The Backyard Batting Cage

I’m posting this Tuesday, and I know that this is late for a weekend recap.  However, this was no ordinary weekend.  I feel like I was on a Vegas bender.  Here are 5 common sense lessons that the Phillies and the Eagles should have known already.

5. 6’2” is taller than 5’8”.  This one is the most obvious.  While Jerry Rice … I’m sorry it was Kenny Britt that was torching the Eagles secondary for 2 and a half quarters.  I’m sorry I didn’t think Asante Samuel played Left Cornerback.  I thought he played Cornerback.  Why not switch your big price CB to the receiver that had almost as many receiving yards as you (the Eagles) had passing yards (225 for Britt, 227 for the Eagles)?  It wasn’t all Ellis Hobbs fault, but where is the adjustment?

4.  Protect the plate with 2 strikes.   I see it more and more across baseball.  They teach you that in little league.  Two strikes, shorten up that swing.  If it’s close, you gotta swing.  On the Phillies, it felt like a disease.  Ryan Howard has been one of the chief patients with that disease.  I have always been a bit of a Ryan Howard defender.  I can’t defend that.  I don’t care if it was borderline low.  You are the cleanup hitter in what is supposed to be the best lineup in the NL, if not baseball.  Are you trying to take a walk with two outs and a full count in the ninth?  Swing the bat, big man.

3.  Andy Reid needs to do a better job.  Listen to his press conference.  Everything “is on him,” and “(he) needs to do a better job with that.”  Agreed.

2.  You can’t win if you don’t score.  The pitching for the Phils in the NLCS was good enough to win.  Maybe not Halladay in game 1, fine Lincecum was better.  Hamels pitched well in his start.  Oswalt was great.  The Phillies bats were silenced.  How is that this lineup all goes cold at the same time?  Howard no RBIs.  Howard did hit .303, however.  The rest of the team hit below .226.  Maybe he didn’t have any RBIs because nobody was on.  The postseason leader board is littered with Giants, who I still think are the inferior team.

1.  Missed opportunities will bite you in the rear end.  In the NLCS, there were a million. That series was for the Phillies what the Tampa Bay loss was to the Eagles.   I heard other people say it and I had the same thought.  That was a great shot at winning a championship and they came up small.  As for the Eagles, they’re up 16-7 with the ball on the Titans 3 in the third quarter.  Score a touchdown and it’s over.  The Eagles fumble and the rest is history.  Just add in their 10 penalties and holding down Chris Johnson, the league’s best back, for good measure.

What a great weekend.  Now, you know why it took me an extra day to collect myself.  I’m going to go back to bed now.

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