Phillies Clinch 5th Straight NL East Title In The Grandest Of Ways

Even though the Phillies had seemingly an insurmountable lead on the NL East and clinching the title was all but an inevitability for at least the past month or so, tonight's events were no less exciting or fulfilling because of it.  Up 5-2 in the bottom of the 8th, the Phillies seemed to be poised to take the title, but in the inning prior, the Cardinals had gotten two runs back and would have certainly wanted more in the 9th as they tried to keep pace with the Braves.  But, those dreams were soon dashed when on came Raul Ibanez to ensure the quickest NL East clinch in Phillies history.  And with the home fans looking on, Ibanez delivered a grand slam heard round Philadelphia.

Those would prove to be the last runs of the game.  The Phillies won 9-2 and are officially 2011 National League East Champions.  I remember September 30, 2007 like it was yesterday.  How did we get here?

Roy Halladay Is Awesome

There are several reasons why I like Roy Halladay other than the fact that he is an amazing pitcher. For starters, he is as hard a worker as any pitcher out there. Also, he is a humble guy and a class act the likes of which you do not find every day in major American professional sports. Case and point, Roy Halladay has decided to thank all of his teammates who helped make the perfect game on May 29, 2010 possible. From the Twitter account of Delaware County Times beat writer Ryan Lawrence.

That is simply awesome. I just hope he remembers to send one to Juan Castro.....

Update: Per Ryan Lawrence, Juan Castro will get a watch, as will essentially everyone was a part of the Phillies team that day, whether they physically played in the game or not (i.e. bullpen pitchers and bench players are getting watches as well). Also, per Matt Gelb, Milt Thompson is receiving one as well. For a little more about Roy's presenting of the watches, here is an article from Gelb's blog, The Phillies Zone

The righthander purchased around 60 Baume & Mercier watches to commemorate his perfect game May 29. He gave out the watches as gifts to everyone in the clubhouse — all of the players who were on the active roster then, the entire coaching staff, all clubhouse personnel (including bat boy Rob DiClementi), training and video staff as well as public relations officials.

The watches were enclosed in brown boxes with an inscription on the front: “We did it together. Thanks, Roy Halladay.”

“Unbelievable,” Raul Ibanez said as he opened his. “Wow.”

It’s not unusual for a pitcher to reward his teammates for a milestone like a perfect game. Halladay went beyond that.

Each watch was engraved on the back with the date of the game and the linescore. Every watch was personalized, the person’s name engraved on the back of their watch.

“That’s awesome,” Ryan Howard said, as he inspected the thick instruction manual that came with every watch.

[...]

A little more than an hour before first pitch, the players sat at their lockers, finagling with the watches. Halladay, from the corner of the room, watched and smiled.

Brad Lidge shook his head in disbelief. He wasn’t even in Miami the night Halladay threw the perfect game. Instead, he was pitching in a rehab game 100 miles north in Port St. Luice, Fla.

Like I said above, simply awesome.

Raul Ibanez Is Not A Fan Of Blogs

Part of being a blogger regardless of how big you are or how many readers you have, you have to take accountability for what you write and if you are going to make or report on some accusations, you have to some sources to cite otherwise you risk something like this happening. Apparently The Philadelphia Inquirer stumbled upon a blogger wondering if Ibanez used steroids and when that was made public in yesterday's Inquirer, Raul Ibanez was not at all happy. Au contraire, he was rather quite upset and angry and that led to this angry tirade of words. Via the Philadelphia Inquirer

"I'll come after people who defame or slander me," he said before last night's game against the New York Mets. "It's pathetic and disgusting. There should be some accountability for people who put that out there."

"Unfortunately, I understand the environment we're in and the events that have led us to this era of speculation," he said. "At the same time, you can't just walk down the street and accuse somebody of being a thief because they didn't have a nice car yesterday and they do today. You can't say that guy is a thief."

Ibanez said he had never used performance-enhancing drugs.

"You can have my urine, my hair, my blood, my stool - anything you can test," Ibanez said. "I'll give you back every dime I've ever made" if the test is positive.

"I'll put that up against the jobs of anyone who writes this stuff," he said. "Make them accountable. There should be more credibility than some 42-year-old blogger typing in his mother's basement. It demeans everything you've done with one stroke of the pen.

"Nobody is above the testing policy. We've seen that."

Ibanez, who signed with the Phils as a free agent over the winter, has impressed team officials and teammates with the time he spends in the weight room and batting cage.

"It's unfair because this story should be about how hard work, determination, and desire trumps chemicals and shortcuts," he said. "That should be the message: desire, character, work ethic. But some guy who doesn't know me - one idiot - says something like this. They should be held accountable. It's cowardly."

Maybe it is naive homerism, but I definitley believe Raul Ibanez on this one. And also keep in mind the fact where he came from. Ibanez was a Seattle Mariner! Not only not a big baseball market, but a sucky team that no one cares about. I mean for goodness sakes, Ichiro is practically forgotten about up there. So naturally when Ibanezcomes to a big baseball market in Philadelphia there is going to be more media coverage of him and people wondering how on earth is this guy so good? They think that he's been in the league for awhile and because he never made a splash before that he is on the juice. That means nothing. And for those on the statistics bandwagon, you can get stats to say whatever the fuck you want them to say.

If anything, we definitley should NOT be surprised by the production of Ibanez. For one thing, he is now at Citizens Bank Park, one of the biggest homerun parks in MLB and going back to stats, try this one out for size that backs up my point that we should not be surprised that Ibanez is doing so well this year. Last season, Ibanez had a higher batting average than any Phillie did last year. Yep, his batting average was higher than Howard's, Utley's, Rollins', Victorino's, etc. If you were a Phillie in 2008, you did not have a higher batting average than Raul Ibanez of the Seattle Mariners.

Now there's an off-chance that I'm wrong and Ibanez is using juice. It would not be the first time someone has denied steriod use only to test positive for it later, but when all you are doing is comparing Ibanez's numbers from year to year, and not only that but when he switched teams, ballparks, and leagues, there is no case there. It's that simple.

Welcome To The Phillies, Raul Ibanez!

We've seen this before. The Phillies are perhaps one of the best and funniest at pranking their own players and yesterday they were at it again. This time the victim was a rather unsuspecting Raul Ibanez who was giving an interview after he hit a game-winning 2-run walkoff homerun that won the game for the Phillies, 5-4. I hope Raul likes pie.....



"Oh, shit!"

Too funny! Am I the first one that has ever thought to ask, why on earth would the Phillies have a shaving cream pie with them in the dugout? Regardless, it was still hilarious. Ibanez did not see Victorino coming at all, which made the outcome even funnier. But even so, it still does not top the prank they pulled on Kyle Kendrick last year...



Classic!