Live Game Chat: Rockies at Phillies

We'll likely be in and out here with spotty coverage cause we'd like to watch the game you know.

1st - Cole comes out gunning to shut down the Rockies in the first.  Cole gets the crowd into it early.

Jeff Francis made Jimmy, Shane and Chase look rather silly swinging at some nasty curves.  I don't like this Francis guy.

These announcers suck.  I never thought the day would come when I'd wish Wheels were calling a game.

2nd - Damn.  The ageless Todd Helton leads off the second with a bomb to dead center that took a nasty bounce off the wall for a three bagger.

Ugh.  Rockies take the early lead and Cole looks human.  This isn't how it was supposed to go, Cole.

Cole gets back on track with a nice K on a high fastball but then follows that up with a base on balls.  Cole certainly doesn't look nearly as dominant as his performance last week.

Shit.  Yorvy Torby gets a single and drives in another.  Phils down 2-0 real fast.  Settle down.  It's early.

After Francis got down a nice bunt for the second out, Cole walks Kaz to load the bases.  Meeting on the mound.  Somebody needs to calm this guy down.  Get out of this one and let him settle in.

Walks in a run.  3-0 Rockies.  The euphoria of the last four days is slowly turning back into that Philly pessimism we all know too well.  I guess it could have been a lot worst.  Time for the bats to go to work.

Anyone else hate that commercial where Tony Gwyn gets told he's going to the HOF?  Big shocker there.

Hey our man David Aldridge does baseball?  Where's Barkley?!  I think I'd boo Sir Charles right now.

Ryan Howard comes up to start the inning and sits right back down with his 3,000 K of the season.

Hey! Aaron Rowand didn't strike out!

The Bat does what he does and gets the Phillies their first base runner of the day.  Patience is a virture.  Keeps telling myself, "it's only the second inning."

3rd Inning.  Hopefully Cole can settle in a bit here. Three quick outs and that's the kind of inning we need.  Now let's get a hit!

Carlos Ruiz leads off the inning with a K.  Awesome.  Maybe Cole can get a friggin hit here.

AND HE DOES!  King Cole comes through with a single.

DAMNIT.  Jimmy grounds into an inning ending double play.  Not much going the Phils way thus far.

4th Inning.  I just got a text message with the F word in it about 8 times.  Fickle Philly fans.  Must have faith.

The announcers keep talking about Cole's pitch count.  He's up to almost 80 in the middle of the 4th.  He has settled in though.  Two quick outs, the second on a quick liner right back to Cole.  And another 1, 2, 3 inning for Hamels.

They just showed a nice aerial view of the stadium and I ask you all, why do I not have tickets?

Jeez.  Shane hits a bullet right to Atkins.  Why can't they find a gap?  Chase is good at that, right?

Ryan Howard strikes out, of course.  End of 4, still without a hit from somebody who is paid to hit baseballs.

5th Inning.  Ruiz!  Carlos pulls in a foul ball that it didn't look like he had a chance at.  Glad to see that elbow is alright.  Two more quick outs topped of by a sick play by Wes Helms at third.  Cole can do this for four more innings, right?

COME ON BATS.

Aaron Rowand answers the call!  That baby's outta here!  3-1 ballgame.  As I said in my preview, I had a feeling Rowand would be a catalyst for this team in the post season.

BACK TO BACK HOME RUNS!  WOooo!!! Ahhhhhh... nice nice nice.  Pat Burrell goes yard by the skin of his teeth.  3-2 Rockies.

Time for the faithful at CBP to get rowdy, give this team some energy.

Wes Helms hit one rather hard that for a moment looked great but was actually right at a Rockie.  That would have caused pandemonium.  Hamels pops a bunt to Atkins.  Garbage.

Ruiz gets a single and the Phils are starting to get to Francis.  That's four hard hit balls in a row.

The speedster Carlos Ruiz steals second!?!  And on a full count, Jimmy walks to put two on for Shane.  Shane can't capitalize but the Phils showed some life.  The meat of the order will lead off the 6th for the Phils.

6th Inning.

Cole starts off the top of the sixth by wiffing Helton.  After striking out Atkins but not getting the call, the second out comes on a pop up to Rowand.  What kind of name is Hawpe?  Strike that guy out.  And Cole does!  7th for Cole to end the inning.

