To Phillies fans that follow me:
It sucks. I know. The over-glorification of your pitching staff and team comes with the territory of actually being a great team. A 100+ win team going down in the first round of the playoffs hurts. The 2003 Giants went through the same thing, so I know the devastating feeling.
I’m not exactly the #1 Phillies supporter, but I am sorry that your team — the team that was pretty much the favorites to shine in the playoffs — were knocked out like that after having so much confidence in them.
They’ll be back strong next year. They’ve been strong for 5 years, and that doesn’t exactly just sizzle out. The Giants will be back strong as well. Although the past couple years doesn’t exactly qualify as a rivalry, I’m looking forward to the upcoming Giants-Phillies series in 2012, especially Lincecum/Halladay and Bumgarner/Lee matchups.
Dingerzz. That was semi-nostalgic…
SSORY DOC.
Bowker Mania has reached the east coast.
Giants: ”Worley gets a CG! Lee gets a CG! EVERYBODY GETS A CG!”
Not to say I didn’t enjoy it though, but that was a useless fight.
How would Bumgarner feel if he was on a team that got him wins?
How would Belt feel if he was on a team that gave him playing time?
I’m pretty sure that Pence was eventually thrilled to be on a winning team, just as Keppinger and Beltran are.
Apparently Charlie Manuel determines that wins and tenure qualify a good (not great) pitcher. He’s starting to sound like Keith Olbermann.
“What’s a great pitcher? A great pitcher is a guy who pitches quite a few years, and he has some 20-game seasons and stuff like that,” Manuel said.
“Lincecum and Cain and their two lefties (Jonathan) Sanchez and (Madison) Bumgarner, they’re good pitchers. They’re very good pitchers. I said our team can hit them. Their stuff is not so overpowering and great that we can’t hit them. That’s what I meant, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever [Lincecum] thinks — good.”
What a sore loser. He’s one of the reasons everyone’s so biased against the Giants’ rotation.
(Source: csnbayarea.com)
“It’s probably just frustration speaking,” he said.
Did Lincecum take it personally when Manuel called him and Matt Cain good but not great? Not really, he said. But he took issue with Manuel bringing up Lincecum’s gun readings while saying his stuff wasn’t dominant and the Phillies could get him next time.
“There are guys who can dominate throwing 87 (mph) and there are guys (hitters) who can hit 97,” Lincecum said. “It’s the major leagues. It’s all about execution.
“He’s probably speaking out of frustration and dealing with their first home series loss since however long you guys said it was. (It was April.) It’s something they’re not used to, and it probably has something to do with what happened in the NLCS last year, too. I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”
Lincecum is pretty laid back, as most folks know. It’s hard to get a reaction out of him over much. But he returned to the velocity issue, clearly a bit irked by that part of Manuel’s comments in which the manager was unimpressed with Lincecum’s stuff.
“Cainer was throwing the same numbers up there,” Lincecum said. “He doesn’t hump up unless he has to, and with his stuff, he still dominates teams. So I don’t know how miles per hour has to do with dominance.”
Lincecum saved his zinger for the end.
“They had a guy, Moyer, right? Talk to him about that one,” he said.
From Andrew Baggarly’s Pre-game Notes
I’d say that was a good, but not great, response.
