👋 Good morning! Kevin Burkhardt and TB12 calling Eagles-Chiefs, would not have it any other way.

Does an enterprising gambling company want to set a prop bet for the amount times Brady says “Paaattttricckkk? on Sunday. The over-under has to be in the 20s.

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Righteous Felon Craft Jerky, which is delicious. We have some in the office and I have been sampling it over the past week.

This Chester County based company has the perfect snack that satisfies your hunger and provides the right amount of protein to fulfill your body’s daily needs, and they have been doing it for over a decade. If you are the kind of person who wants a deal and snacks delivered right to your doorstep, you can order online using discount code PHLY20 for 20% off. Righteous Felon has all kinds of cool variety packs and bundles on the site.

As always, you can reach me at [email protected]

50!

Hit it baby! 🎶 All I neeeeeddd….. 🎶

What a great night of Phillies baseball. And where I would like to start, dear reader, is the pitching matchup.

Ranger Suárez’s final line: Six innings, one hit, zero earned runs, a career-high TWELVE strikeouts, three walks (but who cares?) and no runs. Rob Thomson called him “masterful,” and that about sums it up.

As I have written about Ranger, you have to be a pitcher to succeed in the modern MLB with a fastball that tops out at 93 mph. Movement, location and that carefree confidence are all crucial for Ranger, do not get me wrong. But to me, the biggest part of Ranger’s success (besides his guts) is that, as a hitter, you just have no idea what is coming. Ranger has five pitches, and he throws all of them a relatively even amount.

Well, in this one, Ranger added a sixth pitch. His normal breaking ball is a curveball (16 to 20-ish percent of his pitches). Coming into last night, he had thrown 59 total sliders (2.8 percent) so far this year after throwing just two sliders all of last season. Well, Ranger threw 15 of ‘em last night, three of which ended in punchouts.

Ranger struck out The $765 Million Man and Pete Alonso all six times he faced them, and two of them were on sliders. Those guys are good hitters who have faced Ranger a bunch, and he just was one step ahead of them. All of those pitches lead to guys guessing, and then staring at 91 mph fastballs on the corner.

(By the way, the slider usage is another sign that J.T. Realmuto, Garrett Stubbs, Raffy Marchan and Caleb Cotham are cooking with their game plans behind the scenes. 12 shutout innings from the two starting pitchers over the past two nights, who both deviated from their normal arsenals.)

Not gonna lie, I was worried about Ranger in the middle of August. He had the reputation of a fast starter who fizzled out in the middle of the season. But this season has gone up and down and now back up for him: 11 amazing starts (1.23 ERA), six bad starts (6.11 ERA) and now five great starts (0.88 ERA). If the math holds up, maybe the Phillies need to skip his turn next week in an effort to preserve his Good Starts for the playoffs? If Ranger has his stuff working in October, we know what a gamer is.

In the other dugout was Sean Manaea, who seems like a very nice guy that pitched over his head last year. Sure, he changed up the arm angle and everything, but he was excellent for the Mets last year. Much like the 2022 Phillies, it just felt kinda like everything went right for the 2024 Mets down the stretch. Jose Iglesias is now one of the worst hitters in the sport in San Diego, do not even get me started on that one.

Anyway, Manaea is struggling this year. The Phillies put four runs on him in five innings, and it really could have been more. They went back-to-back in the third inning off Manaea, starting with the Phillies’ surprise third baseman. Nice work by Sign Guy, he has not lost his fastball over all these years.

And then it was new leadoff hitter Harrison Bader, who has just been for incredible for the Phillies. The jumps Bader gets in the outfield are excellent, but then he backs it up with a .932 OPS in 33 games as a Phillie. Like Ranger, Bader seems to have a laissez-faire attitude to life that serves him well in big moments. He does not care about the Mets owning the Phillies at Citi. It’s like, “Oh well, why don’t we bash some homers at CBP?”

And then what a moment for Kyle Schwarber. Cold few weeks for Schwarbs after the four-homer game, but he broke this one wide open against Justin Hagenman. And Topper gave him a little toast after the game, we love to see that at this time of year.

Gotta keep winning. The Dodgers are playing the Rockies this week unfortunately.

September is Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Month! (PUT YOUR MARKET NAME HERE) and ALLCITY is proud to support their mission, and we’re raising money all month long. You can donate — or even learn more about becoming a Big — at bbbs.org/allcity

Jalen Carter, fined but fine (for Kansas City): Jalen Carter will be on the field this week against Kansas City. He got fined $57,222, which is apparently one week of salary for Carter. A game check, I believe. So, Carter gets paid to not play last week and does not get paid to play this week. That is a lot of scratch to the average person, but Carter has a whole bunch of money coming his way.

I did not think the league would go with this precedent, but they did say the timing was advantageous for Carter: “Because Carter was disqualified before participating in a single play, the suspension is considered to be served in Week 1 and he will forfeit his game check.”

Kinda seems like the NFL wanted to make an example of Carter, but there were too many mitigating factors (Dak’s trolling, plus the fact that he did not play a snap). So, NFL players, keep that saliva in your mouths in the fourth quarter. If you are gonna spit, make sure it is during pre-game warmups!

Anyway, it is the right decision. Les wrote about it for us, and he killed me with this Drew Rosenhaus aside.

