{"id":404,"date":"2009-10-21T11:03:35","date_gmt":"2009-10-21T15:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=404"},"modified":"2009-10-21T11:03:35","modified_gmt":"2009-10-21T15:03:35","slug":"a-couple-of-notes-on-the-nlcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=404","title":{"rendered":"A Couple of Notes on the NLCS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All I have to say is &#8220;Wow!&#8221;\u00a0 Let us all just sit back, for a second, and take in what we have been witnessing in these past two postseasons.\u00a0 If it were another team, somewhere else, we might see posts on BSB about it.\u00a0 But, it is <em>our <\/em>team.\u00a0 This is spectacular.\u00a0 Let us not lose the perspective that this may only happen once in a lifetime&#8211;if you&#8217;re lucky.\u00a0 This team combines just about everything you would want in a team for which you are rooting on a daily basis.\u00a0 Win or lose this year, we are witnessing something special.\u00a0 Think about the components of this team:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A never-say-die attitude that makes them so much better when the game\/season is on the line.<\/li>\n<li>An affable, but underappreciated manager who is a true baseball &#8220;lifer&#8221; and seems to be enjoying this ride as much as anyone.\u00a0 As Doogan mentioned the other day, he really is a guy that you want to succeed.\u00a0 And, they&#8217;re not doing it &#8220;despite&#8221; him or even &#8220;for&#8221; him; this team succeeds &#8220;because&#8221; of Charlie Manuel.<\/li>\n<li>An incredible work ethic, personified by its best players.\u00a0 The old sports adage that says that a good team is one where their best players are also their hardest workers.\u00a0 Chase Utley and Ryan Howard are absolute workaholics.\u00a0 It&#8217;s well-documented that Utley is among the most prepared hitters in baseball.\u00a0 His film study routine rivals Peyton Manning&#8217;s.\u00a0 And, think about Ryan Howard.\u00a0 He was the MVP in 2007 and the runner-up in 2008.\u00a0 He has earned himself back-to-back\u00a0<em>record-setting <\/em>arbitration contracts.\u00a0 His offensive prowess, alone, will make him more money than he can fathom spending in his lifetime.\u00a0 And, then last October, he leads his team to a World Series championship.\u00a0 So, what does he do to celebrate this offseason?\u00a0 He is already a World Champion, an MVP, and a ridiculously wealthy man.\u00a0 He has the <em>best <\/em>power numbers to start a career of anyone who has ever played.\u00a0 But, instead of saying &#8220;I&#8217;ve made it; I&#8217;m at the top of my profession,&#8221; he decides to use the offseason to improve the only two things anyone has ever questioned about his game&#8211;his weight and his defense.\u00a0 That is the sign of a true professional.<\/li>\n<li>And, not only do we fans want to see the best players working the hardest, but we also need an attitude.\u00a0 This team has that, too.\u00a0 Other teams <em>hate <\/em>Shane Victorino, and for all the right reasons.\u00a0 Jimmy Rollins has the ultimate &#8220;F-you&#8221; attitude.\u00a0 Even Utley, who is quiet and seemingly mild-mannered, has an intensity that manifests itself when he is challenged.\u00a0 Plus, you throw the wild-card of Pedro Martinez into the mix, and this team has the perfect combination of &#8220;good guys&#8221; and &#8220;hell-raisers&#8221; to be both professional and unintimidated, at the same time.<\/li>\n<li>They have character.\u00a0 The only guy who has even aroused any steroid discussion is injured relief pitcher, J.C. Romero&#8211;who was never caught for anything related to steroids.\u00a0 He was suspended for taking something on the banned substances list, but it was not anything that is even remotely linked to a steroid of any kind.\u00a0 This team is clean.\u00a0 And, they are just good.<\/li>\n<li>And, finally, they have fun, and they really band together.\u00a0 Most of the team is home-grown, from the farm system.\u00a0 Again, as Doogan, mentioned, I thought the same thing about Howard talking about Ruiz running faster than he&#8217;s seen since Rookie Ball in Clearwater.\u00a0 These guys have been together every step of the way.\u00a0 They are not hired mercenaries.\u00a0 They are brothers.\u00a0 Even Chan-Ho Park has said that on all the teams he has even been on since coming to the States from Korea, he has never actually felt like a part of the team&#8230;until now.\u00a0 He felt like he belonged from Day One.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, now, we are one win away from a World Series date, probably with the notorious Bronx Bombers.\u00a0 The &#8220;Best Team that Money Can Buy,&#8221; the team with, <em>by far<\/em>, the largest steroid cloud over the past decade.