Sports are funny. Ha ha.
Take the Phillies, for instance. Nearly a quarter of a season is in the books and the Phils are right back where they started, i.e., EVEN. Yesterday, for the second time in a few weeks they Phils reached sea-level with a rollicking win over the Cubs. They have climbed back to so-so by beating up on the NL's also-rans but, hey, even is...well...even.
The brightest spot in the Phils lineup all season has been Carlos Ruiz and he delivered again last night, hitting his seventh round tripper of the year (besting his total for all of last season) in what proved to be the winning runs.
The "funny" parts of last night were the performances of Kyle Kendrick and Jose Contreras. Kendrick has been simply awful lately, no matter what the role. Last night his assignment was to fill in for temporarily (when have we heard that before?) injured started Vance Worley. Kendrick has been lit up lately, coughing up leads and runs with equal ease, but last night he was terrific. Ha ha.
Contreras, working his way back from the sort of aches and ailments only a 40-year old could understand, has been pretty awful lately, too. So, of course, he throws a clean inning of relief, holding the fort until Ruiz' heroics. Ha ha.
Now, the biggest ha ha of the night was actually taking place in Philadelphia, not Chicago. There, the 76ers, who split their two games in Boston in the playoffs (they should have won both according to most observers), began the night with a basic plan: they were going to hop on their young scooters and run the aged Celtics on their Harley hogs ragged if not into the ground. So, naturally, the reverse happened. The Celtics in all their medicare-supported brilliance, kicked the young 76ers all around the court and stomped them but good.
The Celtics got the last laugh of the night!