Philadelphia Phillies

Julio Teheran pitched 8 1-3 strong innings, Dan Uggla hit a three-run homer and the Atlanta Braves won their fourth straight game with a 5-1 victory over the struggling Minnesota Twins on Monday.

Jonathan Papelbon is in the century club. According to baseball-almanac.com, there is video evidence of his fastball being clocked at 100 m.p.h. during an April 22, 2008 game at Fenway Park. It's a cool accomplishment because there are so few people on this planet who can generate that kind of arm speed.

After Domonic Brown hit a solo home run in the top of the second inning to tie the game at 1-1, Marlins starter Alex Sanabia received a new baseball from home plate umpire Sam Holbrook and promptly glazed it with spit as seen here: Given the various gymnastics that can occur within MLB’s rules, there might be a loophole, but if my reading of the rules is correct, Sanabia violated Rule 8.02 (a)(2): 8.02 The pitcher shall not – [...] (2) expectorate [spit] on the ball, either hand or his glove; You can watch the whole event here, with the infraction occurring about 15 seconds in.

Though there is some interesting memorabilia out there these days, there are a few things you will never see.

In saying nothing tonite, Cole Hamels actually said plenty — Jim Salisbury (@JSalisburyCSN) May 21, 2013 Cole Hamels pitched perhaps his best game of the season tonight, but his feckless comrades in arms failed to score more than one run against Alex Sanabia, one of the worst pitchers in baseball. So they lost. And the man who signed the richest contract in franchise history left Jeffrey Loria’s Taxpayer-Funded Stately Pleasure Dome without speaking to reporters. Considering that I haven’t gotten tomorrow’s copies of the Philadelphia papers, I don’t know for sure that someone’s going to write a pointed opinion piece about Hamels’ failure to answer to the press this evening, but I hope nobody does. Because the fact of the matter is that Cole Hamels doesn’t owe us a goddamn thing. He dragged this team to the only championship Philadelphia has earned in my lifetime, then turned around a season later to see the National League and batted ball luck take less of a shine to him. And instead of being patient with the best pitching prospect the franchise produced in 60 years, the media and fans that had feted Hamels as a conquering hero turned on him in 2009 like a pack of jackals. And when Hamels, during the 2009 World Series, said he’d like that season to be over, I felt for him, because he’d had a rough time of it. It’s what happens when things don’t go your way for the first time in your life, when the league catches up to you, and when your manager leaves you hanging on the cross in a playoff game while your wife is in labor. But Brett Myers (intent on punching another man for once) and the Philadelphia fans and editorial press had procured a length of rope and were determined to hang Hamels with it. If I were Cole Hamels, and I were one of the more promising talents at my position, I’d have demanded a trade on the spot. Yet Hamels persevered, while the organization put veteran ace after veteran ace in front of him in the rotation while he turned into the pitcher that his potential indicated he might one day become. And yet here he is, finally getting over the hump after a rough start to the season, and the lineup that supports him, one that is paid roughly the GDP of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, can’t scratch out enough offense to bloody the nose of a pitcher who barely merits the sobriquet of “replacement-level.” I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but as far forward as we can see, Cole Hamels is this franchise. Despite fulfilling the wildest dreams of this city’s fans and media, he was met with scorn, and yet he stuck around (and not just for the money–don’t think the Dodgers or Angels wouldn’t have offered him the contract the Phillies gave him and more) past the point where any sane man’s emotional endurance would have given out. So to the writers who might pillory Hamels for refusing to talk to the media–cut the man some slack. Every single Phillies beat writer is a better reporter than I am, and I’ve had athletes stonewall me on deadline and managed to turn out harder stories than “The Phillies wasted a strong pitching performance.” You’re all grown-ups, and you’ll recover. While watching the building furor over Hamels’ media strategy, a thought occurred to me. I’m trying to make a career as a writer, and I’ve had many professional failures. But I’ve never had a professional failure, even one as relatively trivial in the long run as Hamels losing to the Marlins tonight, that wasn’t of my own making. I’ve never had a professional failure viewed with such great regional interest as tonight’s game, and I’ve never been expected to explain myself to a media scrum after such a failure. I can’t begin to imagine  the frustration Hamels might have felt tonight, and the ultimately destructive things he might

Cole Hamels had just six losses in 31 starts last season. In 2013, he has seven defeats through 10 starts. It has been that kind of year for Hamels. It's also been that kind of year for the unpredictable Phillies. Hamels pieced together another respectable outing, throwing six innings of two-run ball against the last-place (13-32) Marlins, while striking out 10. The offense, however, mustered only one run in a 5-1 loss to Miami on Monday night. The Phillies (21-24)...

