Reflection

What a fun day to be a Yankees fan, and a terrible one to be among the Phillies faithful. It was terrible for the Phils because you just knew right from the getgo that the team had no chance to win Game 6 of the World Series on Wednesday night. As soon as the first inning, when Pedro was throwing fastballs that were registering a bare 84 miles per hour on the gun, you had to know. Most major league hitters are going to pound on any clown throwing 84-mph cheese up there, but when you're facing a lineup like the Yankees', the whole notion is an absolute joke. They were all over P-Mart from his first pitch to his merciful last in just the 4th inning, and thanks to Charlie Manuel's continued insistence on leaving his pitchers in for too long and for too many bad pitches, the Phils were out of it by the time they finally got Pedro out of the game in the 4th. But as soon as Pedro came out in the first with guns ablazing with 84 mph fastballs, this game was as good as done.

There are so many reasons the Phillies lost this series. Ultimately, they simply could not compete with the Yankees, who overmatched them about as badly as the Phillies themselves outmatched everyone else in the National League in this postseason. As much as I hate to admit it, this was not a close series in my book. It was about as bad of a blowout as the Yankees did to the Angels a couple of weeks back. Sure, like with the Angels, the Yanks lost Game 5 on the road to extend the series to six and come back home to New York, but as with the ALCS, once things got back to Yankee Stadium, the best team in America quickly retook control of the series, on the back of Andy Pettitte, who got the incredible sixth series-clinching victory of his illustrious career, mostly with the Yankees.

Just like I said here how the Phillies had an advantage both in starting pitching and on offense against every team in the National League and both of its postseason opponents in the NLDS and NLCS, the same proved to be true for the Yankees over the Phillies in this series. On the offensive side of the ball, I think the two lineups are fairly comparable, with the Yankees probably retaining a slight edge as far as their five or six "big boppers" at the top of the lineup. The biggest difference in the lineups to me is that the Yankees, as an American League team with a designated hitter, have that one extra big hitter -- I'm talking a 30 HR, 100 RBI type -- who in this case happens to be Hideki Matsui. I'm not just mentioning him because he utterly destroyed the Phillies in the World Series in nabbing his first ever World Series MVP award. I'm saying if you compare the lineups, both teams have a couple of poor hitters at the bottom of their rotation who are mostly in there for their defensive prowess on a team that simply does not need any more offensive firepower, but otherwise the biggest real difference is that the Yankees go one more man deep among the big hitters they can put at the top of their lineup. Sure the Phillies get the benefit of the same DH rule when they play World Series games in their American League opponent's park, but how can you even compare when the Yankees throw Godzilla's bat into that already stacked lineup, while the Phils are adding in Ben Francisco's, or Matt Stairs'? You can't, because there is just no comparison, and ironically that DH position ends up being one of the big items to tip the scale in the Yankees' favor in this series. The fact that the Yanks so thoroughly handled the Phillies throughout this series, even with A-Rod, Teixeira, Cano and Posada basically hitting like shit is really a testament to just how strong their lineup as a whole is when compared to the competition.

