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| 11/17/2008 | | 10/25/2008 | | 10/16/2008 | | 10/5/2008 | | 9/24/2008 |
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1 | | 2830 | 2 | | 2800 | 3 | | 2715 | 4 | | 2680 | 5 | | 2635 |
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1 | | 11465 | 2 | | 11035 | 3 | | 10970 | 4 | | 9395 | 5 | | 9055 |
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ESPN is kicking off the College Basketball season with its' first annual college hoops tip-off marathon starting at midnight on Tuesday November 18th, 2008. Included in this slate of 14 college basketball games is a great Philadelphia city rivalry between the Drexel Dragons and the Penn Quakers. The game is being played at ten-o'clock in the morning eastern time and will be played at the Daskalakis Athletic Center on Drexel's campus.
In Division I basketball, there are no two programs closer, geographically, to each other than Drexel and Penn. Down in Center City Philadelphia, Drexel and Penn's campus are separated by one street and you can often see Penn students on Drexel's campus and vice-versa.
Drexel and Penn play each other every year and the game is usually held at the Palestra on Penn's campus, which is the oldest college basketball venue in the entire country. But this year, Drexel gets to play the host for the first time in a long time and the DAC will be rocking on Tuesday morning.
Normally competitive men's basketball programs, both Drexel and Penn had down years in 2007-2008. The Dragons finished with an overall record of 12-20, including 5-13 in the Colonial Athletic Association, and Penn finished with a solid Ivy League mark of 8-6, but had a sub-par overall record of 13-18.
This college hoops marathon courtesy of ESPN starts off with a match up between the Massachusetts Minutemen and last year's National runner-up, the Memphis Tigers. 
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| I am a pure Giants! The Giants will visit the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday in Heinz Field in what promises to be a special and perhaps memorable game. These are two of the NFL’s storied franchises, family-owned for the better part of a century, with histories as rich as the game itself. Both teams lead their divisions with 5-1 records. Both teams have terrific defenses, numerous playmakers on both sides of the ball and Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks taken among the first seven selections in the 2004 NFL Draft in Manning and Ben Roethlisberger.
The winner can legitimize the claim of being one of the league’s very best teams this season. Found some cool widgets at statbeast.com. Check it!
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| With us trying to get our fledgling website off the ground, I figured it might be a good idea to share some of the content we got going on over there with our good friends at the SportsFanbase. So I'll try and post up from time to time and see how this pans out. Here goes:
So, with the NBA Pre-Season officially underway there were a few things right off the bat that caught my attention that I had to speak on. Greg Oden played his first game last night, and while I didn’t see who was on him while he was in the game, he didn’t look half bad. He had the basic 1st year center offense; get good deep position down low, use good footwork, gather yourself, dunk. The same thing we saw from Shaq/Dwight/Bynum. Par for the course for Centers now days. This is important in my view because by contrast I also saw Andrew Bynum who looked EXTREMELY impressive. It’s easy to see he put in a lot of work for the second straight off-season and it is showing in his game. He’s going to have a monster year. He was confident. Had a lot of energy. And is straight chiseled. It made me laugh because I remember his rookie year when he was this doughy round faced kid who looked happy to be on the court. Remember when Shaq tip dunked all over his back and he
took offense and came down the next possession and dunked on Shaq and got all excited, then Shaq threw him a ‘bow? That was straight comedy. He doesn’t even look like the same person from back then. But alas, the reason I say this is important, in relation to Oden is because; barring injury, with Oden, Howard, and Bynum all in the league, peaking at a young age, what we have in the makings is this generation’s Hakeem/Ewing/David Robinson. We already know what Superman can do. Like I said, Bynum is set to break out, and I think what is going to happen with Oden is he’s not going to have a choice but to be great. If he has any kind of competitive nature, with Bynum being in the same
conference AND division, they will push each other year after year. We’ve already seen that Bynum has the work ethic to be a dominant player. Oden is not going to take kindly to being dominated and dunked on, and will turn his game up a notch to match. And it will go like that for years to come. In my opinion this is good for the NBA as they continue to try and reshape the image of the league. As we saw last year they are working hard on marketing guys who paint the league in a good light. Tolerance for idiotic behavior is at an all-time low. And the black eye that is the Tim Donaghy scandal still looms over the league coming into the season as every time a call is blown, or a game
is in question, there will be eyebrows raised as to whether or not there is an ulterior motive. What better way to shift focus away from the black marks on the league than to embrace what could be your future big man rivalries for the next 10-12 years? This is why I feel the maturation and play of Oden in the pre-season is vital. The more comfortable and confident he is, the better he will play. Now if we can ensure that Bynum and Gasol can co-exist so that we don’t see a Josh Howard for Bynum trade, I think these should be exciting times. Now lets not get ahead of ourselves. Both of these dudes are going to get murked by Yao for a good 3 years. But just like Shaq did to Hakeem and
David, once they get over that hump, they are SNATCHING the title of dominant big man out of Yao’s grasp. And then my friend, it will be as Tick says, on like neckbone.
