👋 Good morning! I could watch these all day.

Some real Willie Mays Hayes stuff on the double slide. I think the video below is my favorite one, though. One of the best reads I have ever seen on a fly ball, coupled with one of the worst. Enjoyable stuff.

As always, you reach me at [email protected]

Am I little bitter that the Phillies played two excellent ballgames this weekend, and I just so happened to attend the other game and had to hear it from Mets fans? Why yes I am! But that is neither here nor there.

The most important part: Legitimately nice series from the Phils. And while going one game up in June does not matter much in the grand scheme of things, I did like to see them get a confidence-booster against a team that has owned them as of late. Mets took 3 of 4 in Queens at the end of last year, Mets won the playoff series, Mets swept the Phils earlier this season. And the Phils did not just win this series, they blew the Mets out twice.

Jesús Luzardo’s bizarre season continues. Outside of The Two Worst Starts I Have Ever Seen, the man has been lights out. Great stat from Corey Seidman: In four starts this season against the Dodgers, Mets and Cubs, Luzardo has thrown 25 innings and allowed one earned run. Pretty, pretty good against the best teams in the NL.

Luzardo has un-tipped himself fully, to the point where I wonder if he has any pointers for Mick Abel. He might be tipping, you might be tipping, we all might be tipping. After another great outing, Luzardo got a huge, deserved ovation from the crowd when he walked off the field. I cannot imagine that happened very often for him at The Fish Tank (where the Marlins took 2 of 3 from the Braves this weekend, as our guy Sandy held ‘em in check on Sunday). As much as I do not like the Mets, there is something different about playing big-market baseball in the Northeast.

As for the bats, two different types of wins. The Phils hit the ball hard on Friday, but not in the six-run seventh inning that proved critical. Bunch of bloops and well-placed opposite-field hits in that frame before Bryson Stott broke it open. And on Sunday, they hit the ball hard and out of the ballpark.

Kyle Schwarber hit another bomb off a lefty (a tough one, David Peterson), then Edmundo Sosa took Peterson deep into the Mets’ bullpen to break that one open. Not many cooler than Mundito when he is going good.

Not everything is perfect for the Phils. For example, they are still trotting Taijuan Walker out there for high-ish leverage bullpen innings, and I want to do the Mean Girls meme for that whole situation. Stop trying to make Bullpen Tai happen, it is not going to happen.

Two outfield notes:

Tyrese Haliburton: Going to keep it light today, because we have a busy week coming up with the NBA and NHL Drafts. But before we close up shop, I want to rant about how the NBA plays too many games and it is hurting their product.

Oklahoma City beat Indiana in Game 7, nothing wrong with that. OKC was the best team in the regular season, they were deserving champions. But we did not get treated to the Game 7 that this excellent series and playoffs deserved, because Tyrese Haliburton got hurt. Haliburton knocked down three 3s in the first few minutes, and then the Pacers’ talisman went down with an injury.

But not just any injury. Haliburton almost assuredly tore his Achilles tendon, which means that he will join Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard on the shelf for all of next season as well. Kevin Durant (who coincidentally just got traded to Houston) proved that you can come back from that injury and still play at a high level, but you are pretty much done for a season until you can do so. Not ideal.

Haliburton and Tatum are two of the ten best players in the league, and they will not be available for all of next season. That is a huge problem for the NBA, who has nobody to blame but themselves.

(Also, Tyrese Maxey, change your number just to be safe.)

You guys know how I feel about the NBA. They cover so much more ground and play so much faster than they did in the 80s and 90s. It is so much harder on your lower body to play the game with all of the cutting and running that is required nowadays. You have star players dropping like flies in the playoffs. It is such a war of attrition that the NBA champion is often the last healthy team remaining.

There is nothing the league can do about the playoffs, perhaps with the exception of shortening the first round to best-of-five like they used to. The postseason is always gonna be a grind. But they have to seriously look at shortening the season.

Think about how much the regular-season NBA product gets bashed, and the legitimate reasons why…

The only solution to shorten the season, which at least in theory addresses all of those problems.

The answer, of course, is money. Fewer games means less money for the players and owners. But this whole thing is simply not sustainable. This is gonna keep happening, unless they change the rules in a major way. I do not want them to do that, as I think the product is good when the intensity level is high. But then you have to find a way to play fewer games. I know it will not happen because of the money, but it is frustrating.

By the way, next year’s Eastern Conference is gonna be as bad as it gets. If Joel Embiid looks like himself for even a week, people are gonna make the Sixers one of the favorites.

Phils are off, before heading to Houston and Hot-lanta this week.

Your tentative Monday schedule at ​PHLY​:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann

Daily Newsletter Editor

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