Phils Dominate the Game I Thought They'd Lose and Squeak Out the Game I Thought They'd Win + Boston Edition.

First and foremost, absolute congratulations to one of my favorites off all time; Mark Recchi, on getting his name etched onto the holy grail of hockey for the 3rd time.  It's a shame it never happened in Philly, but I still have the utmost respect for him over every player in the game today.  Congratulations to the Boston Bruins, who outright deserved and outworked the rest of the NHL on their way to the Stanley Cup Championship.

It hurts knowing that the 0-3 comeback doesn't quite have the luster that it did 2 hours ago, but you can't take anything away from how well this team played top to bottom.




It's worth noting, some of Philadelphia's last playoff runs;

Flyers - Lost to Boston (Champions)
Sixers - Lost to Heat (East Champions)
Eagles - Lost to Packers (Champions)
Phillies - Lost to Giants (Champions)
Flyers - Lost to Chicago (Champions)
Eagles - Lost to Dallas (sucks)
Phillies - Lost to New York (Champions)

All that put aside, I will not sleep easy knowing Boston has won 7 championships this decade.



But now onto the Phillies.  What a day for this team.  First game was of utmost dominance, and quite an impressive start by Kyle Kendrick.  Time to stop making jokes about this kid until he blows up again, cause he's putting together some good numbers this year.  And it's about time he does so.

The offense is finally clicking.  Halladay has one of his "bad" starts (7ip, 4 runs on 6 hits, 8k's), but the team went out and got the job done when it counted.  Timely hits has finally entered this teams vocabulary, and they are finally playing with some swag (not to be cliche) 

Not much more can be said. When everything is going right for this team, you got to just sit back, relax, and watch every at bat this team has, because something special could happen the very next pitch.

This series is more important than you think. Phillies vs Marlins

Why is this series important, against a .500 team that's 3rd in the division?

1. The Braves start a 3 game home series against the Mets.  And we only have a 2.5 game lead on the underrated Braves.  And after the Mets, they have home series against the Rangers and Blue Jays.  Despite those two teams being good, they are still home games for Atlanta. 

2. Hanley Ramirez is returning to the lineup for the Marlins tonight.  While he might do nothing , he might spark the team out of the slide they've been on recently.

3. The next couple series are going to be tough.  This weekend is one of the worst weekends in sports, where the Phillies have 10:05 starts Friday and Saturday in Seattle.  No teams from Philadelphia are ever successful on the west coast, and it's just a weird 3 game interleague series out west.  Then the Phillies have a travel day, but things wont get any easier against the Cardinals in St. Louis (Please Charlie, if Pujols is up with the game on the line, walk him.)  Then were looking at the throwback series as the Oakland A's come to town and then the awfully-scheduled mid week series with Boston in town. 

So the Phillies need to win this sereis.  It's not your typical Phillies-Marlins series.  If the Phillies put together a bad series, it's hard to get out of slumps on the road, especially against two quality teams. 

Tonight we'll see Chris Volstad with a 2-6 record and a 5.5 ERA, taking on Kid Cole Hamels.  Lets get this started off right.

Don't forget to mark your calendars, July 8-10 the Braves come to town.  Huge early-July series for the Phils.  And I'm excited to make a post about just how wrong those people who want to bring the Oakland A's back to Philadelphia, and just how bad that would flop.   Expect to see that when the A's series starts.

Cheers