Johnny Marz @ MindSay

The Phils were 0-34 coming in today when trailing after 6 innings.

Thanks to Ramon Martinez, they're 1-34.

In 12 innings, the Fightin Phils pulled a comeback victory out of their hats.   Going into the all star break it's just what the Dr. ordered.

Urbina and Wags pitched great for the Phils, and Ryan Howard is a STAR.

The Phillies are hitting on all cylinders right now.   They took both games of a double header with the Diamondbacks today, to move 2 games over .500 and 1.5 games back of first place in the NL East.

The offense in the first game came from Bobby Abreu in the form of 2 homers.  This guy is just flat out on fire.  He should be the starting right fielder for the National League all star team this year.   With Sosa in the AL now, it's Bobby's time.  

Vincente Padilla also pitched great in 5 innings of work.  It would be really nice to get some more innings out of him in the future, but hey we'll take what we can get.   The bullpen is doing well (knock on wood), so the pitching staff is moving in the right direction.

In game two Placido Polanco took a page out of Abreu's book and hit 2 homers playing third base.   I've been hoping Manuel would play him at third, and Utley at second full time for a while now.   Brett Myers pitched another solid game, and Wagner picked up his 13th save.

What does this all mean?  It means that every piece of the Phillies team is playing up to their talent levels right now.   I hope they keep the foot on the gas.

On a non-baseball note, I went to a great Country concert put on by 92.5 XTU (A great local Country station in Philly).   Check out their site here: http://www.wxtu.com/

Playing was Montgomery Gentry, Jo Dee Messina, and Phil Vassar.  I had a great time, and I'm really into country music right now.

Any country fans out there?

The Phillies are 2.5 games out of first place in the East.

You read it right, Two and a Half games out of first.  Here are the up to the second NL East standings:

2005 National League East Standings
TEAM	W	L	GB	RS	RA
Florida	28	23	-	228	196
Atlanta	29	24	-	249	203
NY Mets	28	26	1.5	241	225
Washington	28	26	1.5	217	235
Philadelphia	27	27	2.5	250	259

Who'd of thunk it?   Oh wait, some of us actually thought they'd be good this year.   I'm being cautiously optimistic, but if Thome can keep the fire burning and the pitching staff can keep pitching like this, there's no reason why the Phils can't leap frog the Mets and Nats.

As I noted in my last post, I had the great pleasure of doing color commentary for 3 Seattle Mariners games this week.   I got to work with play by play man (and a friend of mine for 10 years) Rick Rizz.   What a great guy.   The Mariners are struggling, they mirror the Phillies in a lot of ways.   Their offense struggles at times, but their pitchers are doing really well this year.   They lack a real ace too, again like the Phils.

Ichiro was fun to watch.  He has so many pre game and in game rituals, it's amazing.   He's such a great hitter and player, that his teammates and everyone else for that matter should follow his stretching and excercise regiment.   The clubhouse was great.

Here's a great article in the Seattle Times, it was fun to do:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2002287782_marinotes25.html

More on my game calling experiences later!