24 Atlanta Braves (Morton, C) @ Philadelphia Phillies (Sánchez, C)

zambonir 2024-08-30 10:59:44 UTC #182

I don't think they are insurance runs if you're losing 4-3.

The Phillies took that momentum and ran with it. The lineup added a pair of insurance runs just one inning later, in the bottom of the seventh. Trea Turner walked and Nick Castellanos launched a two-out, two-run home run to center field to give his team a 5-4 lead.

zambonir 2024-08-30 11:15:42 UTC #183

FWIW I would think ESPN or MLB.com live game day would be much more enjoyable for you with or without the comments here. It's literally the same data the bot is scraping, but far more detailed, robust and visually augmented.

I enjoy comments between the bot, that's what the thread is supposed to be for. With all appreciation to the bot it was more unique when it was actually humans individually or collectively tracking the game action, and the comments were probably more substantive. I reckon the bot-dominated thread also makes people less polite because they forget it's still full of other humans!

But, the comments are supposed to be about the game, not the typewritten equivalent of yelling at the TV or calling into WIP. Of course everyone once in a while someone calls a player a bum just like in the stands, but this list has always had a certain amount of decorum. And it's not just newbies changing that.

For me part of the fun of baseball is it's a long season and on one game or inning or player sinks it or makes it. But in a game thread, every AB feels like Game 7 of the World Series for some people. Or the Eagles, where one loss actually might have outsize impact on the season.

I also find people's level of frustration with this season to be curious, given this is still the historically losingest team in baseball we are talking about. When did we start to expect success and be frustrated by the lack of it, instead of being resigned to failure? I suppose that's progress - no more Negadelphia. And the pent-up frustration of 2012-2021 combined with the raised expectations of 2022.

I'm not sure Philadelphia ever fully enjoyed this season in the big picture - even when they were on pace to win 110 games it was going to be a failure without a championship and now people talk like it's already a failure, or the bottom is going to still drop out based on two months that are no different than two months of each of the last two seasons (and not just early either, see September 2022). With what is still a demonstrably more accomplished team (even if in the end the Braves have sunk as much as the Phillies have rose).

donaldorc 2024-08-30 11:39:44 UTC #184

Game Day on MLB'a app is a reasonable way to follow the play-by-play action. I enjoy this thread immensely and don't get too irked when phans go a little overboard. Many times they express my own emotions.

bkeich 2024-08-30 12:13:45 UTC #185

Feel free to not try as hard.

I know it is a difficult, thankless and unappreciated job moderating a board. We do appreciate all 3 of you doing it. That is the non-snarky statement.

DurhamBull 2024-08-30 12:40:04 UTC #186

My $.02, addressed to no one in particular -

Life is hard. Baseball is something I follow to relax and feel joy. I used to enjoy the game threads a lot more. I find that the negativity here -- towards the team, individual players, and other posters -- has become very tedious and draining.

If the Phillies experience a small setback, even in the early innings, often the comments are along the lines of "This game is over", "I can't watch this team", "Player X has given up", "The team/player/manager/scouting staff/GM/bat boy stinks", etc. So much drama! Have y'all never experienced adversity? In real life, do even small hardships cause you to complain bitterly and announce that you're ready to quit whatever endeavor you're engaged in? It's like there's zero filter between the keyboard and a person's first negative thought.

You can say "I'm just venting" or "I don't really mean it" and that's fine. I'm letting you know that regardless of your intent, my experience of it is like being in a room of whiny children. I'm just one person, but based on what I'm reading, I suspect I'm not alone.

This a shared space and culture; we make it what we want to be. If y'all want it to be a pit of bile and negativity during the Phillies winningest season in recent memory, have fun with that. Everyone experiences frustration and unhappy feelings; making them a centerpiece of your persona is a choice.

phillychuck 2024-08-30 12:48:55 UTC #187

I try to be more patient in game threads, too.

However, name-calling crosses the line for me. Let's try not to go there. You wouldn't do that to anyone's face or around their family, so let's not do it here. In the past, family members of players have read and posted on boards, and some might well read and not post. Let's not descend to that level. It's not in the spirit of our founder.

