Charlie blows another one

The Phillies came away with a split of a two-game series with the Mets over the last two nights.

Tuesday night was that dramatic come-from-behind win over the Mets, in a game no one with Comcast Lancaster saw.

Last night, the Phillies held a 3-1 lead going into the eighth inning.

Let's go back two innings to the fifth or sixth. The Phillies had two men on base, Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell and Shane Victorino at the dish. They also had New York ace Johan Santana on the ropes.

I know Victorino has been one of the Phils' hottest hitters of late, but with no outs and the team's best bunter, with a lot of speed up, why not lay one down and see what happens. Does Charlie? No. The Phils got nothing, as they did an inning later.
Poor move number one.

Now let's go to the eighth. Heard one of the talking heads, I think it was
Wheels or later LA say that the bullpen was pretty spent from the night
before. I knew that would be the built in excuse.

But why put Rudy Seanez into the game? If you have 12 or 13 pitchers, he's the next to last pitcher I would put into the game. The other would be Clay Condrey.

Sure, he got two easy outs, but, J.C. Romero should have been on the hill. He only needed to get one out. Plos Carlos Delgado is a low ball hitter. Where was the pitch, down and in.

The Phillies
are in a pennant race. It's not May when mistakes like this can be made.
Charlie needs to use his top pitchers in tight games. There are 29 or
30 games left and these pitchers have the entire winter to recover.
Mistake number two last night.

Mistake three, was bringing Brad Lidge in for a four out save. He hasn't done it all year, plus his earned run average in non-save and save situation is the difference between night and day.

Mistake four, forget about taking Pat Burrell out for defense. He can play and hit. Guess 30 homers doesn't mean much to Charlie.

Mistake five, pinch hitting Gregg Dobbs too early. When he batted in I think it was the sixth, the situation again called for a bunt. That's not Dobbs, so we got nothing out of that move.

I could go on and on about the blunders of Charlie Manuel, but I will stop here.

Only if the Phillies had someone who actually knew baseball, running the team, like Larry Bowa or Lou Piniella, or....the divsion race would be over.

Sorry Charlie, whoops, I mean no disrepect for the tuna character, if he's still around.