Then, moving on to the pitching, once again the Yanks just had a clear advantage in this World Series. Even though CC Sabathia failed to record a win in his two starts against the Phils, he pitched well enough both times, the second time for his team to secure the late victory off of Phillies idiot Brad Lidge in the 9th inning of Game 4 in Philadelphia. Even though AJ Burnett was hideous on three days rest the in Game 5 loss to the Phillies, he pitched extremely well in Game 2, outlasting a valiant attempt from Pedro Martinez to get his Yankees back into the series after the Phils' surprising Game 1 win. And even though Andy Pettitte pitched on three days rest for the first time in over three years in Game 6, the man was able to put together enough good innings to leave his team in a position to win when they needed to to put this series away. And meanwhile, on the Phillies' side of the ball, the story was pretty much totally reversed. Heading into the postseason I had viewed the Phils' likely rotation of Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Pedro Martinez and J. Happ as among the best baseball has to offer this season on one team. However, in practice, once the Yankees posed some actual competition to the skill level on the Phillies' team, Hamels sucked balls every time he went out there, Happ didn't even start a game in the entire postseason for some reason I will never ever ever understand, and when he did pitch in the Series it was constantly Charlie Manuel inserting him into games with guys on 2nd and 3rd, nobody out in the middle of a key inning, a situation which Happ was totally and completely unfamiliar with prior to this postseason. And Pedro, well, it looks like the oil well finally ran dry for the old man here during the World Series. After looking great in a dominating start in LA against the Dodgers in the NLCS, Pedro could not find that form in Game 2 of the World Series facing the Yankees' huge bats, and by the time Game 6 rolled around, even on five days rest, Pedro was worthless. As anyone who watched this series knows, in the end the Phillies simply had nobody on their entire team -- other than Cliff Lee of course -- who could stop the Yankees. Ever. In any inning. Period. Whether it was Hamels, Pedro, Blanton, Happ, Chan Ho Park, Scott Eyre, Ryan Madsen, Brad Lidge or anyone else, in the end the Phils simply could not keep those huge Yankee hitters off the basepaths, and when you combine that with the Yankee pitchers success against most of the Phils' lineup not named Chase Utley or Jayson Werth in this series, it's not hard to see why the Phils weren't even close in this matchup.

This morning on Mike and Mike, Buster Olney was on the air and he was talking all about what an amazing postseason this was for major league baseball. "Amazing"? Really? Try again, Robert. This was about as bad and as boring of a postseason as there has been in baseball in a long time, and ultimately the World Series did little to change that conclusion. Think about it -- the four LDS matchups saw three 3-game sweeps, and one 4-game win for the Phillies over the Rockies. I don't even remember the last time I saw that happen, but from there it just got worse. In the NLCS, the Phillies lambasted the Dodgers in five games, never trailing in the series and never even giving the impression that it was going to become close at any point. The Yankees had a very similar experience in the ALCS against the Angels, although as I mentioned they allowed their series to go six games, but again, it was not a series that ever saw the Yanks trailing or that anyone who understands the game actually ever thought the Angels were close to winning. The path of these two teams to the World Series here in 2009 was about as bad and as boring as possible. And then, sadly, even the World Series ended up not coming close to living up to the hype that a bunch of morons like me spread about it heading into the Fall Classic. This was supposed to be that amazing, historic series -- on paper -- and it was destined to go seven games, right? Wrong. Sure, again the Phils made it to six games in this Series and to that extent it might be tempting to consider this a close matchup, but it really wasn't that close if you actually watched the games, and from the moment that Game 1 ended, the Yankees took complete control of the series and just never looked back, like any championship team should.

As the Yankees bombed their way past the Phillies to win the 2009 World Series on Wednesday night, I did the obvious and took some time to reflect on what this Phillies team has accomplished over the past year or so. It really is amazing if you think about it. The Phillies are a team that in their 130-year history as a franchise, had only been to the World Series five times before last year, and only won it once, in 1980 when I was a mere babe. Staying up and watching that 1980 championship -- watching the late Tug McGraw strike out Willie Wilson to eliminate the Royals in Game 6 -- became my first real clear sports memory, the first time I can specifically remember a sporting event having a big effect on me and those around me. In Philadelphia, just making it to the finals in any sport has always been enough during my lifetime to make you a statue in front of the art museum and to be remembered forever in the lore and stories of old men on their porches in Northeast Philly, the local mailmen on Cottman Avenue, and the lifelong blue-collar workers down in Manyunk.

But this Phillies team really changed all that, didn't it? Those in Philadelphia know exactly what I'm talking about. These Phillies went all the way through the postseason last year and never even came close to losing any series. They won it all and did so in fairly dominatory fashion, putting an end to a 25-year drought of misery and failure that no other city with teams in all four major professional sports in this country has ever had to endure before. By the time the 2008 Phillies arrived at the World Series, they were there to win and they just clamped their collective foot down on the Rays' necks and never let up until the series was over.

