Tropical Storm Lee to put a damper on Labor Day for Atlanta

It hasn't been the best weekend for the Phils in rainy Florida. Back in April when Greg Dobbs pinch-blogged "Can the Phillies win without Greg Dobbs?", urging the Phillies to get the old band back together, maybe he had this weekend's series in mind. While Greg Dobbs has, in fact, put up pretty good numbers against the Phillies this weekend and this year, homering against Herndon to seal the deal Saturday night and going 0.371 vs. the Phillies and 0.500 vs. Halladay, yesterday's loss cannot be blamed on Greg Dobbs.

That is, unless Greg Dobbs strategically planted those Phillies "fans" in the bleacher seats to interfere with Hunter Pence's hit in the sixth out of spite. Potential double, home run, or caught ball, we'll never really know how yesterday's 14 inning marathon would have ended due to a couple of ignorant fans that reached over into Bryan Peterson's glove. Wasn't that one fan aware of the rule that says that if you choose to use your cap, protector, pocket, or any other part of your uniform, it is not a catch anyway? How about the rule that says you shouldn't interfere with baseball because it might later cause your team to lose by walking a batter with the bases loaded in the 14th? The only marathon that I was more pissed watching while stuck to a couch was the final season of the Sopranos. It produced a similar reaction of "WTF!?!??! Is there something wrong with my television? Seriously? That's it."

I doubt that the Phillies' protest will take back yesterday's loss, but don't stop believing, folks. Plus, we've got another game today and I've read more than once that Tropical Storm Lee is set to put a damper on Labor Day for Atlanta. While he has posted his worst numbers against the Braves this year, 1-3 with a 4.98 ERA, keep in mind that Sir Clifton's coming out of a 5-0 August with a 0.45 ERA, some hits, and a couple of RBIs. He's a true Renaissance man. Let's just hope that today's weather report is right for once.

Replace "El Nino" with "Cliff Lee" and tropical storms with "baseball players", and it all makes sense. The magic number's 18. The Phillies are a comfortable 7.5 games ahead of the Braves. Lee has a chance to make those numbers even better at CBP tonight by bringing all tomahawk chops to a halt as he goes for his 16th win and 200th K.