With a week to let the sting of the World Series wear off — I still have a hard time accepting the World Series MVP being a goddamn designated hitter, even if that Shemp-looking dude killed us — I’d like to present to ye Fightins fans my third annual Phillies Year In Photos. If you’re into such a thing, the 2007 NL East Team To Beat is HERE, and the 2008 WFCs are HERE. This year, the 2009 National League Champs are a The Fightins Dot Com exclusive.

The reason for this is . . . well, my site, Philly Skyline Dot Com (no relation), has been put on the shelf; in less than a month, I’m trading in my Phillies season tickets for the green hills of Portland, Oregon. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to start rooting for the Padres’ AAA Beavers.) I’ll still tune into Franzke and LA on the MLB At Bat phone app and religiously read The Fightins and Beerleaguer and The 700 Level, but I’m going to really miss going to games and getting annoyed with Tom McCarthy’s nonstop chatter on TV and just generally getting wrapped up in Phillies baseball.

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Hey Fightins Fans (and you, DMac), how’s it hangin’? After taking in Game 5 down at the ballpark on Wednesday, we had a few days to soak up the fall weather and wait for the Yankees to finish off the Angels. When it became apparent Saturday’s game in The Bronx was a washout, me and my buddy All Proper Mark, five year season ticket partners in the front row of Section 236, decided to make an alternate baseball day of it in the Delaware Valley.

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Son of a bitch. This “rough spell” is like an expanding tar pit and the Phillies are getting stuck in it one by one like sabertooth tigers. I laughed when I saw Chamo’s tag but jesus god that was two weeks ago and it’s still true: DEAR GOD THIS IS BRUTAL.

With the Phillies all of a sudden having one of the farm systems most stacked with future stars, there has been plenty of alternative to watching the Frightenin’ Phils an hour and a half’s drive away in Reading and Allentown. The R-Phils are 45-33, good for second in the Eastern League’s southern division. Their rotation is loaded with Joe Savery, Kyle Drabek and now Yohan Flande, and Michael Taylor is mashing it to the tune of .349/15/59, with 14 stolen bases for good measure.

Up in the Lehigh Valley, the IronPigs are 39-40, trying to push above .500 for the first time in the franchise’s short history. Jason Donald is looking to return from knee surgery and maybe light a fire under J-Roll’s ass. Lou Marson is biding his time as the everyday catcher until Ruben Amaro realizes that two backup catchers in their late 30s should not be on the roster of the defending champions. Drew Carpenter is playing off that one ugly pro start with a 7-1, 2.75. And this guy?

He’s settling in. Carlos Carrasco was the #1 Phillies prospect in 2007 and 2008 according to Baseball America, and this year he’s 2nd, behind only Dominic Brown (who is nursing a fractured pinky in Clearwater).

The 22 year old Venezuelan was, along with JA Happ and Chan Ho Park, one of the finalists for Phillies fifth starter coming out of spring training, and with Antonio Bastardo injured (and probably not going to stay in the rotation anyway), he was strongly considered for a promotion to start tonight’s game against the Mets. His IronPig teammate and former Oriole/Rockie/Padre Rodrigo Lopez got this promotion, though, so Carrasco pushes onward in AAA till he gets the call.

Last night he shut down the Syracuse Chiefs (Nats affiliate) for his fourth straight victory after a glaringly shaky start to his season. The only major mistake he made was hanging one over the plate to former Bucco Brad Eldred, who smoked one into the woods beyond Coca-Cola Park. Otherwise, Carrasco was solid, scattering five other hits and striking out four over six innings, despite getting drilled in the ankle with a line drive. His fastball had good movement and hovered around 93 all night. His run support was good with a five-run outburst in the fourth inning, Miguel Cairo missing a grand slam by about five feet.

As the post-game fireworks were exploding overhead, the feelgood evening came to a screeching halt when we turned on the radio for the drive home, just in time to hear Ryan Madson’s latest meltdown. Goddamn.

beelove (a/k/a R. Bradley Maule) is the proprietor of the fantastic Philadelphia photography/architecture site, PhillySkyline.com. He went to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs game. He reported. He took pictures.