And then they went back. It's never been done before in Philly -- two straight World Series appearances -- and in the eyes of the fans it really legitimizes what happened last year as not being some kind of a "fluke" or an accident. And that's not to say that the team wouldn't always have been remembered for being good, but I mean even that 1993 World Series Phillies team never made it back to another postseason, let alone another Fall Classic. Philadelphia has never before been a city of dynasties, but the 2008-2009 Phillies actually got people talking in the city about the "D" word for the first time in decades. In the end, I have never made any bones here at the blog about the fact that the Yankees were the best team in baseball this year. It became clear to me somewhere in the middle of the summertime, and nothing that happened anywhere in the season or during the postseason gave me any reason to doubt that the Yanks's superior talent would eventually prevail and they would win the 2009 World Series.

In a way, knowing how great this Yankees team was really helps ease the acceptance process for the Phillies fans out there. Despite all the bravado and braggadocio and pride from the Phillies Phaithful this postseason, despite all the bad calls, all the questionable coaching decisions, in the end in this World Series, the best team won. I can admit that -- I have no doubt about it at all, for that matter -- and so should everyone else out there. For now, it's time to put the memories of another incredible Phillies season on the back burner, and time to really focus on NFL football.

Thank you, Phillies, for another fabulous season. Here's to more to come in 2010!

Phillies - Yankees Live

It all started with an innocent, if not fairly common, telephone call from my older brother around 10am on Sunday this weekend. I was on my way back from the weekly run to the grocery, and when I picked up my cell, the one sentence I heard would change the path of my day and my weekend:

"The team needs us, man. Joe Blanton needs us."

I couldn't even begin to argue with my brother's sentiment. After Philies manager Charlie Manuel exhibited his mental retardation when it comes to pitchers better than I ever could have dreamt up on my own, opting to pitch Joe Blanton in World Series Game 4 -- a crucial game for the Phils, down 2-1 in the series -- against Yankees' ace CC Sabathia instead of going with Phils' ace Cliff Lee, I knew my brother was right. The Phils simply had to win Game 4, and to do that under the circumstances Charlie Manuel had put the team in was going to take every ounce of support from the real Phillies fans in Citizens Bank Park on the night.

The logic was inescapable. I had to be at that game.

The internet is really a modern day miracle. Within half an hour or so, my brother had not only found us a pair of incredible seats to Sunday night's World Series Game 4 at The Bank via StubHub but sitting in my email box was a printable pdf which included my actual ticket. Unbelievable. I went from spending the afternoon with some friends who were bringing their new baby over to hang with our kids, to heading down Route 95 to Philadelphia to make the trek from Yankees land to Chilladelphia and see my team through to a 2-2 World Series tie.

After the tickets had been procured, the next question was when to get there. In a rare two-game city sports matchup, the Eagles were already playing the Giants at Lincoln Financial Field, just caddy-corner from the Bank, in a 1pm game which would probably end close to 4:30pm. The traffic from that badboy was sure to last until at least 5:30 or 6 in and around the stadium, and I did not necessarily feel like getting involved in that whole morass if I could avoid it. But then with the World Series scheduled to start shortly after 8pm in basically that same space, it stood to reason that the traffic for that game would likely start picking up somewhere around 6pm as well. So, I reasoned, my best bet was probably to make it into parking lot of The Bank sometime around 6pm and try to sneak in during that small window where the football traffic should be winding down while the baseball traffic should just be starting to pick up.

Amazingly, the 124.3 mile trip from my place to my parking lot at The Bank took me under 2 1/2 hours despite having to drive clear through two major cities, and I managed to time things just about perfectly. What's more, my brother arrived just minutes after I did, and we quickly headed upstairs to one of the sit-down restaurants at The Bank for a couple hours of preparations for the big game. This would actually be the third World Series game I would be attending with my brother, having been at both the 15-14 Mitch Williams debacle and the 2-0 Curt Schilling dominatory shutout in the 1993 Phillies-Blue Jays series, so we pretty much have the routine down pat and we executed it to perfection on Sunday night, such that by game time we were nice and toasty in our seats and ready to see the Phils take back control of this series.

Oh, did I mention our seats were incredible?



