Fire Eric Bruntlett

FAIL of the Week: SantanaFAIL

LOLSantana, originally uploaded by philly_ies.

Whoa, what the hell is going on here? Johan Santana has a no-hitter through five innings at CBP? Oh, noes! It seems like neither the Phils’ offense nor Johan remember what happened the last time Johan came to town. A bunch of guys that are now on the DL hit homers or drew pivotal walks as each hitter reached base with two outs in the 4th. Hamels is mowing down the Mets, striking out 9 through 6 innings, and the Phils have drawn 3 walks, but are still hitless. I think they need some motivation, and Santana, some, um… un-motivation. Or something like that. Just remember some numbers…

3.2 (innings pitched)

8 (hits)

10 (runs – all earned)

4 (home runs)

4 (game score)

1 (loss)

8,000,000 (times of fail)

BBA: All-Star Ballot

Baseball’s All-Star break is fast approaching, which means only one thing: random people get to think that they have power over who is and isn’t worthy, without the requirement of actually knowing anything. That explains how Kosuke Fukudome was a starter in 2008, but that’s a rant for another day. This post only includes my votes, with my explanations to come later, due to a collision of deadlines, my vacation last week (I’ll try to get to that, hopefully, over the weekend sometime) and my not realizing how terrible I am at planning things like giant projects to determine All-Star ballots. Anyways, take this ballot with a grain of salt – I wanted to make sure I get my opinion counted in the BBA’s vote.

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The Lonely Man

REMIX! Harrison Ford is a Real Hard-Ass of a Boss

ADVICE: Don’t accept a job from Harrison Ford. Hell, don’t even go for the interview. Just watch/listen.

ORIGINAL VIDEO:

After the jump, the remix featuring Harrison Ford, with special guest appearances from Bill Haley and Chris “Wheels” Wheeler. Also, major H/T to the always awesome Tug Haines from The Fightins (@mistertug on Twitter)

Also, if this isn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever done, (a) I’ve done something else that’s really fucking great, and (b) I’m quitting tomorrow.

Enjoy.
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BEARDO!

Mexibruntlett’s Time To Shine

Jimmy Rollins is out for at best 2-4 weeks with a calf strain.  In previous years this would cause massive twitching and cause my to curse loudly for an extended period of time as it meant that Eric Bruntlett would be getting some playing time.  This year however Bruntlett is serving time in the Nationals’ minor league system and the Phillies have signed Juan Castro to be their utility player.

Now we (perhaps unfairly) immediately dubbed him Mexibruntlett and El Beardo.  I’m not at all familiar with the guy, although a .230 career average is less than encouraging. He’s supposed to be a defensive specialist, so seeing him boot a couple balls in the home opener was also less than encouraging.

However Juan Castro, you are not officially Mexibruntlett yet!  He still has time to prove us wrong!  So go out there and be the adequate bench player we all know you can be Juan!  Can’t you tell our confidence in these exclamation points!

Get well soon J-Roll, your friends at Red Bull need you!

Game 1 Preview – Phillies @ Nationals: THEY’RE BAAAAACK!

Well, the Internet’s being retarded and not ending the video where I told it to, but I think you get the idea. Baseball’s back, and my productivity’s in trouble. (Hey, now. Hey, now. Baseball’s back!)

So, this is it. This is what we’ve waited damn near 4 months for. Today, Roy Halladay pitches in red pinstripes in a game that means something, against a team that’s really bad. I’ll set the odds that he throws a perfect game at 3-1, and a no-hitter at even odds. A 9-inning shutout is -500.

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Bruntlett Might Be Good Enough To Be A Nat

According to the Washington Post Natinals blog Nationals Journal our old garden gnome friend Eric Bruntlett is making strides in his quest to be a bench player for the worst team in baseball.  He’s been hitting .500 this spring with a new strategy at the plate!  A quote from the Nationals Journal post:

“I’m just trying to be more aggressive. I’m really thinking about driving the ball instead of just going up there and being satisfied with a bunch of balls the other way. I got into a rut trying to do that too much and actually ended up not even being able to do that anymore, just popping a lot of balls up.”

