Footwear

My other shoe never drops. That's because if I leave shoes sitting around the house for very long, my wife decides that they don't belong there, picks them up and puts them in the closet.

The Phillies, on the other hand, heard the other shoe drop last night. They've been coasting along, winning most of their games, almost all of which were against bad teams. Even when they played Atlanta earlier in the year, Atlanta was a bad team momentarily. Their record against teams not named the Mets, Padres or Nationals was 5-6 going into last night. It's now 5-7.

Maybe it was fortunate that the Phillies played a weak schedule when they were short-handed, maybe not. Last night, the Phillies got to play against the hottest team in the NL, the Braves, who have been playing good teams and winning. Their record is still mediocre because of their bad start, but this is a very good baseball team. And they have a big advantage over the Phillies in that half their team isn't injured.

The results were pretty predictable, a 5-0 (though I don't count the last 2 runs so much because they came against the execrable Danys Baez who should never sniff the mound during a meaningful game). Cliff Lee was excellent for the most part, striking out 16. However, he made 4 terrible pitches to 4 consecutive batters in one inning and the Braves took advantage. You can tell the Braves are hot because 2 of the hits tipped off the end of Phillies fielders' gloves. But they were all well hit. This netted them 3 runs.

When the Phillies got 2 hits in a row to start the 7th inning, after having none through the first 6, they responded with 3 consecutive strikeouts.

I'm not saying that this game is a season-changer or anything, but it was a pretty strong signal to the Phillies that they're going to have to raise their game during May, when they play almost exclusively against good teams. We'll soon see what they're made of.