Irv Sweet,
cohost of Real Talk with Pierre and Irv
Irv@realtalksports.com
WWW.REALTALKSPORTS.COM
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| Can you believe I am still writing these Phillies Weekly reports? Who would have thought?
After their win in Game Four of the National League Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, the Philadelphia Phillies are headed to the NLCS for the first time in 15 years. Not only are the Phils advancing to the NLCS, but they get home-field advantage in the series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. How about that?
The Phillies took care of business at home in this past series, taking full advantage of having the home-field advantage.
In game one, the Phillies capitalized on Brewers fielding errors to get a 3-1 victory. With the game scoreless in the bottom of the third, Phils catcher Carlos Ruiz lined a single up the middle.
The next batter, pitcher Cole Hamels, laid down a sacrifice bunt fielded by Brewers third baseman Bill Hall. Hall, who thought about throwing it to second base to get Ruiz, threw the ball to first base for the easy out only to have it dropped by second baseman covering, Rickie Weeks.
So with two on with no outs, the top of the lineup was ready to come to the plate. After a Jimmy Rollins flyout and a Jayson Werth strikeout, Phillies second baseman Chase Utley drove a ball into deep centerfield. Brewers gold glove centerfielder Mike Cameron got some leather on it, but couldn’t come up with the catch allowing both Ruiz and Hamels to score.
A bases loaded walk would give the Phils a 3-0 after three innings and that is all Hamels would need. Hamels went eight shut out innings and struck out nine Brewers hitters. Brad Lidge came in for the save in the ninth innings and while it was a shaky 35-pitch save, he got the job done.
In game two, the Phillies once against jumped out to an early lead. But the impressive part about game two was that the Phils did it against Brewers ace starting pitcher, C.C. Sabathia.
After the Brewers got a run on a bases loaded walk by Phillies starting pitcher Brett Myers, the Phils countered with a big second inning. With one out, Werth and Pedro Feliz had back-to-back doubles to get the Phils their first run to tie the game at 1-1. Then after a Ruiz ground out, Myers had the best at-bat of his life with working a nine-pitch walk.
After walking Myers, Sabathia walked Rollins on four pitches giving way to Phils outfielder Shane Victorino. With the count 1-2, Victorino took a hanging curveball from Sabathia out into the left-field seats in Citizen’s Bank Park for the first ever grand slam in Phillies playoff history.
That made the score 5-1 and behind the arm of Myers, Ryan Madson, J.C. Romero and Lidge, the Phils took game two by a score of 5-2.
The Phillies then traveled to Milwaukee where they lost in game three by a score of 4-1. Starting pitcher Jamie Moyer gave up two runs in the first innings and the Phils could never recover.
Starting on the mound in game four for the Phillies was mid-season acquisition Joe Blanton. This would be a true test as to whether Blanton was worth three prospects or if this was another bad mid-season trade by the Phillies organization.
Blanton got an early lead as Rollins led off the game with a solo home run, which would ultimately set the tone for the entire game. With the lead still 1-0 in the third inning, Phils’ outfielder Pat Burrell came to the plate with runners at first and third. Burrell came up with the clutch hit and smacked a three-run home run into the left-field seats, giving the Phillies a 4-0 lead.
Now with a big lead, Blanton got even more comfortable going six-plus innings and only giving one run on a Price Fielder solo home run.
The Phillies added one more on another Burrell home run and the Phillies went on to win by a score of 6-2 to give them the NLDS clinching victory.
Now the Phillies are in the NLCS against the Dodgers. The Dodgers pulled off the unlikely sweep of the Chicago Cubs, who had the best regular season record in the National League.
During the regular season, the Phillies and Dodgers split their season series as the Dodgers swept the Phils in L.A. and the Phillies returned the favor at Citizen’s Bank Park.
So what should we expect from this series?
Comparing these two teams on paper, they are fairly even in all aspects of the game. The Dodgers have been hitting very well as of late and contributions are coming from many different players. Both teams starting rotations were good in their respective Division Series’ and both teams’ bullpens have been good as well.
So what will determine the outcome of this series?
There are two things that will determine the outcome of this series: The bullpen and hitting with runners in scoring position.
The Dodgers bullpen has been very good as of late and their closer Jonathan Broxton has some nasty stuff. Meanwhile, the Phillies bullpen is equipped with players such as Lidge, Madson and Romero, all of whom are very capable pitchers.