So let me get this straight Beardo, your great strategy to hitting well this year is to try and hit it hard?  I guess you just weren’t trying last year and leaving it in your bearded god’s hands to guide you to the righteous basepaths?  It does explain a lot about his time with the Phillies though…

Author’s Note: I swear this isn’t becoming a Nationals blog, I’ll post some Phillies stuff soon!  I’m just fulfilling our duty of cheap Bruntlett jokes!

Former 3B Coach to Appear on Reality Show

Former Phillies third-base coach, WFC, and current Cleveland Indians third-base coach Steve Smith (he was part of the trade that netted us Cliff Lee, if you remember) will be a contestant on The Amazing Race with his daughter Allie. They will be one of 11 pairs of contestants on the 16^th season of the CBS reality show premiering February 14. (They do two season per year, by the way. It has not, in fact, been on since 1994.)

As I’m assuming most of youse aren’t really the Amazing Race type of reality show people – more a fan of Jersey Shore, right? No? Lil’ Jersey Shore? – here’s Wikipedia’s explanation of The Amazing Race, seeing as I’ve never actually watched it myself, either.

“The race utilizes progressive elimination: the last team to arrive at a designated checkpoint (Pit Stop) leaves the game. The race starts in a US city. Teams must then follow clues and instructions and make their way to checkpoints in places around the world, eventually racing back to the finish line in the US. Along the way they perform tasks that represent the culture of the present country or city. Tasks include Detours (an option between two tasks of various difficulty) and Roadblocks (a task that can be done by only one member of a team); additionally, other optional markers, if reached first, can provide a team with a Fast Forward (allowing a team to skip remaining tasks and go to the checkpoint), a Yield (the ability to delay another team for a short amount of time) or a U-Turn (the ability to force another team to do the other detour they did not choose). Teams race with limited possessions and are given a fixed amount of money for all travel purposes save for airline tickets, which are paid for by production-issued credit cards.”

On CBS’s page for the show, they ask each of the 22 contestants a series of questions about themselves and their partners. ATJ, some of Steve’s and Allie’s answers that I thought were particularly interesting…

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What I Think of the Phils Off-Season

This has been one heck of an off-season for the Phillies. Lately the Phils have done some great things when then avoided arbitration with Chooch, Victorino, and Big Joe. Amaro did make what the ESPN people called a Blockbuster trade when he traded away minor-league prospects for Roy Halladay and then traded away the stone-faced killer Cliff Lee for some minor-leaguers from Seattle. We all know the move happened. A lot of people bitched about it. And everyone played the “What-If” game with the topic of “What if the Phillies kept Lee and Halladay?”

Amaro’s actions seemed legit at the time, Lee only has one year left on his contract. He’s going to make $9 million this season, but after next season Cliff Lee is in line for a VERY big payday. We’re talking Johan Santana/CC Sabathia money. Amaro knew that with a depleted farm system, 3 star players up for arbitration this season, and the needs in the bullpen and bench (thank God Beardo is gone, but Brian Schneider, really??), that Cliff Lee’s big payday would have left them strapped. Now the Phillies do have money, but they also have a self imposed $140 million salary cap. But they are trying to stay competitive long term here, instead of loading up the rotation and not having the cash to keep any of the position players.

Now one key I want to focus on is going to be a big deal next off-season. Jayson Werth is a free agent at the end of the year. Barring something horrific this season, Werth should be looking at making Jason Bay money. The Phillies do have a few pretty good minor-league outfielders, but Werth is just too good to let go and play in Boston or New York. I’m really hopeful that the Phillies can resign Werth, after all #isharemybdaywiththatguy.

But just when I was comfortable with the fact that Lee is gone, and started backing the Phillies when friends and family started talking about Lee. Then Lee decided to talk about how he was all fixin for a big payday until he got to Philadelphia. He dropped that whole bomb about wanting to retire in Philly and would take less money to do it. DAMMMMNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!! Now how am I suppose to support the Phillies when Lee says romantic things like that.

The bottom line I wish Lee was still here. I wish Brett Myers was still here too. I’m also not completely sold on the Polanco signing, and Brian Schneider, really? But I have been upset with moves the Phils have made in the past and I was proved wrong everytime.

A note to our readers: I am back on twitter @TommymacWFC. I’m not able to twitter 24/7, but I will when I can. Get in touch with me, I love talking sports.