This is unreal and unbelievable.  I don’t remember feeling this disusted over a baseball game in quite a while, but my disgust is 100% necessary.  There shouldn’t be a Phillies fan in the world who has any confidence in Brad Lidge anymore, if you do, your crazy, it’s as simple as that.  And I am sick of hearing that we have no other options.  Isn’t it possible for a pitcher to come out of nowhere and assume the closer role?  Hey!  It is!  The Phillies claim to have nobody else but in all reality the only guy they have tried other than Lidge is Madson.  There are about 7 or 8 other guys in that pen, we have other options, they just don’t want to explore them.  Who else would let their pitcher get away with 11 blown saves and a 7.31 ERA?  Yea exactly, nobody.

Pitchers that went 7 innings: Jeremy Guthrie (L, 8 hits, 7 runs – 5 earned, 2 walks, 1 K), Cole Hamels (ND, 8 hits, 4 runs, 0 walks, 4 K’s)

The Matchups:

12:35: Cincinnati Reds (Bronson Arroyo, 13-13, 4.04) at Pittsburgh Pirates (Charlie Morton, 4-8, 5.00)

3:35: Texas Rangers (Scott Feldman, 17-5, 3.62) at Oakland Athletics (Brett Anderson, 10-10, 4.21)

7:05: Los Angeles Dodgers (Vincente Padilla, 11-6, 4.52) at Washington Nationals (J.D. Martin, 5-4, 4.21)

7:05: Detroit Tigers (Justin Verlander, 16-9, 3.44) at Cleveland Indians (Carlos Carrasco, 0-2, 9.64)

7:07: Seattle Mariners (Felix Hernandez, 16-5, 2.45) at Toronto Blue Jays (Ricky Romero, 12-9, 4.28)

8:05: Philadelphia Phillies (J.A. Happ, 10-4, 2.77) at Milwaukee Brewers (Jeff Suppan, 7-10, 4.76)

8:10: Boston Red Sox (Clay Buchholz, 6-3, 3.49) at Kansas City Royals (Anthony Lerew – First Start)

8:40: San Diego Padres (Clayton Richard, 8-5, 4.69) at Colorado Rockies (Jason Hammel, 9-8, 4.35)

10:15: Chicago Cubs (Ryan Dempster, 10-8, 3.72) at San Francisco Giants (Brad Penny, 10-9, 5.35)

A rather uneventful day in Major League Baseball.  I just heard Peter Gammons’ new suggestion for a new playoff system.  Apparantly he wants to add another Wild Card to each leauge or each division, I can’t remember which, mainly because I was turned off by the idea when I heard what it was about.  I really like Peter Gammons, but I don’t like the idea of more teams in the playoffs, because it will become like the NHL or NBA eventually.  More teams just doesn’t sound attractive to me.  People complained after the first Wild Card was added, but it’s been successful. However, let’s not push the envelope, i’m sure this is just a bad year for division races and we shouldn’t be hasty about adding more teams.