The Philadelphia Phillies are the losingest franchise in major league history. (The Braves are the second-losingest, actually, but we’ve been in existence far longer.) For their career, the franchise is 1057 games below .500, and their seven total league pennants is by far the lowest among all of the original National League franchises. Their franchise winning percentage is .473, one point lower than the Miami Marlins, who are at .474.
In the 130-season history of the franchise, the team has lost at least 100 games 14 times, and has only finished first 13 times.
The Phillies were 1054 games below .500, until Justin Upton came along.
Sorry, Smitty — I just updated the numbers! I wrote this yesterday. So they were actually 1055 games below .500 until Justin Upton came along.
Sorry about the comments I unintentionally JC’d on the last thread.
FWIW, Mets lose today.
#3
Drink up, Sam. L’chaim!
And not to be too grim, but RIP to Roger Ebert. I was always very much impressed with (& somewhat inspired by) his writing. The enthusiasm for his subject really came thru.
http://tinyurl.com/bqlk4mf
Danke! To restate, I’m going to be at 5 Seasons West (1000 Marietta St, Atlanta) celebrating the fact that I’m not dead, tomorrow night. Starting around 630 PM.
For those of you at or near the ballpark, what’s the weather like? will there be ball tonight or should I stay and put in some OT at the office?
It’s been raining and crappy for 24 hours. Not sure what the state of the field is, but the only field in the Atlanta area that could even think about playing tonight is Turner. They have great drainage and a hell of a grounds crew, but I’d call it 50/50 depending on what the weather in eastern Alabama looks like right now.
http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Conus/southeast_loop.php
Looks pretty clear right now.
Re: McCann
This is what I was referencing. This article termed the game 163 benching as “the final straw”.
@9, Yeah. Nothing like a passive-aggressive “Let me be quoted in the AJC telling you how angry I’m not” to tell us it’s still on his mind.
It was Ken Rosenthal, not the AJC. But I’m just not sure how big a deal this is. The “final straw” comment is attributed to two former teammates — and, even if we have to assume that one of those former teammates is Jeff Francoeur, because they’re buddies, it’s hard for me to put a whole lot of faith into that. It sounds like hyperbole from two guys who are sympathetic to their buddy. Injuries are always frustrating to players and teams. But I doubt that McCann and the Braves have a serious problem based on starting David Ross in the wild card game.
Boo, living legend Gattis not in the lineup tonight.
I think Medlen’s streak might come to an end tonight, howard, utley and rollins can be dangerous if Medlen still has some control issues that carried over from spring training.
I’m beginning to think that the Washington Nationals might be good this year.
I’m not sure how much of a gauge the fish is, but I too think it’s possible the Nats could be a good team.
So sorry for the late post about the recap, but I was really hoping there would be some discussion of the pitching, and the eephus in particular.
The eephus came during the inning and a half in which I was listening on radio, rather than watching. So…discuss away!
Maholm started throwing that pitch this past offseason. He broke it out several times during spring training also. 55-60mph just doesn’t seem right for this level.
It looked a little telegraphed to me. I hope if he uses it going forward, it’ll have a little more east-west on it.
Well, BJ is just failing left and right! DOOOOOMED
What the fuck was that?
What’s with this strike zone?
I vote Laird off the team.
Done with Laird.
McCann who?
Was that bullshit that Upton pulled scored an error?
Gerald Laird, defensive wiz.
Just turned the game on… what did Laird do?
With Rollins on second base, Laird was returning the ball to Medlen by tossing from his knees, big hump-back lobs. On the 3rd lob, Rollins stole 3rd base.
So…. should we be worried about Medlen?
Yikes. Med’s control appears to be a bit off.
control isn’t all there, but the crappy ump isn’t helping
It is 40 degrees. Maybe not the best night to start worrying about Medlen.
I just want to point out that while I predicted 162-0, I did not predict that we would never be behind. So we’re still good.
I blame Laird for everything.
Goddamn, Laird, you suck.
I dunno. He’s missing by a good bit. Not the umps fault. And I’m usually all over bad umpiring.
Yeah, Medlen is definitely not hitting much of what he’s aiming for.
Well, I’ll take that outcome, all things considered.
I think what I like about funky stuff like the eephus is that it so clearly shows that pitching and hitting are as much art and strategy as skill and performance. Snapping off a 50 mph rainbow that buckles the knees of good ML hitters is just flat awesome.
Medlns not getting the high strike call, happened at least twice (rollins first ab, 3-2 pitch to Lee).
Well I won’t whine anymore as long as Lee gets the same zone, I guess. (though he already got a gift on simmons ab).
I don’t like the way this one is going.
Pretty good AB by Chris Johnson there.
Having had just one base runner, they’re doing well to make Lee work. He’s thrown 41 pitches. Medlen’s had the bases loaded in both of his innings; 49 pitches.
Yes, the outcomes haven’t been great but they are making him work. Let’s see if Kris can settle down.
Fredi needs to PH for medlen in the bottom of this inning. He’s for nothing tonight.
Jesus, Andrelton.
Crap throw, but how was there any doubt at all that Freeman tagged the runner?
I dunno. Kris isn’t commanding well, but he’s not getting knocked around. If our players would quit stumbling and running past the ball, he’d look a lot better.
I don’t think any player on our bench hitting with one out and the bases empty in the 3rd inning is going to enhance our win probability enough to pay for the two extra innings the bullpen will need to cover.
I’m all for pinch hitting for Laird though…
I might even vote for euthanizing Laird.
