Awww, Manny Thinks He’s Tough (and Other Game 3 Notes)

Not going to live-blog tonight, but I'm going to write a few thoughts as the game goes along.

- My first thought on Jamie Moyer’s rough start is this: Can we throw him out there again? Right now, he would be in line to pitch Game 7 of the NLCS, and I don’t think you can put him out there after his two playoff starts. He wasn’t just bad in both, he was atrocious. 5.1 IP, 8 ER, 13 base-runners. That’s 16 outs and 13 base-runners.

- We just aren’t able to play small ball. Howard gets a lead-off double and we promptly hit two deep fly balls. Thankfully, Feliz got him in, but right now we need more than one run.

- OK, this little Victorino/Kuroda thing is going to be all anyone talks about tomorrow. Here’s my take: It was fine for Kuroda to throw at someone because, whether Brett Myers meant to or not, he threw behind Manny Ramirez. It was also fine for Victorino to point out the unspoken baseball rule of not throwing at someone's head. What I didn’t like was Russell Martin smirking at Victorino like he had accomplished something and Ramirez running out to all-of-a-sudden pretend he’s tough. What was he going to do if his teammates hadn’t held him back (like he knew they would)? Hit Myers with one of his braids? He’d probably quit mid-fight anyway.

- Why exactly did we cut off that throw? We had Manny dead to rights at home plate, and Ruiz could have lowered his shoulder and leveled him in a collision. We can’t be trading runs for outs right now.

- McCarver keeps talking about how good it is for the Dodgers that they threw at Victorino and blah blah blah. If it’s that important, why didn’t someone TELL Billingsley to do it? Do they really need a fracas to get themselves pumped up for the NLCS? Could it be they didn’t want to start something in Philly because of the very real possibility that the fans would storm the field and kill them all? Who knows.

- Speaking of the announcers (this game has been obscenely boring since the brush back, I got nothing else to talk about), it will be a great day when Fox loses the rights to baseball and football. In this particular series, it’s nauseating to hear them talk constantly about the Dodgers, play “I love L.A.” during every break and pretty much act as though the Phillies are here by accident. Then again, this is the same network that STILL thinks the football-playing robots are a totally awesome, bad ass intro to watching football games. Their graphics are hokey, their K-zone is wildly inaccurate, the camera in front of the plate is incredibly useless, their announcers are bad, and the overall coverage stinks. Get the World Series back on NBC with Bob Costas where it belongs.

- Maybe we give Happ a start. He’s been solid all year as a starter. Why exactly did we take him out?

- Let me ask you this: After watching Moyer tonight and knowing that Blanton is going tomorrow, would you entertain trading Ryan Howard in the off-season for a quality starter? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.

- Buck just mentioned that teams that go up 2-0 in a series have a 16-3 record. Why did that just make me more nervous?

- We’ve got to be more patient tomorrow night with Lowe.

- First and third with no one out. If we are going to make a move, this will be it. Let’s see what we do. If nothing else, a couple runs here would get some confidence back into our line-up. Result? One run. Not what I was looking for.

- Another example of terrible Fox coverage? Jayson Werth just had a huge strike out in that inning on a very questionable check swing call, and we didn’t get one angle that showed whether he swung or not.

- The way our offense is playing tonight, it's looking like it really didn’t matter how Moyer pitched. Rollins, in particular, looks lost. Just swung at terrible pitch for a strike-out.

- There's really just not much to talk about tonight. All the excitement was taken out of the game in the first inning, and the rest was just boring and frustrating. I didn’t get charged up once this entire game. It seemed like it was over before it started.

- I don’t like our chances tomorrow night. The Dodgers have momentum. Lowe is pitching at home. I'm still not confident with Blanton, despite his NLDS performance.

What's on everyone else’s mind after this game? No big deal or a huge momentum swing?