This is the view of the Fox Sports set on the field just prior to the first pitch. It's also the view from sitting in my seat for the game. We were in the second row of the stadium, not three feet from the dirt in foul ground about ten feet behind first base, where you often see people leaning way over the gate to try to pick up a foul ground ball. We were right on the aisle, second row, right there. It was so sick. Like I said, if you have the money to spend, you can get some pretty effing amazing things from the internet pretty much on demand. While I've been to several World Series games before in my life, I can definitely say that I've never gone in style quite like this. But that's one of the great things about my older brother, which I know I've written about here before in the context of my Vegas trips with him over the past few years -- the man certainly knows how to live right.

The Bank was electric as Joe Blanton threw the first pitch to Carlos Ruiz to start the top of the 1st inning, but right from the first couple of foul balls and even one lineout, it was obvious that the Yanks were keyed on him early. Within minutes, Blanton had quickly given up two runs and somehow had managed to quiet the stadium's 45,145 fans even before the Phillies had come to bat. But a run in the bottom of the first brought the home town crowd back into it, and the Phils spent the next several innings doing what they've been forced to do all through this World Series -- playing catchup. Blanton calmed down a bit and put the Yanks down without further runs over the next few innings, and in the meantime in the 4th, as Sabathia's pitch count ran into the 60s, the Phils eked out another run to finally get back to even. It seemed that Blanton's early mistake had been forgiven and now the team was being given new life to win this game that they knew they had to win. But no sooner had that occurred than Blanton came out and gave up two more runs to the Yanks in the top of the 5th to bring the score to 4-2 and leave the Phils in yet another 2-run hole, and the home crowd once again gasping for its collective breath just minutes after feeling like the team had finally gotten the second chance at this game that it dsperately needed.

The fans in the stadium were amazing. After Blanton was pinch-hit for in the bottom of the 5th, the stadium erupted in support of Chan Ho Park and Ryan Madson as they came in to try to hold the Yanks down while the Phils could chip away at another 2-run lead, and chip away they did. While Park and Madson weaved their way through a couple of mistakes and continued to hold the Yankees at 4 total runs, first Chase Utley smashed a home run deep into the right field seats in the 7th to bring the Phillies to within 4-3, which really got the crowd rocking and rolling. Then, out of nowhere with the bottom of the Phillies' order up in the 8th, Phillies' third baseman Pedro Feliz drove a liner deep to left-center, clearing the wall and sending the hometown fans into a serious frenzy as he tied the game up once again at 4 with just one inning left to go. Carlos Ruiz soon grounded out to end the Phillies' 8th, but one thing was clear to every single person in the stadium -- the fans, the players on both teams on the field, even retard Charlie Manuel as the 8th inning ended -- hold the Yankees scoreless in the top of the 9th, and the Phils were going to win this game with the top of the order coming up in the bottom of the 9th. You just knew, with the way the game had gone, the Phils' unlikely tying of the game in the 8th, and with how desperately the team needed the game. Three more outs from Madson, and the Phils were going to nab a run off whoever Joe Girardi ran out there to pitch to the home team in the bottom of the 9th and tie this series up at 2.

But unfortunately this is not a fairy tale, and when management repeatedly fails to address the team's blatant, glaring weaknesses in the bullpen, stuff tends to happen. Charlie Manuel unabashedly brought Brad Lidge out to hold the Yanks scoreless in the 9th inning, and the whole stadium collectively groaned. Even when Lidge got the first two batters out in short order, and got up 1-2 on third batter Johnny Damon, nobody exhaled. Because on some level we all knew. We all knew this was Brad Lidge, the literal worst player in the entire major leagues this year as I've been screaming here for months. We knew this was a huge, huge spot for the team and for the franchise, and we know how hideous Lidge has performed in this situation over the months and months that have comprised the 2009 season. Despite the refonkulous claims of manager Charlie Manuel that Lidge was "back", that the postseason was a "clean slate" and that Lidge was ready, willing and able to lead this team back to another world championship, I'm not the only one who knows who truly untrustably bad Lidge is and always will be. We all knew, all 45,000+ fans on their feet all through that 9th inning, so when Lidge ended up giving up a hit to Damon after running the count to 3-2, then plunking Mark Teixeira to let two guys on base, and then serving up a delicious swedish meatball to Alex Rodriguez to lose the tie before throwing another soft-tosser in there to Jorge Posada for another two runs and to complete the blowout, nobody was surprised. Stunned, yes. Definitely. But not in a surprised kind of way. More in an I-told-you-so kind of way.

