Silver Linings....And Yuck!--Peter

Well, the Phillies wasted little time tonight in making it clear that they have no respect for the reigning World Champs. Starting in the first inning, with home runs by Rollins and Howard, the latter their answer to Big Papi, they launched ball after ball on their way to an ultimate 8-2 victory. It wasn't that they won so convincingly in the score. The Sox have suffered worse, even as they were on their way to a Championship. It was the way the Phils quickly made it clear that whenever they felt the need they could go yard or damn near that was impressive, particularly in the case of Howard.

Now I don't believe that he's nearly as good an all around player as Papi is. But the fact remains he has had more homers in a single season, by 2, than Papi and he's always a threat to launch one, even when his batting average is less than his weight, as has been the case for the better part of this season.

However, in recent weeks, he has been getting on base more frequently and his extra base hits have again become more common. In many ways, his season to date has eerily paralleled that of Big Papi--horrible and severe early season slump, followed by gradual climb back to respectability, punctuated by an increasing number of baseballs leaving whatever yard he can be found in with a good sized piece of northern white ash in his large powerful hands.

Tonight was the perfect example of that recent surge. In his first two at bats, he dropped a pair of balls in the cheapies, picking up three ribbies in the process. Later, in the 6th, with a man on, he tripled to center. His line for the night was 3-5 with four rbi's, giving him 62 for the year, one of two players on the Phils with that total thus far. In fact, this pair, Howard and Utley make a good mirror image thus far this season to Manny and Papi, although our pair are,or have been, out with a series of injuries, and are thus slightly, but only slightly, behind the Phillies pair statistically.

On the good side of things this evening, the Sox were not totally offense-free. Pedroia, as part of a 3-4 evening, picked up a two bagger and a home run, while JD drove his 12th of the season over the wall just two pitches after Dusty's roundtripper.

Sox pitching wasn't what you'd have hoped for, although the four runs Colon gave up were all scored on just three pitches, two by the aforementioned Howard shots. Timlin showed up for just two thirds of an inning in the sixth and amply demonstrated why Jenn reveres him so much. Well, maybe 'revered' is too strong a word--not to mention inaccurate. I guess 'dislikes' is more apropos. He gave up four hits and a pair of free passes, accounting for the last four of the Phils' runs for the evening.

Lopez, Aardsma and Okajima each pitched at least an inning of shutout ball, with both Lopez and Oki K'ing a pair of Phillies batters apiece.

Well, there's always tomorrow. Hopefully, the Sox will turn things around just as they did in their last two road series. For the first time in a long time this season, they won consecutive road series.