Will the Real Phillies Please Stand Up?

I spent a love­ly day with fam­i­ly in the Penn­syl­va­nia hin­ter­lands, which means I’m read­ing Beer­lea­guer com­ments to get a feel for today’s unlike­ly win over Ubal­do Jimenez and the Rock­ies. One read­er shared this gem from today’s Philly Inquirer:

Putting a nice lit­tle bow on the pro­ces­sion of no-com­ments, Phillies gen­er­al man­ag­er Ruben Amaro Jr. was not avail­able to talk about the change in hit­ting coach­es or to update his com­ments about the rotation.

After the Phillies optioned Kendrick on Tues­day, the gen­er­al man­ag­er said, “I think we know exact­ly what we’re going to do [Sat­ur­day]. I just choose not to tell you.”

We now know why. Who would have believed him if he said Kendrick was being replaced by Kendrick in the rotation?

Ouch, Ruben. That’s got­ta hurt.

You know what will hurt more? The Phillies acquir­ing Roy Oswalt, going on a tear, yet falling just short of the wild card. As always, the Phils will prob­a­bly have to win the divi­sion to make the play­offs. The NL West is doing the oth­er two divi­sions no favors.

Thanks for noth­ing, Padres! Why did­n’t you just suck like every­one expect­ed you to so we could grab Heath Bell for our run to the World Series?