Despite sometimes feeling like I'm completely alone here in this space screaming for months about how horrible Brad Lidge is and how the Phillies had absolutely, positively zero chance of repeating as World Champions when Brad Lidge was our closer, on Sunday night I had the oppotunity to learn how 45,145 of my fellow Phillies fans felt about Lidge, and what I learned is that everyone -- every body in the city -- feels just like I do. Nobody wanted Lidge out there to pitch to this lineup, in this stadium. Nobody thought the inning was over at 2 outs, nobody on, and 1-2 to Johnny Damon. And nobody thought there was any chance whatsoever that Lidge would be able to stop the bleeding at just one run by getting Posada out, down 5-4. Everybody knew. And somehow, for some reason, I actually take a little comfort in knowing that. We were all in the same boat at The Bank yesterday, and walking out with the hordes as that game came to a close on Sunday night, I recognized all too well the dazed looks I saw everywhere I turned my head. I was sporting the same look myself, as I eased into the front seat of my car and started the long trek that would eventually get me back into my own bed shortly after 2am.

Let me be clear about one thing: I still expect this series to get back to New York, which is all I ever felt sure about coming in to the series as far as length. Although I can personally attest that the loss on Sunday night was emotionally draining for the team and for the city, these players have been through this before. Several times. Like, 15 times just this season with Lidge, plus another 6 or 7 with Madson and others. Blowing a game in the 9th in a spot like this is always one of the hardest things to get over, and I can't say I would be completely shocked if the team couldn't muster up enough chutzpah to grab one win in Philly tonight after what has happened in Philadelphia over the past few days. But this Phillies team has been resilient all through the season, and they've come back with tough, hard-fought wins time and again in the face of adversity, even the day after Lidge blows a big game like happened on May 25 to end that Phillies - Yankees intraleague series back in the spring. I like the matchup of Cliff Lee vs AJ Burnett, and I think there is a good chance that the defending World Champions will not let the Yanks off that easy tonight at The Bank. After Game 5 the Phils will have a major uphill battle to wage, but at this point, you know the routine.

One Game at a Time.

Turning Point for the Champs?

At a time when tennis is enjoying its greatest fortnight of the year here in New York, with the NFL right around the corner and set to kick things off this coming Thursday night on the 2009-2010 season, I'm sitting here today and all I can think about is that Tuesday night might just have been the turning point of the entire 2009 season for Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies. I've written about this several times over the season, and with increasing frustration and increasing frequency over the past few weeks, but Brad Lidge is absolutely killing the Phillies' chances to repeat as champs this year. Brad Lidge, Mr. Perfect from 2007, simply cannot get anybody out anymore this year. He's clearly lost his confidence, and the team has clearly lost their confidence in him, and yet manager Charlie Manuel has steadfastly insisted all through the mess that is Brad Lidge's 2009 season that Lidge is our guy, he's who we're going to give the ball to to close out games, and that's that.

Until Tuesday night, that is.

It started off like many other games for the Phils, the first game of a 3-game series against the last-place Washington Nationals. P-Mart was pitching, and once again pitching well in the earlygoing, giving the team six strong with only 2 runs allowed before allowing a quick home run in the 7th and yielding to starter-turned-reliever Brett Myers fresh off the disabled list. The Phils' bats started off slow, as has been very much the case for this team over the past couple of weeks since Lidge blew his last two saves and the offense was forced to watch their hard work slip away without their control in the bottom of the ninth for the league-leading ninth and tenth times this season, but eventually the best lineup in the National League came through. Jayson Werth smacked a home run, Chase Utley did as well, and Carlos Ruiz even chipped in with a big solo shot as well. Raul Ibanez even joined the party, hitting two dingers of his own, totalling five solo home runs for the Phils and a 5-3 lead heading into the 9th inning in Washington. Being who Charlie Manuel has been this whole season, of course this meant Brad Lidge time.