Some photos from the evening — IronPigs 5, Chiefs 1 — after the jump.

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While Greg Dobbs was taking a third strike right down the pike against the most irritating, obnoxious, and even more irritatingly, best, closer in baseball, righty Jason Anderson celebrated his 30th birthday by nailing down a save of his own for the Reading Phillies. In doing so, he preserved the win for Kyle Drabek, his second in his two starts with the R-Phils.

In spite of Hurricane Schwartz’s warnings of red radar blobs over Reading, it was a beautiful night in Berks County for some AA baseball. Drabek wasn’t in tiptop form, but he wasn’t horrible, either. While he scattered seven hits and five walks over five innings, he worked out of several jams. His bullpen picked him up too, including one Mike Zagurski who was consistently in the mid-90s and, at least once, hit 96. A three-run first-inning cushion on a homerun by third baseman Neil Sellers didn’t hurt matters.

Michael Taylor DH’d in the 5-4 win over the Yankees’ AA Trenton Thunder, laying an 0-for-4, but he’s still sporting the Reading triple crown at .346/10/41. It seems like only a matter of time before he’s bumped up to Lehigh Valley where, presumably, the 6′6″ 250lb righthanded slugger would share the outfield with a 6′6″ 235lb righthanded slugger called Big John. And for what it’s worth, the 6′5″ 205lb lefthanded outfielder Dominic Brown has put up a .299/9/28 in 51 games at Single-A Clearwater.

Anyway, last night was a truly beautiful evening at First Energy Stadium, one for drinking the Stoudt’s APAs and Yuengling Lagers each brewed less than an hour away, one for catching a preview of a future Phil on the hill, and one for watching a pink and purple sunset over the third best Minor League Baseball stadium — best in AA — according to Baseball America.

beelove (a/k/a R. Bradley Maule) is the proprietor of the fantastic Philadelphia photography/architecture site, PhillySkyline.com.  He went to the Reading Phillies game.  He reported. He took pictures.

More pics from the game, after the jump.

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This just in from the Adam Eaton watch: did you know? He helped the Phillies get to the playoffs!

“What went wrong?” Eaton asked. “A lot of things went wrong, but a lot of things that went right, too. I helped them get to the playoffs two years in a row, and obviously we won the World Series last year. That’s a big thrill of mine, but obviously I still want to compete in that World Series atmosphere. That’s what I aim to do.”

What the fuck World Series atmosphere is that? The one where you played 0 postseason innings because you weren’t on the active roster, after sucking in the minor leagues so bad that you bought your teammates a steak dinner to show off your $8M salary? Or the one where you weren’t even INVITED to the parade down Broad Street? And we remember how well you helped us in 2007 too, fuckface, when you were the only player on the entire team we booed at the rally at City Hall. (Well, the only one we booed worse than Rod Barajas.)

Let’s see just how well Eaton helped get us into the playoffs during the 2008 run, using team pitching stats from Baseball-Reference…

The Phillies had the 4th best ERA in the National League at 3.89 with Eaton. Check out the before and after stats:

2008 WFC Phillies with Eaton:
IP: 1,449 2/3
ER: 627
ERA: 3.89, fourth best in NL, behind the Dodgers, Brewers and Cubs

2008 WFC Phillies without Eaton:
IP: 1,342 2/3
ER: 558
ERA: 3.74, second only behind the Dodgers’ 3.68

That may seem like more math than it’s worth, but this is Adam Eaton we’re talking about here, the guy we’re going to pay $8.5M to go suck for Baltimore, and the guy whose last effort as a Phillie was to sneak into that portrait of Ryan Howard … right before Big Brown elbowed him in the goatee and said get the fuck out of my photo shoot and off my team.

beelove (a/k/a R. Bradley Maule) is the proprietor of the fantastic Philadelphia photography/architecture site, PhillySkyline.com. He had something he had to get off his chest concerning Adam Eaton; I gladly gave him the space to do so.

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