6.1 IP, 2 ER, 4 K, 1 BB — but most importantly, 1 W vs. the hated Metros.

Thank you, kind sir.

With all the sucking the Phillies have been doing lately, it’s kinda hard to pinpoint one sucky player as the reason for their recent downfall. Jimmy Rollins is 0-for-his last 27 with four walks since the 19th of June, Ryan Howard has just one home run in his last 15 games, Pedro Feliz had himself a nice 1-for-23 streak going on up until this week — and that’s not even mentioning any of the shiteous outings from our pitching staff during that time.

Well, all but one. The guy 95% of Philadelphians were ready to anoint as the new closer as soon as Brad Lidge started fucking up, Ryan Madson.

For some reason, ever since our eighth inning specialist was handed the closer’s role after Lidge landed on the DL with a “bum knee”, Ryan Madson been getting knocked around the park like he has “#57 Taschner” on the back of his jersey.

Check out his line since he blew a save against Toronto on June 16th (and I swear to God if any of you fucks talk about a small sample size, I’m gonna track you down by your IP address and punch you in the neck):

6 games, 0-2 record, an NL leading 3 blown saves (in six appearances!), 7.94 ERA, and a little over three baserunners allowed PER INNING. Meanwhile, opponents are batting .346 against him with a .485 OBP, .731 SLG%, and an insane 1.216 OPS.

The question remains though — WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?

There are plenty of theories floating around, but if you ask me, Madson has to stop relying on his fastball so much — ESPECIALLY that cutter that hasn’t been cutting since the first month of the season — and get back to throwing the pitch that got him a spot on a major league roster to begin with, that beautiful changeup of his.  I mean, you have a pitch in your arsenal that was the most swung at and missed pitch (percentage-wise) out of any major league pitcher in 2008, and instead of putting hitters away with it, you choose to throw that flat fastball over the middle of the plate to say, a Brian Roberts (hypothetically, of course) with 2 outs and a runner on base while you’re up a run in the bottom of the ninth.

As a matter of fact, I’m sure that’s the reason.

Take a look at this little statistical nugget dug up by Jayson Stark courtesy of those pitch-tracking geeks over at Inside Edge:

Ryan Madson hasn’t gotten a single swing-and-miss on his fastball since Lidge was placed on the DL.

Read that again.  NOT ONE. That’s kinda pathetic.

So Ryan, pretty please, with a fucking cherry on top, start throwing more changeups and stop throwing so many cot damn fastballs.

Your pal,
meechie

A few weeks ago during his visually captivating Septa Independence Pass project, the distinguished R. Bradley Maule (or beelove as we know him here on The Fightins) of Philly Skyline made a stop at Laurel Hill cemetery to pay his respects to the greatest broadcaster we have ever heard,  Harry Kalas.  Brad’s words:

At Laurel Hill’s entrance, Harry Kalas’ family had graciously left a guestbook for his fans and visitors of the cemetery to pay their last respects; at his burial place, a temporary headstone had an etched version of Harry in the booth, and a six foot wooden P painted Phillies red marked his grave.

Here’s the picture of the grave (click to enlarge); after the jump, a shot of the guestbook.

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OOOOOOOooohhhh, baby!

You see that large mound of flesh up there about to toss a slider past some unsuspecting schlub?

Yeah, that’s Antonio Alfonseca.  “El Pulpo” for short.  And now, the ex-Phillies reliever and cuddliest man in the history of the majors is making a comeback with the Lancaster Barnstormers of the (independant) Atlantic League.

Here’s the press release to prove it:

Former Major League pitchers Antonio Alfonseca and [some other guy] have been signed by the Lancaster Barnstormers and will join the team for [last] weekend’s four-game road series in Southern Maryland, it was announced [on the 24th of June.]

And that press release wasn’t lying.  On Saturday night, Alfonseca started off his Atlantic League career by going two-thirds of an inning giving up a single and an UNEARNED run while striking out one in the Barnstormers 8-0 loss to some other independent team that definitely doesn’t have a six-fingered pitcher on their roster.

Then last night, in his first real test since joining the squad and his debut at Clipper Stadium (home of your ‘Stormers), Tony entered in the ninth inning of a tie game, and proceeded to set down six in a row — 4 by way of groundout, 1 flyout, and a K.