Utley hasn't had a hit yet today.  He's due.  UGH.  Utley hasn't looked good against Francis today at all.  3rd K of the day for our man.

Ohhhhhhhh.  Man, this ump is calling them tight today.  After it looked like he should have been struck out, Howard pops out to right.  Utley and Howard haven't done jack.

Rowand pops out to left to end the inning.  I need a beer.

7th Inning.  Cole starts it off allowing a base on balls to the CF whose name I don't feel like trying to type.  Cole's up to 110 pitches.  Not much left in that arm today.

Cole gets Yorvy to pop out.  Francis comes up to attempt a bunt and successfully gets it down to move the runner over.  Now why couldn't Cole do that?

And Hamels leaves the game to a nice ovation.  Hat tip to Cole.  That second inning was unfortunate, but he looked great otherwise.  On comes Flash.

Flash gets the job done!  You can ask for your peanuts and Cracker Jacks while only being down one run thanks to Gordon.  Enter crunch time.

Burrell leads off the bottom of the 7th, Francis is still out there.  Scratch that.  In comes LaTroy Hawkins... wasn't he the guy in Chicago that one those games for the Phillies when he was a Cub about 3 summers ago?  Google says, Yep, it was him!  Oh, and I Love Latroy!

Damn it, Hawkins is efficient and gets Burrell on one pitch.  Dobbs to PH for Helms.

Programming note: Gamecast is faster than MLB Radio that is faster than SOPcast.

Dobbs fouls off five pitches before taking ball four.  Great at bat by Mr. Dobbs.  Now they're taking him out to pinch run Bourne.  Not sure how I feel about that.

Ugh.  Shit.  Damn.  Not good.  Carlos grounds into a double play.  See, now did you really need Bourne to pinch run there?  Make me manager!

8th Inning. Gordon is back out there.  They brought in Abe to play third.  After Helms was lifted for Dobbs who was lifted just because.  Striiiiiiiiike three.  Gordon gets a K to start the 8th.

Sigh.  Matt Holliday goes yard.  That's the Flash we know!  Rockies lead 4-2.

Fact: J.C. Romero is our favorite Phillies reliever.

One out.  Apparently you can get MLB playoff text alerts?  I bet A.J. Feeley gets those.

SICK PLAY BY JIMMY ROLLINS.  SICK.  Diving to his right on the fringe of the outfield grass, gets up, and gets the runner on a bang bang play to end the inning.

Prediction: Tadahito will lead off with a single and Jimmy or Chase will go yard to tie the game up.

Brian Fuentes starts off the 8th by giving Iguchi a base on balls.  That's not what you want to do if you're a Rockies pitcher.

Jimmy pops up after what was looking like a nice at bat in which he had the count in his favor.  Doh.  I jinxed him.  Blame me.  It's all my fault.

Shane grounds into a dou... nope.  Shane is fast enough to prevent a double play but grounds out to short.

Down goes Utley looking.  I'm starting to feel this one fading.  Hmm... this is not good.

9th Inning.  This live blogging thing starts to suck when your team is looking like they're going to lose.  Myers comes out looking pretty sharp though.  Myers throws to straight Ks but then gives up an infield single to Yorvy.

Phew.  After letting two runners on, Myers gets the curve working to K Matsui to end the 9th.

It's in the hands of Howard, Rowand, and Burrell.

K, ground out, fly out.

The called third strike on Howard looked like a horrible call.  Boo to that ump.

There's your game one people.  That wasn't very fun.  Rockies 4 Phillies 2

Comments

[Matt P]

Damn, Francis looked effing good there.

[gootman]

Ugh, looks like they're pressing.

[Matt P]

anyone notice that jeff francis has a no-hitter going. did i mention no-hitter? no-no? no phillies have a hit?

[Craig]

THE BABE IS ONE BASE!

[j13]

These announcers are pretty awful. Really boring...they speak really calmly, like they're talking to a deer and trying not to spook it.

While I'm glad I made the considerable effort to get to watch this (and a quick apology to my slow-driving friends on 287 and the GSP), Cole's start is giving me The Fear.

[gootman]

Cole with a hit! (wrong thread with the other one)

[ryan]

nice play by Helmsy (definitely the first time I've ever complemented him)

[gootman]

Nice play by Helms. Now lets score some effing runs!