In the 1970's, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari proposed that modern psychiatry, particularly modern psychoanalysis, had really screwed things up. Far from the reactionary moral position that usually follows that particular proposal -- "I mean, sleeping with my mother?! Come on, now." -- Deleuze and Guattari were convinced that psychoanalysis itself was too conservative, invested as it was with traditional notions of mental health, familial stability, and normative sexuality. Instead, they suggested, the way we need to think about humanity is as a "Body Without Organs" -- a set of non-specific connections that can shift, change, and mutate at will. Basically, they wanted to promote a "schizoanalysis," a vision of mental health that valorized the non-rigid. Instead of having a map of the psyche, as Freud may have wanted, Deleuze and Guattari just destroyed the map entirely. Now, if we take schizoanalysis seriously, then the outcome of this game is really much more about, like, playing with the idea of competition as a terminus, or about reimagining the definition of "positive outcomes," or about how the drive to win is more connected to the sex drive than the ambition drive, or something. And in that way, as a point of departure for schizoanalysis, this game was a total success! In any other way, this game was just a practice in making us crazy. In brief: Cole Hamels pitched a hell of a game, going six innings, striking out ten, walking none, and giving up two runs on seven hits. His opposite number, Alex Sanabia was just a bit more brilliant -- oh, no, wait, that's not right at all: he went six and a third, but struck out only three, walked one, but only gave up one run on seven hits. That one run was a blast from Our Favorite Martian, Domonic Brown. Sadly, Brown's heroics weren't enough, especially after the eighth inning reared its ugly head. Three runs, two pitchers, tons of awful bloops: use your imagination and color in what you know to be true. Then, as if by fate itself, Chad Qualls came in and pitched a silent ninth inning against the Phillies, striking out two (h/t Prof. Cohen). The Aristocrats! So here are the things you missed if you didn't watch the game: Dom Brown's home run; Cole Hamels' ten strikeouts; a painfully awful blown caught stealing call against Chase Utley; and Marcell Ozuna's hilarious adventures in fielding. And now, to act as a blog without organs, here are some scattered thoughts from the masthead: David Cohen: "PHILLIES SUCK CAN'T BEAT AAAA TEAM WITH ACE ON MOUND" JoeCatz: helped, by way of typo, to coin the nickname Jose "The Nose" Fernandez. Also, pointed out quite rightly that Hamels should have been the victorious pitcher tonight with that line against this team. WetLuzinski wants you to remember. RememberthePhitans notes that, with regard to our title, these nights make the sex better. So there's that. Some rejected titles: "Momentum is a Lie" (Prof); "THANK GOD I GOT STUCK AT WORK AND DIDN'T DRIVE TWO HOURS FOR THAT" (Joe); "Anatomy of a Train Wreck" (RTP). So, do we feel zen? Do we feel deterrtorialized? Are our bodies and minds bereft of the conventional need to align wins with pleasure? No? Me neither. And hey, Ruiz is going to the DL, out 3-4 weeks, and Howard got a cortisone injection in his knee. Let's get crazy! Fangraph of WTF below: Source: FanGraphs

Jeff Schuler of the Allentown Morning Call has reported the following: Josh Fields‘ bags were packed and he was getting hugs. Asked if he was heading south, said with smile, ‘Not the man to ask that question.” — jeff schuler (@jschulermc) May 21, 2013 Dave Brundage on potential Fields move: “I can’t comment on that right now.’ Best guess: look for Howard to go to DL — jeff schuler (@jschulermc) May 21, 2013 Connecting the dots, it appears that INF Josh Fields, who went 3-4 and was a HR away from the cycle tonight in a 14-5 IronPigs win, and not Darin Ruf will get the call if/when Ryan Howard heads to the DL. Fields entered today’s game with a .272/.340/.457 triple-slash and undoubtedly raised that tonight with an outstanding night. We will have more as this develops.

The Phillies fell to the Marlins, 5-1, at Marlins Park in Miami. Cole Hamels picked up the loss.

The Galvis and Kratz Show arrived a couple innings early at Marlins Park.