Shallow | Center

For the Colts and Saints, a Victory of Talent Over Hype

In the Colts and the Saints, football has the Super Bowl match-up it deserves. The obvious best team in each conference has advanced to the championship game. The winner can be seen legitimately as football's best team this season.

Do the Phillies' Bats Realize They Haven't Clinched the Division Yet?

You have to go back a week and a half, to the Mets series, to find the last time the Phillies scored more than four runs in a game. Last night's five-hit effort against the Giants produced a goose egg on the scoreboard and made a loser of J.A. Happ. The young lefty pitched out of trouble early but yielded consecutive homers in the sixth, providing San Francisco with a cushion it wouldn't need.

Farewell, But Most Certainly Not Goodbye

It's not you, it's me.

Look, you've been great, but I need something else right now. Writing about the Phillies and the shitty movies I see with brother-in-law can take a blogger only so far, you know? And, well, I just couldn't bring myself to do it anymore. I felt stale.

But now ... Now I've got something new in the works. Something more sharply focused. Something that makes me feel more comfortable articulating a voice and not simply droning on about ... well, all of the stuff I've droned on about with you.

Seriously, I've loved my time here. But it's time for something new. Take care of yourself, okay? | SC

Anybody Home?

Hey, guess who?

Hope to be back in the blogging fold soon, perhaps with some changes. Stay tuned ... S|C

Week Three | Something Old, Something New

A surprisingly strong string of starts is mitigated by the familiar woes of inconsistent hitting and an inability to manage injuries.

The third week of the Phils' season saw them go 3-3, winning a series over the Astros and dropping one to the Mets, all six games at Citizens Bank Park. At this stage of the season you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Phillies' sub-.500 record was due to spotty pitching, but so far -- and last week, especially -- the team has gotten unexpectedly good efforts from the rotation. Alas, that old nemesis, inconsistent hitting, has reared up, with only Chase Utley and Pat Burrell continuing to swing hot bats. Ryan Howard is in one of his dreadful fogs, and Jimmy Rollins has been hobbled by a bad ankle for a couple of weeks, which brings up Complaint No. 2: It took the Phils nearly two weeks to realize that what was initially thought to be a day-to-day injury was actually a situation that needed a complete shutdown. Ruben Amaro and Charlie Manuel can yap all they want about J-Roll's lack of symptoms and his desire to keep playing, but the fact is they have squandered valuable healing time for the league's reining MVP. The Phillies have too many flaws and too little margin for error to engage in such dawdling with so necessary a player. S|C

Tags: Phillies, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley

What Do You Do When Your Shortstop Is Thinking About 'Hello Kitty'?

After running my first two practices as coach of my daughter's t-ball team, I'm trying to figure out with whom I can empathize more: her kindergarten teacher or Charlie Manuel.

Would it clarify matters to point out that we're talking about 10 5- and 6-year-old girls here? No, I didn't think so.

I played six years of organized baseball as a kid, and watched every practice and game of last year's t-ball and soccer seasons, but nothing prepared me for being the guy standing at first base and leading everyone in stretching. I thought holding one kindergartener's attention for more than two minutes was tough; a whole team's worth is damn near impossible. And while our girls did great hitting off the tee and catching grounders, and you can't stop them from running around the bases, by far the most enthusiastic reaction came when I unveiled our purple tie-dyed uniforms. Sadly, no one asked me to explain the infield fly rule.

That said, I'm having a blast with it. The girls are sweet and very interested in learning and trying, and as a coach, can you ask for anything more? Hell, I don't even mind that they leave runners on base. S|C

Tags: t-ball, coaching

Week Two | Defensive Indifference

The Phillies' 4-3 week included a couple of cringe-worthy defeats, with clumsy fielding playing a major role in the losses. Yesterday Chase Utley's 10th-inning gaffe allowed the Cubs to score the winning run, and while Utley is certainly going to win the Phils more games with his bat than he'll lose with his glove, it was still a tough pill to swallow. And, this being the Phillies, we had an injury bug to contend with as well: Jimmy Rollins was on the shelf for several games with a sprained ankle, and yesterday Shane Victorino tweaked a calf muscle and was placed on the disabled list.

On the plus side, the starting pitching solidified a bit over the week; even Adam Eaton has looked like a major leaguer on the mound. Pat Burrell and Utley continue to hit, and Ryan Howard has started to put some good wood on the ball. And, let's face it, the fact that the Phillies are only one game under .500 two weeks into the season is reason enough to celebrate. S|C

Tags: Phillies

That's More Like It

The Phillies' one-two punch finally combine for a pair of strong starts

Brett Myers got his footing back Friday night, Cole Hamels continued his strong April last night, and, hey, the Phillies have taken two straight from the Cubs. Myers needs to man up and pitch like a No. 1; he had been nibbling far too much in his first two starts. If he can get his swagger back, it will go a long way toward mitigating Kyle Kendrick's early-season struggles. And Hamels just keeps getting better. This could be the last season he's not the Phils' Opening Day starter for a number of years.

The team has, thankfully, gained some equilibrium; we can only hope that it has shucked that dreaded awful-April trend for good. The Phillies are at .500 and have the look of a squad that's determined to make some noise, unlike in years past, when their look was one of expectation, as if they were waiting for the rest of the division to roll over on them before they finally realized in June that they had to start playing for real. S|C

Tags: Phillies, Brett Myers, Cole Hamels