They Did What?!?

Unlikely Phils win today that did a lot to take the bad taste from last night's debacle out of my mouth. Down 4-0 against Brandon Webb who retired something like 12 in a row over the middle innings, the team rallied with a two-run jack by Tomas "the Happy Hacker" Perez in the 7th and a pinch-hit bomb from Burrell to tie it in the ninth. (I'd done the sit-at-home equivalent of leaving early, turning off the choppy web radio signal a few minutes before. Fortunately it's easier to re-engage pushing a few buttons than turning the car around and trying to convince some zit-faced usher to let you back into your seats.) After a frustrating missed opportunity with the bases loaded and one out in the 11th, then an Arizona run following a Rollins error that would have ended the top of the 14th, the Phils came back one more time with a pinch-double by David "Mr. Clutch" Bell, who was immediately pinch-run for by Randy Wolf. Following an IBB to Abreu and a more-or-less IBB to Thome, they won it on a presumably unintentional walk to Ricky Ledee that forced Wolf home. Young Ryan Madson picked up his second win--and a good thing too, because if not for the two-spot in the 14th he would have earned his second loss to go with a 0.00 ERA for the season. That's no fun.

This was one of those games where the losing vibe seemed overpowering. But maybe the Phils are the baseball equivalent of a fighter who needs to get punched a few times just to wake up. Now let's see if we can finally scale Mount .500, and then catch the evil Marlins.

Meanwhile, the release of Joe Wilson's book this weekend reminds me that the Valerie Plame scandal could yet be the figurative pony in the big pile of manure under the Xmas tree we call the Bush administration. (Take your time figuring that one out.) Here's a good interview with Wilson himself.

If there's any justice, the bastards will burn for this one. My question is why none of our tribunes in the press corps(e) have ever questioned Bush the Elder about this disgraceful violation of a law he pushed to enact back in the day, and whether he thinks his son's flunkies are indeed "the most insidious of traitors."