Lidge quickly reminded everybody why in my view the entire Phillies team has stopped hitting so well for the past couple of weeks, as he threw two sliders by the first batter he faced before giving up a liner single to left on a 1-2 count to lead off the Nationals' last licks. The camera flipped to Charlie Manuel in the dugout, motionless and, somehow, emotionless as well. Then the next batter, a pinch hitter for the pitcher, Lidge quickly smacked right in the middle of the back, making it first and second with nobody out in a 5-3 game. Vintage Lidge 2009, that's for sure. Amazingly, Charlie Manuel was starting to stir in the dugout, pacing the steps a little bit and muttering to himself, something we just haven't seen much of this year in Philadelphia when it comes to the team's closer. Then, after Lidge accidentally got somebody out, he immediately uncorked a very wild pitch that sent the tying runners to 2nd and 3rd, still with just one out and thus undoing the double play chance to end the game. Through all of this Manuel had shown some of his first clearly visible signs of agitation about Lidge that I've seen all season long, and after the wild pitch Manuel was really going in the dugout. But still he sat there, determined to see if his guy could get the current batter out who still sat at 2-2. After ball 3, Manuel was staring intently to see what would happen, and then Lidge fired in the sixth pitch of the at-bat, and it wasn't even close. Way down and in, nearly hitting the batter on his inside foot, and just like that Lidge had hit, plunked and walked the bases loaded. In the bottom of the 9th. In a close game. Again.

And then the most amazing thing I think I've seen this year for the Phillies happened. Charlie Manuel shot up out of the dugout faster than I've seen him move in his years as the Phillie manager, stomped his way towards Lidge on the mound and motioned for fireballing reliever Ryan Madson to get in the game, all the while glaring at Lidge a glare that I am quite sure Lidge has never seen Charlie Manuel give to him before. And just like that, Lidge was gone, pulled from a save opportunity in favor of a blatantly superior option just before officially blowing it for what I'm sure is the first time in 2009. Who knew, but I guess Charlie Manuel finally reached his breaking point last night. Of course, it helps that Madson walked right in and quickly dispatched the final two batters of the night with the bases loaded to save the game and the 5-3 win for the Phils, who remained 6 games up on the Marlins in the east as the team attempts to show the clowns at Citi Field how to hold on to a 7-game lead in September in the NL East.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: for the Phillies to have any realistic shot of even returning to the World Series this year, Brad Lidge simply cannot be in the games. Lidge is literally among the two or three worst players in all of baseball this year, and that's not really even debatable at this point. And it's far worse than a guy who's gone 0-10 as a starter. That guy, although he sucks balls at pitching most likely, has taken 10 opportunities to win, and turned them into 10 losses. But what Brad Lidge has done is far worse than that -- he has taken ten games that have more or less already been won by his team, and turning those into 10 losses over the span of five or 10 minutes, right at the end after his team has already reached 95% of the way to recording a win. If Lidge were perfect so far this year like he was in the magical 2008 championship season, the Phillies would have 88 wins and be ahead of the Yankees right now for the best record in the majors. But with Lidge, we are fighting to stay in the top few records in just the National League, and I solemnly guarantee you that for every playoff series where Brad Lidge is our go-to closer, he will blow at least one game in each series. And I also solemnly guarantee you with just as much confidence as my last statement that the Phillies, although clearly a great team, aren't even close to good enough to win many 5- or 7-game series when we're spotting our opponents one win in a game where we are leading through nine innings. No way.

As it is, the Yankees are night in and night out showing the world why they are once again the undisputed best team in baseball, and there is little doubt that they are the prohibitive favorite to take back the World Series this year. But the Phillies have the experience to give them a good run for their money, and with the additions of Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez, the Phils' starting staff of some combination of Cliff Lee, J. Happ, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton and P-Mart, with Jamie Moyer, Brett Myers and Ryan Madson in the bullpen, is a formidable one for any opponent to overcome in any short series. The Yanks may be the clear favorite, but a team like the Phillies definitely have a chance to give them a run. Just not with Brad Lidge on the team.

The One Decision Between the Phillies and Another World Series

Another week, another blown save by Brad Lidge.

