Phillies Notes: Goddamnit

You know what I hate about GameCasts or Game Trax or live box scores or any of the other low-tech Internet applications that take living, breathing sporting events and turn them into Mattel Football?

They're too sterile. They're too mechanical. They are simply lists of events providing no context whatsoever.

So Chase Utley gets hit by a pitch. It's a rather frequent occurrence, as I noted earlier this season. I do not panic. He stays in the game. I think everything is fine and dandy.

I go to play some public park b-ball with a buddy of mine. After we're done, he drops this bombshell on me. Utley's got a broken hand. No doubt Chase will try to rush back, but I can't see him back anytime before September. John Lannan, you major-league-debuting piece of petrified horse dung, you have just moved past Scott Thorman and the Teal Bastards on my enemies list.

For those of you who took the SATs when they still had an analogies section, it wasn't hard to envision Chase Utley::2007 Phillies AS Ryan Howard::2006 Phillies as a question in a really, really easy version of the College Boards. (For anyone who doesn't remember those, well, you have to write a 15-minute essay on how the Phils can generate offense with a Helms-Abe Nunez-catcher-pitcher turd bomb sitting at the bottom of the order. Maybe throw Burrell in there for old time's sake.)

Ok, they'll still score some runs. And defense is covered by Dr. Abe's HMO. Still, with the Phillies' bullpen again remembering that it's the Phillies' bullpen and wasting a quality start from Adam Eaton, of all people, things could get grim for a team expected to contend for a division title. Now we're lucky to hang with the Arizona Diamondbacks of the world. I'm too disgusted to even think about it.

This past week, up to Ryan Howard's walk-off home run to beat Washington in the 14th inning, was like Philly's "inexplicably winning a lot of games and having fun" sports movie montage. I can only guess that Michael Bourn was impersonating Diana Ross in the dugout, or that Uncle Charlie had a life-sized cardboard cutout of David Montgomery in the clubhouse, ripping off a piece of its Velcro-ed suit for each victory. And now Ken Griffey, Jr. has caught our homer at the wall and the guy from LA Law just found out that Charlie Sheen boffed his wife.

I'll say it again.

Goddamnit.