That kept the Barnstormers in the game long enough so they could win in the most improbable of ways — on a walkoff wild pitch courtesy of Tip Fairchild in the bottom of the twelfth as he was TRYING TO INTENTIONALLY WALK A GUY.   That’s the power of ‘Seca.

Good luck, Antonio.  We’ll be occasionally monitoring your progress and rooting you in.

After the jump, you can find some Bigfoot-like evidence of his first game with the ‘Stormers.

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Hey, remember back in the beginning of June when the Phillies took 2 out of 3 at Citi Field? I think we all do considering it was the last time the Phillies actually won a series up until they beat the Blue Jays on consecutive days this weekend .

Oh, and you also might recall how Chase Utley hit three dingers in Citi Field that series; all of which landed over the fence in that little crevice in right field next to the oddly-shaped “Mo’s Zone”:

Well it must have made quite the impression on the Mets broadcasting team because Friday night, Yankees center fielder Brett Gardner hit a homer in that exact spot and the play-by-play guy for SNY, Gary Cohen, made this call:

“Gardner lifts one down the right field line back towards Utley’s corner near the wall… it’s outta here!”

I have a feeling that one’s gonna stick for a while. Thanks, Mets announcers!

You can watch the clip for yourself HERE.

Now this may sound disgusting and like very gross, but it’s sure to have your trippin — so y’all listen close. It’s not bright as the sun or sweet like sugar, but it’s rather on the bug tip and it’s called PICKIN BOOGERS!

ahem

For real though, this young fella is DETERMINED to get dem boogers. Check him out:

FYI – I didn’t make this video so don’t blame me for the Geico music.

Early this morning, The St. Petersburg Times had a blurb in their sports section about an alleged altercation between a Rays fan and a Phillies player following the Phils 10-4 loss on Thursday night. Here’s what it said:

PHILLIE, FAN FIGHT: An incident took place between a fan and a Phillies player after Thursday’s game, the Rays confirmed. ”At this point it is a police matter and for that reason we won’t have any further comment,” the team said in a statement, but did not identify the player. St. Petersburg Police officials could not be reached late Friday night, but a dispatcher confirmed that a report for a battery call was taken at the stadium at about 11 p.m. Thursday. The Phillies could not be reached for comment.

So, like an asshole, I spent majority of the morning placing calls to the St. Pete Times and the St. Pete police department posing as an actual reporter trying to put a name to this unidentified Phillies player only to have Matt P from The 700 Level hit me on the GChat telling me it was J.C. Romero.  How did he know this?  Because commenter willH. left this little nugget on their site yesterday:

poppa will.H said a rays fan shoved something he wanted autographed into JC romeros face and they got into a lengthy pushing/shouting match infront of the phils dugout after the game last night

But because Matt P isn’t one of those bloggers that just randomly posts unsubstantiated reports as fact and couldn’t confirm with “poppa will.H” or any of the Phillies scribes, he decided to wait until he got some sort of proof.  Now, the entire world is reporting that it was, in fact, J.C. Romero who grabbed some shit-talking Rays fan by the throat and threatened to choke a bitch.

Via the newest St. Petersburg Times report:

Robert Eaton [Ed. Note: I hate Eatons], a 25-year-old father of two, said Phillies pitcher J.C. Romero grabbed him by the neck and pushed him after he made a comment about steroids.

[...]Eaton said he was attempting to get autographs from Phillies players when the incident happened.  After players brushed him off, Eaton said he called out to Romero, something to the effect of, “How about you get me some juice?”

Romero snapped, Eaton said, telling him to “shut the f—- up” and that he didn’t know what he was talking about.  Eaton said he replied that Romero was the one who’d been suspended recently.

“He reared back and kinda grazed my chin and grabbed me by the neck and threw me back,” Eaton said. “I was in shock.”

Eaton’s lawyer, James Magazine, said he was retained late Friday afternoon and hasn’t had time to investigate the case.

What in the name of Mario Lavandeira is going on in this world?  Since when are people surprised when they talk shit to somebody and get punched and/or choked out?

Fuck this guy.  +1 J.C. Romero.

