Thoughts On The NLDS

Cole Hamels' elevation is complete. No matter what transpires going forward, Hamels established himself last night as one of the game's premier starters, shutting down the Reds on five hits in hurling a 2-0 shutout. Perhaps it wasn't the culmination of his phenomenal second half of 2010, after all there are more games to play, but coming in a very big game, it was the highlight of a string of highlights.

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The win propelled the Phils into the NLCS and marked the first time they ever swept a post-season series.

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After the game, Reds manager Dusty Baker likened the trio of Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt to the great Orioles pitchers Jim Palmer, Dave McNally and Mike Cuellar, who won 268, 185 and 184 games respectively. The Phils trio have won 169, 60 and 150 games respectively. I saw most of those Orioles wins and watched them go to three straight World Series in 1969-71. When you consider how tremendous Halladay has been most of his career and realize how far he remains from Palmer's totals, you get some idea of how great that Orioles trio was.

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The Reds stumbled through their first post-season appearance in 15 years, failing to hit or field anything like they did in the regular season. Nevertheless, they forcibly reminded me of the 2007 Phillies in their first post-season appearance in more than a decade and, like those Phillies, should be back next year even stronger. If they get good starting pitching, they will be a real force next season.

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Chase Utley certainly has had an odd year. The thumb injury sidelined him for a couple of months affecting his overall numbers, particularly in the power department. His fielding was erratic. His "tic" of tapping his glove with the ball before throwing to first seemed more pronounced. His batting average was the lowest it has been since he became a regular. Yet he remains the backbone of this team. One is tempted at times to say his intensity has worn him down before his time, but just when one suspects this may be the case, he rises to the occasion. Although he didn't have many hits in this series, he was in the middle of most of the important developments and he did sting the ball often. He certainly is public enemy number one in Cincinnati at the moment, but he'll never match the level of enmity directed by Phillies fans toward Scott Rolen.

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Speaking of Rolen, he looked like an old, depleted man in this series, making errors or awkward plays, hardly able to bend over to field the ball. He was also pathetic at the plate. It wouldn't surprise me if he suddenly said he'd had enough.

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For those of you who wanted to watch the broadcasts in HD, turn off the sound and listen to Scott Franzke and Larry Andersen on WPHT, the problem was a significant delay between the visuals and the audio despite advertisements by the station that this combination would work. The reason is the HD signal, which is not delivered in sync with real time. If you want to try this combination viewing the games in regular definition, it works fine if you can accept the narrow, lower res picture. Frankly, for this viewer it was hard to keep me down on the regular def farm after I'd seen HD!! I went for the mute button and HD most of the way for the dull TBS crew and you can bet the ranch I will be muting anything announced by Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in the next round.