Granted, Lidge's latest abomination was now four or five days ago at this point, but I've been stewing over it ever since. This one was particularly bad, in that we came back and took the lead 4-3 in the top of the ninth against the league-worst Pittsburgh Pirates, only to see Lidge blow it in the bottom of the 9th in spectacular fashion. This article pretty much sums it up better than I could, but suffice it to say, the rest of Philadelphia is finally starting to accept what I've been saying for months and months now:

Brad Lidge has got to go.

I know, I know, Brad Lidge was our savior in 2008. Over the entirety of the 2008 World Championship Philadelphia Phillies season, Lidge probably had as much to do with the city nabbing its first professional sports title in 25 years as anybody, period. His perfect 47 saves in 47 appearances will live on in stories told by grandfathers to grandsons for generations in Philly, believe me when I say that, and nobody was a bigger Lidge guy last year than me. You'll never hear me take anything away from what Lidge did in bouncing back from blowing huge playoff games on longballs for the Houston Astros to come in and basically be perfect for an entire season in 2008, and if I hear someone else minimize his contributions to the 2008 championship I won't even let it go for a second without educating the speaker on this game we call professional baseball.

But the thing is, this isn't 2008, and the 2009 flavor of Brad Lidge isn't anywhere near as good as the 2008 version. In fact, Brad Lidge absolutely sucks balls this year.

There, I said it.

As the above article references, Lidge's record is now up to 0-6 with an ERA of 7.33, easily the highest of any reliever in the majors. His nine blown saves so far in 2009 also leads both leagues by two saves over his closest competition for this ignominious stat. And it's not like blowing big games is exactly a new thing for Lidge. Astros fans would still like to have Lidge drawn and quartered after he single-handedly ruined their playoff run in 2005 by giving up a monstrous home run to Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning and with the Astros just the one win away from advancing in the league championship series. No, sadly, Lidge has pretty much been a step-down-in-the-clutch kind of guy for years, somehow only digging deep again and again during the magical Phillies run of 2008, but in 2009 Lidge has reverted back to his old suck-job form, and Phillies fans are being forced to repeatedly bear the brunt of the decision to keep Lidge pitching.

The saddest part of the entire article to the Phillies fans is not the details of Lidge's latest failure, but rather Phils' manager Charlie Manuel's quote at the end of the piece:

"He's got to stay with it," Manuel said. "He's got to keep going. ... That's all we can do. ... That's where we're at. That's our closer. I've said that all along. That's the guy we give the ball to in the ninth inning."

I mean, Manuel makes it sound like he actually doesn't have an actual choice to actually sit Lidge's ass on the bench, on the DL, wherever. When in reality, if Manuel were not simply being too loyal to his hero from 2008, nothing could be further from the truth. As I've written about recently, Pedro Martinez was recently brought in by the Phillies, and here is a perfect example of a guy who has never won a championship but who could play a pivotal role for us by coming out of the bullpen to close our games. P-Mart is perfect for the role in many ways because he has the power, he has the finesse, and the one thing he doesn't have at this point in his career anymore is length. But for a 1- or even 2-inning guy, nobody who knows baseball can tell me that Pedro is a worse option than Brad Lidge right now. It's not even close. And let's not forget the man who Pedro replaced in the Phillies' starting rotation, old man Jamie Moyer, who still leads the team in wins with 12, now coming off the bench in a bullpen role already as it is. And there is also the imminent return of Brett Myers from injury, who not only has the stuff relievers are made of, but who has also pitched out of the 'pen in late relief already recently in his career in Philadelphia. So even if Manuel doesn't necessarily want to go with hard-throwing righthander Ryan Madson (who frankly hasn't been much better in this role than Lidge this year) to close games, in reality he's got plenty of options just sitting on the bench for him to go to instead of Lidge in any situation, any time he wants. Truthfully, Manuel probably has more realistic options at closer than anybody in the entire major leagues at this point in time. And yet somehow, he has no choice but to keep going again and again to the clearly dried-up well that is Brad Lidge? "He's our guy in the ninth inning, that's just the team we are?" WTF!