BONUS! Here’s some fans in Mets land giving it to Romero a few weeks ago.  Instead of choking them (because he obviously couldn’t reach them), he mocks them and tells ‘em to “go smoke more weed.”  haha

Pat Burrell’s prized English Bulldog, Elvis, wasn’t around back in April when his father came to Citizens Bank Park to collect his jewelry for winning the 2008 World Series. So yesterday, prior to the final game of the series vs. Pat’s new team, Phillies director of team travel Frank Coppenbarger awarded Elvis with his very own 2008 World Series ring. Well, it’s not really a “ring”, because dogs don’t have fingers, silly! Rather, it’s the top half of the ring lopped off and glued onto a sterling silver plate that they got engraved at the Things Remembered kiosk in the mall, and it’s easily the coolest damn dog collar accessory in the history of dog collar accessories.

Behold:

After the jump, watch as Elvis is presented with his 2008 World Series medallion:

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If you’re an avid reader of The Fightins dot com, you may notice that I don’t often opine on the inner-workings of the Phillies front office.   It’s not because I don’t have opinions — believe me I do — I just feel that 95% of people out there don’t give a shit what a hacky blogger thinks about the current state of the team.  And if I just frivolously toss my reactionary commentary around every day, it kind of loses its luster.  That being said, I can no longer sit around and watch Antonio Bastardo throw a low 90’s fastball down the middle of the fucking plate anymore.  WE NEED A FUCKING TOP OF THE ROTATION STARTING PITCHER.

Nothing against young Tony the Bastard, I’m sure with some fine-tuning and a better arsenal of off-speed pitches he’ll be just a dandy major leaguer some day.  But the Phillies are the defending champs.  They sell out practically every home game.  They are literally printing money down at The Bank.  They lost their #2 starter for the season.  GO GET A FUCKING TOP OF THE ROTATION STARTING PITCHER.

“Well, meech, how are they gonna do that?  You don’t even know who’s available!” you may say.  My response?  That’s not my fucking job.  The league is filled with stupid GM’s who would love nothing more than to dump some pitcher’s salary and get a few half-decent prospects in return.  It happens every year.  Find one of those dummies, give them.. oh, I dunno.. Carlos Carrasco, Jason Donald, and some other shitty prospect, and get a deal done.

As we learned in 2004, if you trot out the Paul Abbott’s of the world every fifth day, no postseason for you.

It’s really not that difficult to figure out.

Now here’s some links, you disgraziato.

• Hey!  Once we finally get one of these new, shiny pitchers, they’re gonna have to eventually wear the Phillies uni, right?  Thanks to Chris at Long Drive and the magic of teckmology, we can now see how cute they’ll look.  I think Roy Halladay looks especially handsome in red pinstripes! [Long Drive]

• DMac of PhillyWillDo is trying his darnedest to fill the void left in our hearts when Kris Liakos decided to leave us at Walkoff Walk.   His current weekly project is reviewing each episode of the Phillies reality TV drama, The Pen.  Episode 1 review can be found HERE, ep 2 is located in between these brackets: [Walkoff Walk]

• Speaking of The Pen — helllllooooo, Miriam Taschner:

• Since I’m so healthy and shit, I was reading this month’s issue of Men’s Health while doing some lunges the other day and came across a (not-so)interesting article on Cole Hamels.  BUT the internet version of this article, features a little how-to guide on throwing pitches just like Hollywood.  It’s kinda interesting, I guess.  [Men's Health via The Zo Zone]

• Did you ever play in the World Baseball Classic?  Did you ever play in the World Baseball Classic… on weed?  I ♥ Geovany Soto. [Big League Stew]

• NEW ROOTS MUSIC, SON! [Okayplayer]

• Tweet, Tweet.  [@meechone, @DashTreyhorn, @mistertug]

If you’re gonna go through the trouble of drawing up a sign for your favorite player on poster board, and then take that sign to the game in hopes of getting on TV, wouldn’t you at least make sure you spelled that player’s name correctly? Or double-check to make sure the uniform number you’re putting on there is right?

Well meet this woman, who didn’t bother with either of those things:

Hey lady, there are two L’s in Burrell. And he hasn’t worn ‘33′ on his jersey since his rookie year with the Phillies back in 2000. I have no idea what the rest of that horrible sign says, but I guarantee you there are at least three more grammatical errors.

Do yourself a favor and STAY AWAY FROM THE POSTER BOARD, LADY.

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