A usually unusual 2 run top of 1, a shaky bottom of 1, then pitching dominance and a non hibernation added up to a win that clinched a sixth straight NL east title. So, it was a good night. That it happened in Philadelphia on the Phaillures home field added a little juice to it.
In inning one, Ronald Acuna, Jr. lined out, Ozzie Albies doubled, and Austin Riley homered. 2 to 0 to start the game. This is an endearing feature of this team. Then, it looked like Strider might have another stinker. Kyle Schwarber walks. Out. Bryce Harper walks. Out. Bryson Stott singles to score Schwarber and send Harper to second. But after that, the usually good to great version of Spencer Strider reappeared. He would end up with 7 IP, 110 pitches, 77 for strikes, 4 H, 2 BB, 9 K, and 1 R (1ER). He had 2 extra days between starts because of a stomach virus, so maybe the high pitch count isn’t so bad. Also, the bullpen needed a break. Hand and Yates got the 8th and 9th in a style fitting of a Strider start.
The remaining offense consisted of two singles (Acuna and Albies) followed by a sacrifice fly (Riley) in the 3rd. Then, in the 4th, a Marcel Ozuna double followed by a Kevin Pillar double, got the last run of the night for anybody.
Next target: clinch first round bye. Then, clinch NL best record. Then clinch overall best record.
A great appreciation obviously goes out to the Branch Rickey of the 21st century, Alex Anthopoulos. Further, despite his regular season tactical curiosities which didn’t appear in the 2021 post season, an appreciation for Brian Snitker. And for each of them, their ability in recognizing and hiring a great team of coaches. Last night even thanked the analytics team (and said something about them being chained to their computers).
A day off. Then, the Marlins in Miami. Everybody please stay off of boats.
An emblematic win. It was driven by the stars – Riley, Strider, and a three-hit night by Acuña – and clinched by the non-stars: Pillar, Hand, Yates. It’s such a deep team. The Phillies have some incredible frontline talent but their depth just isn’t the same.
Still feeling the matchups, though. Hand and Yates were great in the extra inning games. I’m sure Minter, Jimenez, and Iglesias were unavailable forcing Snit’s hand (or Hand, so to speak), but it worked out better that way.
I understand yesterday’s comment about SSS but baseball is a game of percentages. If a 30% hit rate is great, when someone has hit you at 50% or 75%, it’s worth paying attention to even if it is SSS. Maybe it’s not a big deal in a long season but in a short series it is.
Maybe we’ll hear from the rando who wandered in here some days ago to comment that the Dodgers and Phillies would sweep us.
The team that really worries me is the 1998 San Diego Padres.
Well, this team did get swept by both Houston & Toronto earlier in the season, but I have a hard time believing that it’ll lose 3 in a row anywhere in the playoffs. Post-season’s still a crapshoot/minefield, for sure, but this lineup has got to terrify all opponents.
Yup, any team w/ Kevin Brown in his prime was particularly dangerous in the post-season.
I love postseason baseball and want the Braves to win the World Series as much as anyone else, but if they don’t? Ehhh….I’m not going to be heartbroken. This Braves squad was far and away the best all-around team in baseball for an entire 162 game season, and if they don’t go all the way, it will speak more to the vagaries of the current playoff format than anything having to do with the overall quality of the team.
This is how I feel too. But it intrigues me that JonathanF, father of the crapshoot, never seems to take the logical next step and say “Regular season supremacy.”
ICYMI, Charlie Morton interview.
Hard to watch. You can tell how much it pains him not to be able to say what’s obviously on his mind.
One of the reasons I love Charlie so much is he’s a highly cognitive person who struggled to be fully in the moment and finally achieved success later in life when he found a way of being himself while also letting go. While I’ll never be as much a master of my craft as he is of his, I identify with him in that. That struggle is fully apparent in that interview. What a career he’s had.
Off topic, but this is a nice piece on Deion: https://theathletic.com/4861580/2023/09/14/deion-sanders-mlb-coach-prime/
Thanks for sharing. He’s such a great person and good guy. You got Marc Olsen, what he is doing since his youth. This is a special group to root for.
Man. The local radio talk shows here in Phillie town we’re hot about the Bravos this morning. Apparently the Phils game mgmt team decided to put an NL East Champs banner on their scoreboard as our boys celebrated. And a lot of fans took umbrage. One even lamenting he doesn’t want this town “to become known as soft on opponents.”
Rest assured, the next caller laughingly emphasized that Philadelphia is in zero danger of becoming perceived as a soft fan base. And he’s right.
That said., I’d be a little salty too if my hometown ops did that. You clinch on our field and want to celebrate on the field? Fine. The home team doesn’t have to help them have a better photo op!
What say you?
Greetings from Athens, Ga…
As a fan, I wouldn’t love it, but it wouldn’t keep me up nights either. Maybe that franchise wants the public to see them as classy for a moment.
But as we’ve seen over & over, the fanbases of that city’s professional teams aren’t happy unless they’re also somehow miserable. So, let ’em bitch — that’s just what they do.
And, if I’m the Phillies player, I try to use the onfield celebration as fuel, knowing that an NLDS rematch is a very real possibility.
At the end of the day, of course, they still gotta get us out. So, there’s also a very real possibility that the Braves’ll be celebrating there again relatively soon.
The local radio talk shows
I believe I have identified the problem…
The Phillies didn’t seem to have a problem last year when the Astros publicly congratulated them for clinching a wild card spot on their home turf.
Fun Police, are you tone policing drivetime radio call-in shows???
Chavez sighting in Gwinnett yesterday – 1IP, 0H, 0R, 3K – 15 pitches, 12 strikes. Excellent!
Fangraphs on how good Kirby Yates has been this year: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-second-coming-of-kirby-yates/
On the flip side, Jim Bowden ranks us 30th out of 30 teams in terms of the contributions made by our rookies: https://theathletic.com/4858301/2023/09/15/mlb-teams-rookie-classes-impact-2023-season/
Of course, if you were ranking teams by the contributions made by sophomore-year players, it would be a very different story, given everything we’ve gotten from Strider, Harris, and Elder. We already emptied the farm, and they’re the best team in baseball. Nice problem to have.