❝

By the way, I consider not having to deal with Drew one of the main benefits of semi-retirement. Many years ago, when Hugh Douglas was about to leave the Eagles for the Jaguars, Drew and I got into a shouting match on the phone over something (totally accurate) that I’d written. That ended with me telling Drew to go (bleep) himself. Drew claimed this had never been said to him before. I was at least slightly skeptical there. But we patched things up so well that, years later, Drew responded to a text from me with: “Off the record, no comment.” Hey, who says I couldn’t sweet-talk a source!

Les Bowen, PHLY

The coordinators speak: A rare smile from Vic! That is the face of a man who just said, “Who would’ve thought Nola would pitch that good last night?”

Welp, we gotta make it through two of these things this year now that Moore The Bore is down in the Big Easy. Bo and EJ offered their thoughts on the pod here.

(1) Uncle Vic Fangio, Season 2: The best Season 2 since Succession…

  • Adoree’: Vic did not mess around this week, he said that he expects Adoree’ Jackson to start this week. Woo-hoo 🥳🥳🥳!!! OK, just kidding about that part. Vic said that Adoree’ needs to be “a master technician,” and the idea of improved technique is a tougher sell for a 29-year-old corner. Adoree’ did have the quote of the post-game availability when saying, “I give myself a C, Cs get degrees.”

  • Drew Mukuba: Vic explained that Sydney Brown is the base safety and and Mukuba is the nickel safety, which functionally makes Mukuba a starter. I thought Drew handled the extra workload well on first watch, but Vic said, “He did OK, he had a couple major busts that hurt us and could have hurt us even more.” Alrighty then!

  • Jalen Carter: Last week, before the game, Vic got asked a prescient question about Carter and the line between nasty and dirty. And, dating himself quite a bit, Vic basically said, “I do not want him to be Conrad Dobler.” Dobler was a super dirty player all the way back in the 1970s, for the uninitiated. And then Spit-Gate happened. On Tuesday, Vic got asked a question about Carter’s leadership and then offered some tough love: “Well, to be considered a leader, actions speak louder than words. And he’s gotta lead through his actions.”

  • Quick hitters: Vic praised Jordan Davis’ conditioning (exerciseexerciseexercise)… Vic noted that Jihaad Campbell will be the overhang blitzer, because Zack Baun can better handle the MLB duties out of that formation… Vic “hasn’t really tracked” Za’Darius Smith, but, like, he did not say he was bad or anything. In Vic Speak, that probably means he will be an every-down player by Week 5.

Vic also got asked about Patrick Mahomes, and I gotta say, this play from Brasil absolutely made my blood boil. Can we stop giving this guy 40-60 and 30-70 bang-bang out-of-bounds plays if he is gonna pull this stuff? Can he get officiated like Jalen Hurts on the sidelines for once in his life?

(2) Kevin Patullo: I am gonna be honest, Patullo is still not as interesting as Uncle Vic. For example, he did not give a great answer on if he thought the Eagles ran into some stacked boxes. But we will give him a shot…

  • 21: The Eagles are not exactly San Francisco, they only ran 17 plays a year ago with a fullback. But they made some noise about wanting to play more with a fullback, kept Ben VanSumeren around, and played a bunch of heavier personnel in Game 1 even after BVS went down. Patullo said Kylen Granson and practice squader Cameron Latu can both take that role.

  • Jalen Hurts: This was probably Patullo’s best point, and it had little to do with scheme. He spent a minute talking about how Jalen has a good sense of how not to take hard hits, how he makes the first guy miss and knows how to brace himself for the contact. As someone who would brace myself every time Carson Wentz or Michael Vick (not nearly as solidly built as Hurts, admittedly) broke the pocket, I do appreciate this about Jalen.

I do not get why Gabe Hall was the one who got waived off the 53 for Tank Bigsby, though. He was good in training camp and the preseason! Azeez Ojulari and Ogbo Okoronkwo were both inactive for the opener, and with Smith in the fold, do the Eagles really need them on the edge?

Joel Embiid, without a knee brace? I am assuming this video is not AI.

Do I care that Joel did not technically move in that clip? No, no I do not. I am just gonna think positive thoughts, because it’s September and hope springs eternal.

Grimes about to sign? Two of the four holdout restricted free agents have signed: Cam Thomas on the one-year, $6 million qualifying offer, Josh Giddey for four years, $100 million. Since the Jonathan Kuminga situation in Golden State seems legitimately messy, my guess is that Grimes is up next. He did post an Instagram photo of him in a Sixers uniform, which is often a hint of things to come in our silly little social media world.

Grimes’ final number will fall in the middle of those two. I will say four years, $64 million on a three-year deal with a player option.

Cristopher Sánchez against Clay Holmes (6:45 p.m., NBC Sports Philly), let’s win a baseball series!

Your tentative Wednesday schedule at ​PHLY​. Busy day, I think we will be getting some Flyers availability too. Make sure you tune into BG’s debut!

  • 🎙️ The Anthony Gargano Show: 9:00 a.m.

  • 🦅 Brandon Graham Unblocked: 11:00 a.m.

  • ⚾ Phillies: 12:00 p.m.

  • 🎙️ Billadelphia: 1:30 p.m.

  • 🦅 Eagles: 2:00 p.m.

  • 🏀 Sixers: 3:00 p.m.

  • 🏒 Flyers: 4:00 p.m.

  • 🦅 Cheap Seats: 7:00 p.m.

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS

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