Catching Up With Philly Sports

For some reason I've not written so much on sports lately. Let's fix that now.

Since the playoffs always have priority, we'll start with the Flyers. Since they fell behind Boston 3-0 in Game 7 of their historic Eastern Conference semifinal series, they've outscored their opposition 13-0 -- the four-goal comeback in that game has been followed by 6-0 and 3-0 wins over Montreal in the Eastern finals. In particular in the second game, the Flyers haven't played their best. It is similar to how the Flyers outplayed the Bruins for a sizable portion of the first three games, all won by Boston. Of course, we'll hope this series doesn't reverse itself the way that one did. The Flyers could be getting Ian Laperriere and Jeff Carter back before the end of this series, which would be a huge help.

If the Flyers get two more wins and move on to the Stanley Cup finals, they'd play the winner of the Chicago-San Jose series. The Blackhawks won the first two games at San Jose, putting the Sharks in a huge hole.

Meanwhile, a slight digression:
Sports Illustrated needs to either tighten deadlines or go to online publication only. Their May 10th cover says "Sid the Kid is Supreme" and "Celtics' Last Stand?" Not long after, Sidney Crosby's Penguins were eliminated from the playoffs while the Boston Celtics not only won their first-round series but easily dispatched LeBron James and Cleveland as well. Their May 17th cover has "Good Old Shaq: Can he deliver a ring to the King?" No. The Celtics took care of that. Inside it featured an article on the Boston Bruins, revitalized and closing in on a trip to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in many years. Oops. The May 24th issue arrived in my mailbox today, and it says: "NHL Playoffs: Is Montreal for real?" Oh, dear. All I ask is that SI not write about the Flyers for another month.

The Phillies ended April with a 12-10 record, a game and a half out of first place. They promptly went on a 12-3 run that gave them a 5-game lead. But the last two nights the bats have fallen silent, and they lost both games despite strong starting pitching. Much of the talk right now is about Roy Halladay. He was allowed to finish the game he started on Tuesday, losing 2-1 to Pittsburgh and throwing 132 pitches, one short of his career high. The Phils could have pinch-hit for Halladay in the 7th when a runner was on first with one out, but they let Roy try to bunt the runner over. He couldn't do it. Halladay has thrown more innings and more total pitches in his first 9 starts this year than he has in the first 9 starts of any previous season. I know the bullpen is still pretty much a question mark but Charlie Manuel should be more careful with Halladay. They've left him in a couple of blowout wins unnecessarily. I'd rather he not be overused now and wear down in September and October.

In injury news, while Brad Lidge is back on the disabled list (though the Phils say there's no new injury, just some inflammation in his elbow), Jimmy Rollins has returned to the lineup.

The NBA Draft Lottery was held. I read about the process in the paper. It's a lot more complicated than just picking teams' names out of a hat or something to determine the draft order. Luckily for the 76ers, they moved up to 2nd. If it were based on won-lost record they'd have drafted 6th. The New Jersey Nets, the team with the worst record by far (even threatening the 1972-73 Sixers' 9-73 record), fell to 3rd place -- they can't win for losing.

Nothing really going on with the Eagles since the Donovan McNabb trade, the 2010 schedule being set and the NFL draft. Their next big thing should be the day their small number of individual-game tickets go on sale and sell out in about 5 seconds.

If anyone cares about soccer, the Union is 1-5-1. Their win and draw both came at "home" games at the Linc, since their own little stadium in Chester isn't quite complete. They have 3 more road games before it finally opens, so they might be 1-8-1 by then. It's a first-year team and is apparently playing like one. I don't care about the sport, and I hate hate hate hate despise how the "Phil-a-del-phia U-nion" chant in their TV commercials sounds like "Ooooooooooh-nion" instead of "Youuuuuuuuu-nion." I do kind of like their logo, though.