\u00a0 The team that fired their manager after TWELVE consecutive playoff appearances.\u00a0 The team that spent a half-a-billion dollars this offseason.\u00a0 This could be a lot of fun&#8230;if we get there.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, both series are 3-1, but let us not get ahead of ourselves.\u00a0 And, let us look at a couple notes about the NLCS, and <em>possibly<\/em>, moving forward.\u00a0 These are just random notes about a lot of things Phillies-related:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Okay, I really do not understand\u00a0the fact that Pedro looks like he will be\u00a0the Game Six starter.\u00a0 Maybe it&#8217;s not a final decision because, obviously, the Phillies are hoping there won&#8217;t a Game Six, but it makes absolutely no sense to throw Pedro and not Cliff Lee.\u00a0 We all know that anything can happen in a Game Seven, so you have to do everything in your power to avoid one.\u00a0 And, Lee, having pitched Sunday, would be on regular rest for Friday&#8217;s Game Six.\u00a0 PLUS (and this is a big one), IF the Phillies do win this NLCS, the World Series starts on Wednesday night.\u00a0 This means that if Lee pitches Friday in Game Six, he will be ready, on regular rest for Game One.\u00a0 But, if the Phils throw Pedro and lost, and need Lee on Saturday for Game Seven, he won&#8217;t be ready until Game Two on Thursday.\u00a0 Again, I haven&#8217;t found anything from the Phillies brass saying that it won&#8217;t be Lee, so I hope that they see the logic as well.\u00a0 Plus, wouldn&#8217;t you rather have Lee in a Game Six, when saving the bullpen is important and then throw Pedro in a Game Seven when it&#8217;s &#8220;all-hands-on-deck?&#8221;\u00a0 I know I would.\u00a0 But, let&#8217;s not think about any games back in LA (unless it&#8217;s in Anaheim), especially a Game Seven.<\/li>\n<li>I think it&#8217;s funny that the Dodgers are going with Vicente Padilla in Game Five.\u00a0 Is Torre desperate?\u00a0 And, if so, is Vicente Padilla really the answer to desperation?<\/li>\n<li>How good has Carlos Ruiz been?\u00a0 To get that kind of production out of the bottom of the lineup, with this STACKED order, is invaluable.<\/li>\n<li>All through these playoffs, I have heard all the pundits talking about Brad Lidge, and I have never, ever bought into the &#8220;Lidge is Back&#8221; theory&#8230;until Monday night.\u00a0 I did not see what the &#8220;experts&#8221; were seeing.\u00a0 Yes, he was three-for-three in save opportunities, but I thought all three were shaky&#8230;until Monday.\u00a0 His performance, albeit against just two hitters, was STARKLY reminiscent of the 2008 version.\u00a0 Both hitters were fooled by slider and unable to hit fastballs.\u00a0 He looked\u00a0dominant.<\/li>\n<li>I am sick of Phillies fans complaining about the &#8220;bias&#8221; of the national announcers.\u00a0\u00a0And, I am just as sick of non-Phillies fans feeling they have to defend Chip Caray and Ron Darling.\u00a0 They are not\u00a0biased, they are just really<em>,\u00a0really <\/em>bad.\u00a0\u00a0I know I said this before, but I thought Brian Anderson and Joe Simpson were terrific in the first round, am I crazy?<\/li>\n<li>But, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.the700level.com\/2009\/10\/mlbcom-jumps-the-gun.html\">this<\/a> is pretty funny.<em>\u00a0 <\/em>Apparently, MLB.com posted a &#8220;Dodgers Tie Series&#8221; headline a bit early.<\/li>\n<li>If you are a Phillies fan, and you haven&#8217;t read <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/mlb\/playoffs\/2009\/columns\/story?columnist=stark_jayson&amp;id=4578540\">this article<\/a>, by the best baseball writer on the planet, then you need to.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All I have to say is &#8220;Wow!&#8221;\u00a0 Let us all just sit back, for a second, and take in what we have been witnessing in these past two postseasons.\u00a0 If it were another team, somewhere else, we might see posts &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=404\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[774,773,772,69,23,377,590,382,30,767,655,70,632,771,14,765,328,16,218,369,760,62],"class_list":["post-404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-774","tag-2009-alcs","tag-2009-nlcs","tag-angels","tag-brad-lidge","tag-carlos-ruiz","tag-chan-ho-park","tag-charlie-manuel","tag-chase-utley","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-cliff-lee","tag-dodgers","tag-jc-romero","tag-jayson-stark","tag-jimmy-rollins","tag-joe-torre","tag-pedro-martinez","tag-phillies","tag-ryan-howard","tag-shane-victorino","tag-vicente-padilla","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}