[Matt P]

rowand!!!!

[ryan]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARON ROWAND puts one on the board. Let's hope we can get something going with it!

[Matt P]

burrell!!!

[gootman]

BACK TO BACK!!!! Here we come!

[ryan]

BACK TOP BACK!&$&#@%*( THE CROWD IS ALIVE!!!!

[j13]

I love how into it Pat's been lately. I always took him as being a heart player - even when he's sucked horribly (which has been WAY to often to even think about re-signing him), I always felt like it killed him to not being doing well. It's what I've always chalked up his struggling to - his trying to hard. And lately it seems like he's always on the top step, always the first one running out when a big hit brings in a runner, the one most into it when a big play comes up - like when Rollins hit his triple in the last game of the season. It's great to see.

Thank God this team no longer has the Bobby Abreu apathy and malaise...it fits Philly so much better, no matter what happens. Imagine what this team would be like with real starters deeper in the rotation and some real middle relief instead of Joe Table and Tony 6 Fingers. They're this good despite their obvious flaws...hopefully good enough to do some real damage this postseason. But you can't help but wonder how they would have dominated the NL with the glaring weaknesses fixed.

[T]

I had spanish class at 430 and at 420 was seriously debating going to it cause it looked like we were going to be shut out. At 429 we hit those two homers and I can't help but give all the credit to me for not going to spanish.

[Nick]

anyone else notice that francis looks like at stretched out version of zach braff?

[Matt P]

interesting. zach looks a little stretched out himself...

[dave]

I think aside from the shaky start - Cole did a solid job.

Watching the MLB Gamecast from an office cubicle here in NYC is miserable though...

[j13]

Tom Gordon is a bad baseball player.

[Shibe]

Is it me or has Chase looked bad for the past week or so?

[Matt P]

Utley with the Sombrero?

[Matt]

If you told me before the game started that they would hold Colorado to 3 runs, I would take that as a W for Philly. Ah well.

[Matt]

Sorry, 4 runs. Even then.

[j13]

I am sad. :(

[Shibe]

Rollins, Utley, Howard...0-11. Does not bode well for the rest of the series.

[willie]

worst lineup against a LHP. Why does charlie, who loves to tweak a lineup, insist on going with an opening day lineup when he knows his cleanup hitter can't hit lefties?

Our two best right handed hitters, 5 and 6, and the other sitting on the bench.

[Shibe]

And honestly, Shane has not been hitting well.

[John Denver]

No mention of Holliday's 500 foot foul ball? It sure had those in the sixth burough buzzing. Obviously there was more where that came from. This is a good team the Phillies are playing. This is going to be a good series.

[Tartan69]

Just got back from the game. My head hurts. I couldn't even gather the energy to swing through McFadden's on the way out. Granted the line was 10 minutes long, but I digress. There was no energy in the park after the 7th inning...we were all depressed.

Anyway, tough loss. Cole didn't look good. Utley looks lost in the batter's box. The home plate ump sucked. Holliday still hasn't touched home plate.

[Ben]

Go Rockies! That was a great game for Colorado and you Phiwwy fans are lucky that Holiday blasted that thing foul otherwise it would have been ugly!

You always have to watch out for the team that gets no respect but is on fire. . . .

[David Karaszkiewicz]

hey Ben blow me.

PHUCK OFF

[Ben]

I just got back from the game and I'll mention Holiday's ridiculous foul ball. It was the farthest ball I've ever seen hit at CBP. It went into the opening in left field (and presumably bounced much further). Did they show where it went on TV?

Overall, the crowd really stuck by Hamels who pitched a nice game other than one bad inning. The game was totally winnable, but nothing got going on offense.

Back to back homeruns was nice. People were going nuts when Pat's went over the fence.

[mike]

hey ben go drown yourself in a bucket of coors light asshole.

[Ben Garvey]

I'm going to have to start posting with my last name so no one mixes me up with that guy. haha.

[Gaze]

As for the Fans...

I was there on Saturday and yesterday and to start the game they were as jacked as ever. The problem is that it's tough to keep the energy flowing when you're watching strike-out after strike-out from your best hitters. A "decent" pitcher made them look foolish yesterday and you can't expect the fans to go wild when their team can't put a bat on the ball!