Hitting with runners in scoring position has been an issue for the Phillies both in the regular season and in the playoffs. On the other hand, the Dodgers have done a good job of hitting with runners in scoring position and that is one of the reasons why the Cubs season is over.
With the NLCS format being 2-3-2, the Phillies have the first two games at home followed by three games in Los Angeles. That being said, it is extremely important for the Phillies to take the first two games at home to take control of the series.
If the Dodgers are able to win one or two games in Philadelphia, it will be a tough task for the Phillies to bring the series back to Citizen’s Bank Park for game six.
But if the Phillies pitching holds up and the lineup starts hitting with runners in scoring position more consistently, we could be talking about the World Series in the next Phillies report on Think Philly Sports.com.
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| Going into the last road trip of the season, I think many Phillies fans hoped for their team to win four out of the six games played. That situation would have been more than ideal and the Phillies would have been in a solid position in the National League playoff race.
So what ended up happening? Well the Phillies swept the Atlanta Braves and took two out of three games from the red-hot Florida Marlins.
The game one win over the Braves was all because of Ryan Howard. After starting pitching Jamie Moyer and relievers Chad Durbin and Scott Eyre gave up four runs in the sixth inning to make it 7-4, the Phils got two of those runs back off a Howard triple and a Shane Victorino single. With the score still 7-6 in the seventh inning, Howard came to the plate with two outs and a man on and slugged a two-run home run to give the Phillies a permanent 8-7 lead.
In game two, the Phillies got four runs in the first inning and never looked back thanks to rookie left-hander J.A. Happ. Happ threw six innings of shut out baseball to earn his first Major League victory.
In the final game of the Braves series, outfielder Pat Burrell mashed a game-winning two-run home run in the sixth inning, leading to a 4-3 Phillies victory.
Going into Miami, the Phillies had won seven games in a row while the Marlins were on a streak of their own with eight wins in a row.
Because of that, a slug fest occurred in Miami on Friday night and the Phillies ended up losing by a score of 14-8. Phils starting pitcher Brett Myers went four innings and gave ten earned runs, his worst outing since coming back from his minor league rehab assignment.
In game two of the series, the Phillies got back on the winning track with a gritty 3-2 victory. Third baseman Greg Dobbs had a “bloop” RBI-single to score Howard to give the Phillies that third and final run of the game. In five innings of work, Phillies starter Joe Blanton gave up two runs and struck out a career-high nine batters.
Then came the rubber match of the Florida series and on the hill was the “Master of the Marlins,” Jamie Moyer. Moyer was “masterful” pitching six innings and giving up only one run. Two-run home runs by Chase Utley and Pedro Feliz powered the Phils to a 5-2 victory.
While the Phillies won five of six on the road, the Milwaukee Brewers, Houston Astros and New York Mets were all having trouble in their respective series. Therefore, at the end of the weekend the Phillies commanded a 1-1/2 game lead in the NL East division and narrowed their magic number to clinch a playoff berth down to four.
One can look at the Philadelphia Phillies and ask: “Why are they playing so well?” The simple answer: This has become a total team effort.
The starting pitching has kept the Phils in games the resurgence of Brett Myers, the consistency of left-handers Cole Hamels and Jamie Moyer and the much improved play of mid-season acquisition, Joe Blanton.
The bullpen has done an unbelievable job as the Phillies are currently 75-0 when leading after the eighth inning. This statistic is thanks in large part to All-Star closer Brad Lidge, who is now 40-for-40 in save opportunities this season. In addition, Ryan Madson has quietly become a solid setup man during the month of September, something the Phillies desperately needed.
The offense is getting hot at the right time. The good thing about the lineup is that they are picking each other up. The Phillies are no longer just relying on one hot bat to lead the offensive parade in each particular game. Howard, Utley, Rollins, Burrell, Victorino, Werth, Dobbs, Feliz, Ruiz – All these players have made significant contributions during the Phillies great month of September.
So what lies ahead for our Fightin’ Phils? Well with the big road trip out of the way, the Phillies finish with a six-game home stand in which the Phillies take on the Braves for three games and the Washington Nationals for three games.
Thus far this season, the Phillies are 13-2 against the Braves and 9-6 against the Nationals. So hopefully the Phillies can add to that win total this week.
While the Phillies do control their own destiny, a slip up here and there during this week will force the Phillies to “scoreboard watch.”
Good thing for the Phillies, the Mets have to play the National League-leading Chicago Cubs and those feisty Marlins in the final week of the year while the Brewers play the lowly Pirates but also have to play the Cubs in a three-game series.
Everything seems to be pointing in the Phillies favor in this final playoff push. All the Phils have to do now is take care of business in Citizens Bank Park.
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| What a weekend for the Philadelphia Phillies!
