Phightins

The gods of BABIP are certainly not on our side thus far.

Doc has settled in. Lohse is giving up rockets right at guys. Have to think (hope) those will start falling in.

11 pitches through 2 for Lohse. Oh my.

No, he really isn't. But with that said, 7 shutout innings would not surprise me in the least.

Well, that was a sub-optimal start. Luckily Kyle Lohse sucks.

Let's [expletive]ing go.

Agreed. I'd have been OK with sending him if there were 2 outs, but with 1 out and Montero coming up, in the first inning no less, no reason to risk it.

I am thinking that the power play has the potential to be sick this year (huge improvement over last year). A top unit of Giroux, Briere, Voracek, Jagr on the point, plus Timonen/Pronger/Carle is very scary. Has been my favorite part of the preseason thus far.

Official roster hasn't been released yet, but word is that Kyle Kendrick is on it and David Herndon isn't. "WTF" worthy.

Ok, Tony LaRussa is up to his usual shit. Hope this means good things for the Phillies. Chris Carpenter will pitch in game 2 on short rest (he has never pitched on 3 days rest in his career). I don't get it. Why not use Garcia in game 2? Whatever. Garcia is now in game 3, btw. I guess Edwin Jackson will start game 4.

Absolutely imperative that the Phillies win both game 1 and 2. I am thrilled that we only have to see Garcia once, but if the Cardinals steal a game early this could be bad. Anyway, to fill in the TBAs, Cole Hamels is pitching game 3. Game 4 will be Roy Oswalt vs. Jaime Garcia, and game 5 will be Roy Halladay vs (presumably) Kyle Lohse. But it would also be normal rest for Edwin Jackson, so they could go with either.

Tonight should be fun.

Sucks for D-Backs fans. Game 1 at 11 AM local time and game 2 at 1 PM local time.

Terrible. Oh well, some team (White Sox?) just got lucky.

Seeing what the Capitals did makes it even more weird/disappointing. Very similar situation down there. They get Vokoun for a bargain and turn Varlamov into a first round pick. The Flyers overpay for Bryzgalov and hang onto Bobrovsky to let him rot away on the bench. Very confusing indeed.

The reason they "need to win" is because Ed Snider is a senile old man. He backed Paul Holmgren into a corner this offseason. These trades make the future look very bright, but also leave many question marks for this coming season. However, there is still a lot of pressure to win this year because, well, Ed Snider is crazy. And lots of the fans around here are crazy. Ticket prices increased by like, 200%, which has a lot of fans saying "great, you trade away two great players and then drive prices up? You better win now". But I tend to agree that Schenn and Couturier would be better off not on the roster to start. I have a feeling at least one will be though. Maybe both.

Looks like we were all wrong for criticizing the Jose Bautista extension.

Out of Schenn/Couturier/Read, Read is the best bet to make the NHL roster (practically a lock from what I am hearing). Kind of a shift from where things were a month ago. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I really don't think time in the AHL would be a bad thing for Schenn, and Couturier has a long way to go (although he'd be going back to Juniors). I think all three could hold their own in the NHL right now, but their development should be the primary objective. Many people in the organization still believe that JvR was brought to the NHL way too soon and it stunned his development, so I am guessing they don't want to make the same mistakes again. Although Holmgren's job is on the line this season, so maybe he will be more aggressive with the kids. We shall see.

How's not having Mike Napoli and Adrian Beltre working out for you?

I would take 2010 Vick over any of the others, easily. But unfortunately this is not 2010 anymore so there is a pretty good chance he is third on my list.

20 years ago maybe. Teams are smarter than that now.

ECN, you are lucky I don't feel like copying/pasting the last 3 hours of AIM conversation we had...

He doesn't. But holy shit. This night was ridiculous.

The Phillies just took the lead in the 13th inning and I have incredibly mixed feelings. This is very weird.

Absolutely epic night of baseball.