A Tough Break

Wil Cordero accomplished the rarest of feats. With his dreadful 0-2 performance, where he managed to leave four runners on, failing to come through in either of his two opportunities to win the game, he becomes the first position player to win the Lame Duck without starting the game.

Twice, the Phillies intentionally walked Vinny Castilla to get to Wil Cordero. And twice Wil Cordero failed to have a major league quality at-bat: striking out once, weakly grounding out on the other.

Think about that for a second. The team walked the free-falling Vinny Castilla to get to Cordero. That's when you know you're washed up.

Cordero is 'hitting' .122, and the only people he puts the fear of God into are Nats fans and his trembling wife (allegedly).

Extra innings games are always wars of attrition.

We went to war with half an army (maybe Bowden should've traded for some Hessians?), and we lost.

Luis Ayala and Cristian Guzman were on the active roster but out of town and injured respectively. Tony Blanco was next-to-useless, still suffering from vertigo. (Though he did make an appearance as Baerga's legs.)

Junior Spivey was put on the DL, but the team didn't activate a minor leaguer, because he would've had to immediately sit for the All-Star break.

When you're playing with a 21-man roster, it's tough to win.

Sunny Kim was sent out there to lose the game. It took him three innings -- a valiant effort. It's the second time he's lost a game in extra innings.

Despite a few decent starts, you have to imagine that the two losses will affect Frank's view of Sunny, keeping him entrenched as the last man on the staff.

WTF Senior Moment

In a game that looked like it was headed to extra innings, Frank managed to burn through a reliever on a definite head-scratching move.

In the 8th, when the Phillies PH for the pitcher with Tomas Perez, Frank brought in Joey Eischen.

The thinking was that with switch-hitting Jimmy Rollins on-deck and unable to hit right-handed due to an injury, that Joey Eischen could intentionally walk Perez, forcing Rollins out of the game. (Remember, a pitcher needs to pitch to at least one batter before being removed)

For whatever reason, Frank went to Chad Cordero to face Rollins.

I'm not sure whether the Phillies decided not to PH, or whether Frank's itchy trigger finger didn't give them the chance.

If Frank was going to let Cordero face Rollins anyway, he needed to make that decision before wasting Eischen. Gary Majewski could've done the IBB.

Who knows. Eischen's head is still spinning: "Don't ask me," Eischen said.

Don't worry, Joey. I've learned not to ask.