Following a disastrous series loss to their division rival, the Florida Marlins, the Phillies rebound in a big way. With the Milwaukee Brewers coming into town for a four-game series and the Phillies four games behind them in the National League Wildcard race, it seemed like it would be too good to be true for the Phils to sweep and tie the Brewers for the NL Wildcard lead.
But that is just what those Fightin’ Phils did and now the Phils are tied for the lead in the NL Wildcard race and, thanks to the Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets bullpen, are now only one game back in the NL East division race.
In game one of the Brewers series, the Phillies got some runs early off of All-Star right-hander Ben Sheets with a two-run home run from Ryan Howard in the first inning. Jamie Moyer held the lead for the Phillies and Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge both did great jobs out of the bullpen, leading the Phils to a 6-3 victory.
After a rainout on Friday, Saturday provided for a matchup of crafty left-handers as Milwaukee’s Manny Parra opposed Philadelphia’s Cole Hamels. Parra got lit up early by the Phillies offense, giving up five runs in 1 1/3 innings. Meanwhile, Hamels was cruising only giving up two runs 6 1/3 innings of work, leading the Phillies to a 7-3 victory.
As a make-up for the rainout on Friday, the Phillies and Brewers played a day-night doubleheader on Sunday. Most Phillies fans realized that the tough game to win would be game one of the “double dip” with inconsistent right-hander Joe Blanton taking the hill.
Despite giving up a two-run home run in the first inning, Blanton settled down and pitched seven strong innings, giving up only three earned runs. The Phillies struggled against Brewers starting pitcher Dave Bush up until the sixth inning. With Chase Utley on base, Howard hit an opposite field home run to tie the game at 3-3. In the eighth inning, the Phillies put the finishing touches on a big with a game-winning RBI single by Pat Burrell followed by a big three-run home run by Shan Victorino, giving the Phils a 7-3 win.
With three wins in the books, the Phillies were nice and relaxed for the night cap of the day-night doubleheader while the Brewers looked like a beaten team. Once again, the Phillies scored early and often providing more than enough offense for Phillies starting pitcher Brett Myers. Myers pitched a complete game two-hitter, giving the Phillies a 6-1 victory and a share of the lead in the NL Wildcard race.
Looking at this four-game sweep of the Brewers, there are many things we can take away from it. Not only does this put the Phillies in a very good position in the National League playoff race, but it also takes the pressure off the Phillies the rest of the season.
After the Marlins series loss, Myers was quoted saying the Phillies were putting a lot of pressure on themselves to make up ground in the playoff race. Now, the Phils control their own destiny and that will certainly alleviate some pressure.
Another important fact you can take away from this series is that the Phillies scored a lot of runs. In four games, the Phillies scored 26 runs and they scored six runs or more in every game. So not only are the Phillies scoring runs, but they are doing it consistently.
From the pitching perspective, you could not ask for four better starts than what Moyer, Hamels, Blanton and Myers gave in this series. The start the Blanton gave on Sunday afternoon was extremely encouraging since he was not able to go more than five innings in his last several starts.
Not only was the starting pitching great, the bullpen did a great job as well. In 7 2/3 innings, the bullpen only gave up one earned run the entire series. Considering how inconsistent the bullpen has been as of late, that is another encouraging statistic.
This week, the Phillies have their final road trip of the regular season with a three-game series in Atlanta against the Braves and a three-game series in Miami against the Florida Marlins.
If Phillies skipper Charlie Manuel elects not to pitch Blanton on three days rest, then he will have to go with right-hander Kyle Kendrick on Wednesday in the second game of the Braves series. If Manuel were to do that, the Phillies would need a big game from the 24-year old Kendrick to keep the Phillies in the game.
Looking ahead to the Marlins series, the Phillies will most likely have to face the right-handers Josh Johnson and Chris Volstad. These are two pitchers that the Phils have not had a lot of success against this season. However, the good news is that the Phillies will face right-hander Anibal Sanchez, who the Phillies beat in this past three-game series when the Marlins were in town.
Overall, I would hope for nothing less than a 4-2 record on this road trip. This season, the Phillies are 6-0 in Atlanta and are 10-2 overall against the Braves. Therefore, winning two out of three is the minimum most Phillies fans would be satisfied with. If the Phillies were to sweep the Braves, perhaps winning only one of three in Miami would be permissible. However, every game counts so the Phillies need to go out, play hard and give a total team effort during this all-important road trip.
In past Phillies Reports, I have used the words “rollercoaster” and “inconsistent” to describe the Phillies play. But consistency and total team effort are words that can describe this four-game sweep over the Brewers. If this is any indication of the way the Phillies will play in these final 12 games of the year, then I would say Phils fans are in for some October baseball.
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