Phils By a Nose

This had to be one of the more quietly infuriating losses in recent memory.

First off, early on Gavin Floyd was making Cory Lidle look like Cy Young. He had nothing, and I was actually worried we would run up a big lead in the first couple of innings, watch the Phillies step out after every pitch and generally behave like they were wearing cement shoes (and with Trachsel, aka the Human Continental Drift, on the mound) and the game would be called in a howling gale with us up 8-1 in the third.

And if a couple of things had broken a bit differently, that might have been exactly what happened.

Wright just missed a three-run homer. Aaron Rowand made one of the gutsier plays by a center fielder since Lenny Dykstra walked the earth, depriving Nady of a three-run double or triple. (The Phillies being the Phillies, Rowand will eventually realize he's one of the only players with a pulse and bemoan his exile to a colorless franchise run by bloodless marketers. Just ask Billy Wagner.) Trachsel's bid to make like Tom Glavine got snuffed in the hole. Each time their Floyd slipped the noose, he got a little more confident, until that decent fastball and that big curve were actually hitting their spots. And meanwhile Trachsel was being Trachsel: not bad enough to make you throw things at the set, but not good enough so you felt you could hit the bathroom if they had a runner on second.

When the monsoon came, seconds after Beltran struck out to make it an official game on a night when both teams were headed to the airport…well, you learn a couple of things in three decades of watching baseball. “Boy, did we just get fucked,” I announced to nobody in particular.

I suppose that's baseball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains. And once in a while it rains, you get fucked, and you lose.