The best Hangover Game ever

👋 Good morning! John Middleton is pretty cool.

Still not my favorite, “How do you do, fellow kids?” moment in a Phillies post-game celebration, though. That was in Houston, three years ago. All respect in the world to John M and Dave D, by the way. Helluva ballclub they put together.

RIP Robert Redford. Sundance Kid, Bob Woodward (way too good looking to play a journalist, I say as a journalist), Roy Hobbs. Man, what an incredible actor. So incredible, that I thought that a gif of him smiling was actually Zach Galifinakis until yesterday. Who knew?

Programming note: Last night’s Phillies gave would have been “The Big Story,” but I accidentally deleted that section header. That’s on me, I’ll be better tomorrow. Scroll down to the Phillies section, it’s all there!

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

September is Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Month! PHLY 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

The coordinators speak: Let’s start with Kevin Patullo. After listening to his availability, I agree with EJ here.

Look, I would never get angry with the defending Super Bowl champs after a win. Never. But that general explanation is not one that I am crazy about. That was not a good offensive performance, and while you can legitimately point to Jalen Hurts’ turnover avoidance as critical in this specific game, I do not think that uber-conservative philosophy is a recipe for success moving forward. Not unless they get Saquon and the defense both going like last year, that is. The Eagles won the Super Bowl in large part because Jalen lit it rip in the final two games.

But then I read Fran’s film review and immediately felt a little better about everything. Grant Calcaterra was just not very good. Kevin Patullo has some easy things to clean up, some tendency-breakers to mix in. The Eagles were very close on a few deep shots. And the execution on the deep ball to DeVonta Smith was picture-perfect, all the way around.

But yeah, let’s get some of those things cleaned up this week. Hobbled or not, A.J. Brown having just 35 receiving yards through two games is pretty silly. Get yourself a shirt to get the passing game back on track.

And then, Uncle Vic. I love this man with all my heart.

Down to four now, Vic.

As for what Uncle Vic had to say, nothing too crazy. He mentioned that Jalen Carter needs to be in better shape and Drew Mukuba still is a little too boom-or-bust. Fair enough.

Danny B speaks: Well, we got Dan Hilferty and Keith Jones last week. And yesterday, it was Danny Briere a few days before training camp starts. And I do think those three guys legitimately do have to sell us on what the state of the rebuild is. I am not one of those “Dario is never coming over” super impatient people, but this is Year 3 and the Flyers are projected to miss the playoffs yet again. We will see if that is the case, the Orange and Black could surprise us, but ideally this thing will be pointed in the right direction this year.

Briere made his case for why he thinks that improvement will happen, and it was not a bad one at all. Danny thinks the competition from improved depth will drive better performance.

That makes some sense to me. If all of the established players make the team, there is only one spot available in training camp. Alex Bump, Jett Luchanko and Nikita Grebenkin are all competing for that spot. But there is also Denver Barkey in Lehigh Valley, plus Oliver Bonk and Emil Andrae waiting on the blue line. The Flyers’ first call-ups would actually be pretty interesting prospects, especially compared to recent seasons.

It all sounds good, but that is the easy part. Let’s see if it plays out that way.

Injury updates: Whole bunch of these headed into camp…

And in the last bit of Flyers news, the Carter Hart door is shut.

Phillies 9, Los Angeles (NL) 6: The best Hangover Game ever. Phillies After Dark has delivered and then some for the night owls.

The Phillies did not treat it as a traditional Hangover Game. They fielded a real lineup, because it was one of the two most important games they had left on their schedule. But man, the Phillies sure looked hungover for the first five innings. Well, hungover, and facing the best baseball player we probably will ever see in our lifetimes. Shohei threw 22 pitches of 99+ miles per hour!

Speaking of Shohei, here is what the two Dodgers starters did in this series.

Ohtani had a no-no through five innings, and also went 2-5 with a 430-foot moonshot off David Robertson just for kicks. Was not enough. Time to bring back a Hall of Fame tweet.

Some of this win boils down to commitment to length from the Phillies starters. The Phils are an old-school staff, they their starters go. Phillies starters have pitched 872.1 innings this season, which is first in MLB by a mile. Dodgers starters have pitched 721 innings this season, which is all the way down at 28th. I wonder if some of that difference is because the Dodgers sometimes use an opener like they did on Monday, but still, there is a difference in approaches for sure.

Not like the Dodgers are not perfectly capable of winning a World Series anyway, mind you. They pieced it together last year. But Ohtani is on a strict innings limit, so he got pulled after five innings and 68 pitches. The Phils were no-hit through five innings, and then they put up a six-spot in the sixth inning. Brandon Marsh (off a lefty!) and Max Kepler both went deep in the frame. Poor Casty.

Cristopher Sánchez gave up a couple homers early on, which is unlike him. He had not been taken deep in his last eight starts. But despite giving up four runs, Sanchy beared down and gave the Phils seven innings. Because that is what this staff does.

