Eric Gregg sighting, and one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever tasted. The evening started off badly, sitting in traffic before even getting to the Walt Whitman Bridge and then realizing that I forgot my ticket.  Fortunately, the Phillies are able to offer reprints for season ticket holders.  After finally getting in, I was able to wander into the outfield area with my brother and catch an unbelievably short Tony Luke’s line.  (This is the first time I’ve even tried getting in line there this year.)  After a short wait, I grabbed a roast pork sandwich.  I can honestly say that I have never had a better sandwich, anywhere.  To anyone who can get to the park early enough, I very strongly recommend that you try to snag one for yourself. While in line for the sandwiches, I lost a bet on whether or not Tony Luke’s served any beer besides Anheuser-Busch products.  (They don’t; it’s Bud and Bud Light only.)  So, after grabbing the sandwiches, I made my over to a nearby fry stand – run by Chickie and Pete’s – to get a couple of Lagers.  Who do I see serving them up but none other than former Major League umpire Eric Gregg, looking bigger and beefier than ever.  Talk about surreal. The game itself was about what we’ve seen all year from the Phillies – a non-existent offense coupled with pitching that wasn’t great but mostly got the job done.  It was close the whole game until Sammy Sosa steppe to the plate facing Ryan Madson and absolutely tattooed a pitch to dead center field, actually hitting the brick wall about a third of the way up.  It was the first home run I have seen to hit that wall. On Saturday the Phils used to two run single from starting pitcher Paul Abbott (!) to pull ahead of the Cubs 4-2 and held on for a 4-3 win.  Today’s game was even better.  Facing the minimum number of batters through eight innings, Eric Milton had a beautifully pitched no hitter going.  (He had given up a leadoff walk in the first inning to Mark Grudzielanek, who was then doubled off of first base on Corey Patterson’s fly out to right.)  Taking a 2-0 lead into the ninth, Milton gave up a leadoff bloop double to Michael Barrett – a ball that new centerfielder Doug Glanville probably should’ve had.  Milton recovered to strikeout the next two batters before giving up a single and double to tie the game.  Milton was then lifted for Madson, who got Sammy Sosa to ground out to end the inning. Jim Thome led off the bottom of the ninth with a walk and moved to second on a sacrifice by Glanville.  Pat Burrell then ended the game with a line drive to right field that plated Thome.  The single was Burrell’s second of the game to the opposite field, something I would love to see him do more of, instead of trying to yank everything over the short left field wall.  The problem with what he did today was that in both instances he wasn’t trying to hit the ball the opposite way; had he tried to drive the pitches the other way, they probably would’ve wound up in the seats.  Alas, I shall settle for something being better than nothing and take the win and Burrell’s pair of singles. All in all, the Phils did go 2-1 this weekend, though they looked thoroughly ambivalent doing it.  The only conclusion I can draw is that this team needs something, almost anything to give them some kind of shot in the arm and wake them up.