MichaelJackSchmidt 2024-08-30 13:01:27 UTC #188

Perhaps I misspoke or wasn't clear. I've always enjoyed the little comments from various users on this site that adds something to the enjoyment of the game. Comments about hitting streaks comments about who is in the bullpen cuz we can't see that from looking at the bot. But it's the negative comments. The negadelphia stuff that just drives me crazy. I can't get that from ESPN or the other websites.

Patchmk88 2024-08-30 13:30:26 UTC #189

I’ve said this before but I think everyone fans differently. I’m a rollercoaster fan. I get really high and really low. That’s how I enjoy sports. I vent when things aren’t going well and celebrate when they are. I don’t go to games and boo and heckle players but I like to vent to my other fans when the team isn’t playing well even if it is in the first few innings. A suggestion because I’ve seen other message boards do it. We could keep the gameday threads clear of negative comments and create a venting thread that people could post on when they want to vent about the team.

BostonRoss 2024-08-30 14:23:20 UTC #190

I'm OK with the occasional emotional outburst. But sometimes it seems as if every time a Phillie strikes out, someone says what an awful at bat it was or that the hitter should not have swung at or taken that pitch (as if we know what it's like to face 95+ mph fastballs with movement or wicked breaking balls). Or worse, that we should get rid of the guy (or Thomson for letting him play).

I enjoy the game threads while I am following the game (using listening to or watching) because it provides some color commentary from a fan's perspective. And a lot of you are really knowledgeable and provide interesting insights, sometimes more than the paid commentators (whom I think are better than most other teams', even if they're not Harry and Whitey). But it's not much fun to keep hearing the same negative comments over and over.

zambonir 2024-08-30 14:26:45 UTC #191

To be fair I find Michael Barkann and Ricky Bottalico to be just as a unbearable when things are going badly. (Kruk's okay because he's still funny. Also, he has a lot more player cred than Ricky Bo, who rips other relievers like he never walked a guy himself.)

bkox 2024-08-30 14:26:52 UTC #192

The negativity is ok to a limit. I just feel referring to players by school yard insults (Bryson Stink) and then following up with bathroom humor is over the line. ANd I think accusing someone of being on PEDS because hes done well against us, is beneath the quality of this board. ANd IMO thats not being prissy.

zambonir 2024-08-30 14:35:35 UTC #193

It's a silly thing to say about someone who has been one of the game's premier sluggers for eight seasons anyway. He's actually struggling this year too (presumably in part due too the diminished line-up around him).

phillychuck 2024-08-30 14:51:53 UTC #194

I agree with bkox. I'd like to see the name-calling stop. It's fine to vent, honestly, we all do it. Calling out batters for chasing pitches or taking hittable strikes, pitchers for waking batters with a decent lead, baserunning blunders, bad managerial decisions, etc. But it doesn't have to sound like an unsupervised grade-school playground.

julio 2024-08-30 16:49:32 UTC #195

This was over the line. And "Bryson Stink" wasn't the worst of it recently; some posts got deleted, and at least one poster was formally warned.

Philliesphans is not a locker room, and it's not a dive bar either. The Renegade forum is public - it's readable by those who are not registered users. This means we are likely to be visited by all sorts of folks - as PC noted, by family and friends of players, by kids, by "little old ladies," etc. This is not a place to turn loose your inner 8-year-old; it never has been, and from the day mvpsoft founded this space, the guiding premise has been that you are visitors in his living room, in mixed company, and you should behave accordingly.

That doesn't mean there's no place for an occasional outburst, when something extraordinary happens. But "something extraordinary" is not every at-bat that doesn't result in a hit. And the schoolyard stuff - the stupid name-calling (everything from the Bryson Stott thing, to the Aaron Judge thing, etc., etc., to "Muts" and "gNats") - leave that in the schoolyard.

LegoDoom 2024-08-30 17:17:27 UTC #196

I was also at the game. It was for a friends kid's birthday, so I can't say it was restless from my section , but I agree that Marsh woke everything up. It was very electric after that. Great job by the bullpen, as well.

EastFallowfield 2024-09-04 02:14:08 UTC #197

Maybe in Toronto?

LoneStarPhan 2024-09-04 03:20:21 UTC #198

In early September.