Fast-forward to the top of the ninth inning. Tied at 6-6, Phils with nobody on and two outs against Blake Treinen. Wes Wilson doubles. Bryson Stott gets pitched around, to get to Rafael Marchán. Big mistake.

The Phillies’ light-hitting catcher, who had all of one homer on the season, and was only batting because J.T. Realmuto was hungover ill, worked into a hitter’s count and dropped the barrel on a down-and-in cutter for No. 2. And I ask you, dear reader, how can you not be romantic about baseball?

My Negadelphian take is that I wish the NLDS started today. Seriously, I would tell Trea to take his time and rejoin the team midway through the NLCS. This team feels inevitable right now.

But rules are rules, and the NLDS is 2.5 weeks from now. And now with the tiebreaker over the Dodgers and a magic number of four for a first-round bye, I have seen enough. Red October will be starting on Saturday, October 4th at Citizens Bank Park. 1 Citizens Bank Way, Philadelphia, PA 19148.

The race for the bye? It’s over, ladies and gentlemen.

Edmundo Sosa: Topper seemed to make it sound like Mundito would be available for last night’s game. Well, I guess something happened.

Hand up, I have never heard of either of those names. And yes, the first MLB team to clinch a division currently has Weston Wilson, Otto Kemp, Donovan Walton and Rafael Lantigua manning two of the four infield spots. Gotta love September.

We are nearing the end of the minor-league season, and I figured I would give an update on five of the Phillies’ top prospects. And I will give each of them an emoji, well, because I feel like it.

⏸️ Andrew Painter: Painter will likely make his last start of the Triple-A season today, and as we all know by now, it has been a disappointing campaign. Stuff still seems pretty good, but Painter has a 5.35 ERA at Triple-A. Strikeouts are down, walks are up, homers have skyrocketed. Painter needs to go on The Mick Abel Spiritual Journey this offseason, before becoming a super interesting guy in spring training.

📈 Aidan Miller: The biggest riser over the last month and a half. In some of the trade deadline preview coverage, there were whispers about how good Miller really was. He was OPSing just .697 on July 31st. Since then, Miller has a 1.084 OPS and hit his first Triple-A homer last night. Add in that he is sticking at shortstop defensively and has swiped FIFTY-SIX bags this year, and you can see why Miller just got ranked the 10th-best prospect in all of the minors by ESPN. He will be in the Arizona Fall League, as Pat just wrote about.

🔜 Justin Crawford: As it turned out, the Phillies made the right move by keeping Max Kepler around and platooning him with Nick Castellanos. Credit to them, I was skeptical! But with both guys likely goners after this year (Casty, in particular, is Kepler sticking around?), we gotta see what Crawford looks like at the MLB level next year. I know it might be bad with the ground-ball rate and the high BABIP, but enough, there is nothing else he can do at Triple-A.

🚀 Aroon Escobar: The star of the first month of the minor-league season within the Phillies’ organization (outside of Otto Kemp, that is), Escobar has cooled down a little bit. A fast-riser, the 20-year-old jumped three levels: Low-A Clearwooder, High-A Jersey Shore and then Double-A Reading. The offensive-minded second baseman will probably start in Reading next season.

🔥 Gage Wood: OK, all of that speculation about Wood being fast-tracked to the bigs did not turn out to be true. He pitched once in Clearwooder, and struck out five batters in two innings. Excited to see more from that lunatic next season.

Future Power Rankings: The fellas talked about the possibilities for the starting power forward and Skinny Joel on yesterday’s pod. As Derek pointed out, as silly as it might seem to read into five-second videos and photos (cue up the “I’ll do it again” meme), I do not believe the Sixers were not showing any videos/photos of Embiid at this time last year. And even when Joel is working out, usually it is off to the side or with Drew Hanlen somewhere. It feels mildly encouraging that he is on the court, with the team, in early September.

I am probably not gonna get all the way there, but I have a “Sixers get first-round homecourt advantage in this awful Eastern Conference” take percolating.

Speaking of that, three pretty smart guys at ESPN (Kevin Pelton, Tim Bontemps, Bobby Marks) just put out their updated future rankings. Basically, how do they think a franchise will fare over the next three seasons? The Sixers were the biggest droppers from this time last year, going from 4 to 19.

And looking at the list… I get it. Lot of good teams in the NBA, Sixers just had a nightmare season, still a lot of downside risk on this team. Gotta prove yourselves again starting in October.

One more in Chavez Ravine, as Late-Night Phils Week rolls on (10:10 p.m., NBC Sports Philly, MLB Network). Good pitching matchup in this one: Jesús Luzardo against Blake Snell. Cannot wait to watch Snell give up one run while also barely making it through 4.2 innings.

The last two nights were awesome, and it is nice to have a late-season series with some stakes, but I am of the opinion that Phillies West Coast baseball should be reserved for June through August. It’s a school night for crying out loud!

Your tentative Wednesday schedule at ​PHLY​. Busy day:

Let’s make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS