Well now we have two teams that are in the League championship series. Philadelphia did what then needed to do to dispose of one of the more potent offense's in the NL yesterday behinnd the strong arm of Cole Hamels. Tampa Bay extened their series to a final and decisive game 5 against Texas and San Francisco took a 2-1 games lead with a come from behind win in Atlanta.
Tampa Bay seemed to have control of that game from the start. You just felt that Tampa was going to win this game from the start. Both starting pitchers weren't what you would call dominate. Both had 7 strikeouts. Wade Davis went 5 innings and gave up just 2 runs. Then Tampa's bullpen came in and finished the job to keep Texas off the scoreboard and helped send this series back to Tropicana field. While Texas had their starter, Tommy Hunter, go just 4 innings while giving up 3 runs. Then Washington turned to his bullpen and put in Derek Holland and gave up 2 runs of his own. Didn't really matter though as Texas could only muster 2 runs. Even though Tampa seems to have momentum on their side they have to face Cliff Lee in the final game. And he is 5-0 in six career postseason starts. So yeah, they have their work cut out for them.
How about Atlanta. One could say that they are a huge underdog against the Giants but somehow, someway, they are trying so hard to make this a series. Jonathon Sanchez shut down Atlanta's offense. With San Francisco looking dead in the water and down 1-0, Eric Hinske hit a 2 run homer off of Sergio Romo in the eighth and all of a sudden Atlanta was just 3 outs away from taking a commanding 2-1 lead in the series. Then came the top of the ninth. With 2 outs and the outcome looking pretty bleak for the Giants Buster Posey hit a pretty hard ground ball to the first base side of second, Brooks Conrad squared himself to scoop it up and throw to first but then the unthinkable happened. It went right under his glove and between his feet and into right field. And the Gaints take the lead and win the game. Fundametals man....fundametals. Get your glove down. I couldn't imagine how he feels after that. Will that be the play that Atlanta fans remember after the series is done. I hope not. It continues tonight.
And then their was one other game on last night. The Philadelphia Phillies put away the Cincinnati Reds and moved on to the next round behind the dominate performance of Cole Hamels. Cole pitched a complete 5 hit shutout. Cincinnati never really had much of a chance to win this game. He was everything that Philly fans and teammates alike hoped for. After the so-so performance by Oswalt some wondered if Cole would do the same or pitch a gem of his own. Now I wouldn't consider it "gem" of a perfromance. But he did strike out 9. And one of the best hitting lineups in the NL looked like they couldn't even see the ball. And lets be honest. Philadelphia's offense wasn't there either. They had one homerun all series. Chase Utley hit that yesterday. And that's it. We are a homerun hitting, RBI producing lineup. But it certainly didn't show in that series. Are they in another slump? Well.......I don't know I would call it a slump. I mean they are doing just enough to get by. But that won't fly if they want to make the World Series a third year in a row. And if they somehow do and they face New York. Then they better hope their bats wake up because we all know what will happen if they don't. Congratulations to Philadelphia and all their fans. (Oh wait thats me) :)