Opening Stinker

Gordon coughs up 5 earned runs in 9th as Phils lose season opener



The Phillies have now dropped 5 of their past 7 season openers since 2002 with yesterday's loss to the Nationals.

The culprit in this one was one Tom "Trash" Gordon, who you would think was trying to lose the game with the way he pitched. All in all he pitched one third of an inning, 20 pitches, 9 strikes, and gave up 5 runs to blow the game.

Charlie Manuel will assume all the blame for this one. He certainly deserves some because Romero should have stayed in the game, but the bottom line is Gordon should not have given up 5 earned runs in the friggin' 9th inning.

And, Brett Myers didn't exactly set the world on fire either, going just 5 innings and giving up 4 runs (3 earned). It was yet another opening day stinker for the Phils and it's setting the stage for yet another poor April. We've all seen this play out before. April for the Phillies is like watching a porno flick when the guy comes to fix the cable. You just know who's about to get F'd.

The offense did their job yesterday. Anytime you score 11 runs in a game, you should win the damn game.

The Phillies are idle until tomorrow when they'll get to try it all over again with Cole Hamels on the hill. Let's just hope he pitches a complete game and they can somehow get to the Reds series without using Gordon in that spot again before Lidge returns.

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Roy Williams trade rumor

Looks like I didn't start the widespread frenzy with my Roy Williams trade rumor this morning. That was an April Fool's Joke. In this day of the internet age, it's awfully hard to pull one off like that especially when anybody can just check espn, cbssports.com, or profootballtalk.com to see if there's validity to the rumor.

Better luck next year.