If you haven’t read it, ESPNTM has a fun survey of players about various topics. The one I liked best, the Braves were selected by 8.4% of the players surveyed as the team they would root for once their own team was eliminated. The Braves were #2 just behind the Tigers at 9.6%.
Kris Medlen. Not Greg Maddux.
That won’t be necessary; Laird can be a fine backup catcher. In Gwinnett.
Good job walking Utley.
What on earth is up with the defense tonight?
This team can not catch ANYTHING tonight.
Whoops.
So
8-BJ whiffed on a looper to centerfield, bending and reaching because he didn’t want to get wet diving.
2-Laird let Rollins steal third on a lob back to the pitcher, then nearly threw the ball in to CF on another SB attempt.
4-Uggla tripped over second base on a would-be double-play ball.
6-Simmons double clutched a would-be putout at 2B, then tried to throw it in the stands.
3-Freeman whiffed on a grounder down the line.
7-Upton whiffed on a foul ball near the left field stands.
So, Medlen and Heyward are the only people not to make any defensive miscues. And if you consider pitching to be defense, then… Heyward is the last man standing.
(If you wanted to reach, you could complain about Heyward’s worm-burner throw on the Chase Utley sac fly. That’d be quite a reach, but, the ball was very shallow, and it was the catcher running. So..)
Freddie Freeman may be slower than The Hamster. He may be slower than me… and I’m reallly slow.
I wasnt overly concerned with Medlen getting knocked around. Its more of him overthrowing and not coming close to hitting his spots. He’s somehow managed to stay in this game despite giving up 6 Hits and 4 BB’s thru 4 innings.
Proud of Medlen for gutting this out.
Medlen looks like he’s got his changeup working better now at least.
@57- I completely forgot Chris Johnson.
Chris Johnson is clearly the only reliable defender on the club.
Med Dog showing some guts here.
If Uggla hadn’t tripped over the second base bag on Revere’s grounder to short, we’d be losing 1-0.
Revere is a fast runner, sure, but the replay shows that he was pretty clearly going to be out. The grounder was hard hit and right at Simmons.
Given the way Cliff Lee is pitching right now, it might not make a difference.
CO-RY GEAR-RIN *clap clap clapclapclap*
@57 Heyward very nearly tried to add himself to your list on that last second dive.
C’mon offense!
Dark lord E-4.
4-3, the Heyward special.
We are 3 games into the season and Joe has alreasdy run out of things to talk about. “They just came in and showed me that its 44 in Philadelphia, its 40 here in Atlanta.”
To be fair, it’s been an extremely boring game.
I actually have to agree with that. You just gotta tip your cap to Cliff Lee tonight though.
Ugh. I hate those t and c words, csg.
Okay, lets score some runs here. If we allow no more baserunners, we won’t have to face Ace Chutley again until July. And he’ll probably be disabled by then.
DANGIT
This extremely boring game would have received high praise in a recap 8-9 years ago if the tables were turned and Maddux were the SP. Cliff Lee is shakin’ and bakin’ tonight.
This umpire has been absolute horse shit.
Where da runs?
All we need is one baserunner, then the bear to pinch-hit.
On an otherwise terrible night so far, the MLB.TV video feed with the “park” audio option – just the ambient park noise, no Joe, no Chip – is friggin’ awesome. You can also overlay the radio call onto the television video.
It might take a Saturn rocket booster to get a ball out of the park tonight.
What is there to gain by having Varvaro pitch 2 innings in 2 games in a row?
@81
In fact, Lee was basically just purposefully serving up fat pitches and watching lazy fly balls drop into his outfielder’s gloves there the last several innings.
EDIT: @82, We don’t use someone Fredi actually wants to have pitch in an important situation tomorrow night? Your opinion of Varvaro appears to be much higher than mine.
Indeed, I thought Freeman’s drive was out and it barely made it to the warning track.
I hope this isn’t an indicator of a feast or famine offense.
Alright, fun’s fun but I’ve got a prediction on the line here, boys.
What are the odds that Fredi uses the phrase “tip your cap” when talking about the offense failing to score tonight?
Eh…sometimes you get two-hit by Cliff Lee. It’s not like we’ve had baserunners all over the place we couldn’t drive in or we’re getting owned by a crappy pitcher. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Chalk it up as one of the 40 games you were always gonna lose anyway and move on…or we could come back against Papelbon.
@83 – I think enough of him that I’d like to keep his shoulder attached. Use him for multiple innings, use him on consecutive nights. Multiple innings on consecutive nights seems unneccessary.
Martinez only threw 13 pitches last night. He’s not one of our high-leverage relievers.
I hope everyone knows that my reference above was pure sarcasm, but there’s a 99.9% chance it gets used multiple times in the post game.
I recall Bobby’s philosophy of winning 2 of 3 and getting on to the next one.
Oh, I’m not arguing that. It’ll definitely get used in the post-game.
Ump tonight is such a joke.
We tripped our crap tonight. Oh well, the Cubs are coming this weekend, and that’ll always cure what ails you.
Absolute horse shit.
Time to recalibrate my statistical model, I’m afraid. New prediction shortly. Hint: It’s not going to be 161-1.
It was a bad call, but Heyward swung at 2 pitches that were balls also. Crappy night all around. Bullpen did a good job and Medlen managed to escape his poor outing. Oh well, we won the series.
Our recent past Bravos have a sad history of not beating the teams they should beat, so let’s hope the Cubs come softly bearing small sticks.
Recapped.
Sort of.