DL, Retire, or Scrub

Tom Gordon was a very successful MLB pitcher (Career stats- 138 w, 158 sv, 122 holds, 1928 k, 3.94 era, 1.36 whip). In fact he did the "John Smoltz" transformation before John Smoltz did. For the first 10 seasons of his career with Kansas City and Boston he was a starting pitcher, racking up a career high 17 wins in his rookie year, 11+ wins 6 times, and posting tons of strikeouts along the way too. Then at the end of the '97 season the BoSox decided to try him out as closer, and the results were encouraging. The following season, 1998, Gordon became an All-Star for the first time in his career on his way to a 2.72 era and 46 saves. He then left the fame of Boston, where author Stephen King wrote a book with his name in the title, to go to the Cubs, Astros, and Yankees where he was an All-Star set-up man with 36 holds in 2004. In 2006 Pat Gillick inked Tom to a 3 year deal worth a-whole-lotta money to be the team's closer. His first season was successful, collecting 34 saves on his way to his 3rd All-Star nod.

After 2006 things started falling apart for Tom Gordon, and by "things" I mean Tom Gordon himself. Gordon is pitching with a partially torn muscle in his pitching arm, and it shows as he's wildly inconsistent from outing to outing. Last year his era shot up to 4.73 and he spent time of the DL leading to the Brett Myers Experiment in the bullpen and even a time where Antonio "Six Fingered Ant" Alfonseca was the closer (the 2007 Phillies bullpen was obviously craptastic). This year Gordon blew up in the first game of the season. He later settled down and had Chris Wheeler and Harry Kalas slob-knobbing him, giving us daily reports about his era "since Opening Day", but that dumbass propaganda has since been dismissed as Gordon is back to his sucky ways. I started this post by saying "Tom Gordon was a very successful MLB pitcher", and that was purposefully past tense. Gordon's '08 era is now jacked up to 5.16 and it's time for the Phils to DL him, force him into retirement, or make him a scrub pitcher like Clay Condrey while promoting Ryan Madson to set-up man. There may have once been a girl that loved Tom Gordon, but sitting at this computer there's a man who hates him.

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Thoughts:
*Carlos Ruiz pinch-hitting is just about as bad of a choice as So Taguchi pinch-hitting. I'd rather have Cole Hamels or Adam Eaton go to the plate and take some hacks than either of those two, and I say that with a completely straight face. Taguchi doesn't have a pinch hit all season and should flat out be released, but Corey has already covered that. Ruiz on the other hand is not nearly catching enough flak. The backstop is batting a measly .207 with an almost unbelievably gruesome .580 OPS. Ruiz is the new David Bell, where as he grounds out weakly to 2nd base or pop-ups nearly every at bat. When I give a player the David Bell Stamp of Disapproval, that means he's pretty much dead to me.

*What the hell is wrong with JC Romero? The answer is nothing is wrong, this is just the real JC Romero finally rearing his ugly head. He's always been wild and put a buttload of runners on base. We were spoiled by un-Romero-like performances from him for about a season, but those times are now long gone.

*3 run bomb by Ryan Howard = sweet niblets. Yet another error by Ryan Howard = Phurious Phans.

*Kyle Rodney Kendrick (8-3, 4.58 era, 1.44 whip) vs. Oliver Martinez Perez (6-5, 4.98, 1.47) at 1:35 this afternoon.

~Carson