Far Afield

You've gotta' hand it to Jon Lieber, he's pretty darn consistent. In three of his last four outings the hefty right-hander lasted less than six innings and yielded ten hits each time. The only "blemish" on his record was a three-hit complete-game shutout he threw against Kansas City, for which he no doubt apologizes.

In all fairness, we can't lay all of the blame for last night's live batting practice exhibition on Big Jon. He had help from Ryan Howard, who did his best impersonation of Dick Stuart at first base throughout the evening, and a bullpen that was unable to stem the Tribe when it counted most. So the Phillies dropped two out of three in Cleveland and thus lost consecutive series to the top teams in the AL Central. Anyone tempted to view these two series as a yardstick of the Phils' progress toward the post-season has to conclude they came up short.

Howard's lack of concentration in the field is no longer a running joke between me and the estimable author of Philliesflow, Erik Grissom. I hereby publicly acknowledge Erik recognized the young Dr. Strangeglove long before I did. Every ground ball hit to first with a man on has become an adventure for Howard, but last night he didn't stop there as he bobbled what seemed like every ball hit or thrown in his direction. One strongly suspects the mix-up last week when with Lieber again pitching Howard backed off from covering the runner at first and Lieber threw over to no one was also Howard's fault. Don't be surprised if Lieber starts to take it personally though, truth be told, he isn't exactly the second coming of Jim Kaat with a glove either. Watching Lieber field, or more precisely, attempt to bend over, retrieve a ball and then throw, is as painful as watching Howard these days. Still, Lieber might have escaped last night's debacle had Howard's head if not glove been more in the game.