Morning Roundup: The Past is Prologue.

The Phillies and Flyers took a day to lick their respective wounds yesterday. Tonight? They fight.

PHILLIES

After getting a travel day to come back from the Left, the Phillies start a three-game set with those Atlanta Braves down at the Bank tonight. Kyle Kendrick (2-2, 4.93) faces Jo-Jo Reyes (1-0, 2.25). Reyes is the first of three lefties the Phils will face in the series (Tom Glavine and Chuck James are the other two), so look for hot-hitting Jayson Werth to get some time in right.

Notes:

• Opponents are hitting an even .300 against Reyes this year. Hopefully the Phils won’t let that # drop.
• On Sunday, J.C. Romero took his first loss since last August. He entered the game 3-0 with an ERA well under 1 (.63). His ERA is still excellent (1.65) and one home-run on a first pitch get-me-by fastball isn’t cause for concern, but his 1.65 WHIP may be — he’ll have to start keeping guys off base if he wants to continue to dominate the way he has this season and last (where he had a 1.24 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP for the Phils).
• As more and more closers struggle around the league — Eric Gagne and Jason Isringhausen both lost their jobs last night — the Phils pick up of Brad Lidge looks better and better. Lidge is 9-9 in save chances, has yet to give up an earned run, and hasn’t walked a guy since 4/20 (interesting …).

Now onto the voices:

Zolecki wrote a Phillies a season catch-up, which was not only well-done but included the Uncle Cholly quote, "If you’re a champ, you can play anywhere." I feel very positive about people who use the word "champ" as a descriptive. Other than that, there isn’t too much that is especially relevant, but it’s a nice catch-up. Give it a READ if you have a few minutes.

Paul Hagen penned a piece about Utley’s dainty-looking swing, he gets some good quotes from Cholly (who made his name as a hitting coach), current Phils’ hitting coach Milt Thompson (who, at least to me, made his name by going over the fence to rob someone of a grand slam when I was listening to the game while my father played softball), Chase’s college coach, his high school coach, Phillies’ scouts, opposing scouts, and Phils broadcaster LA. It’s not really relevant — you can’t teach that swing — but its definitely interesting. Give it a READ (even if the headline calls his swing a "stroke of genius").

David Murphy wrote a list of dumb questions and then doesn’t answer them. This is bad because it means the article sucks, but good because it means I can give snarky one-line answers.

1. Are the Marlins for real? No.

2. Who are the real Atlanta Braves? This question doesn’t dignify an answer, so give Murphy a point for avoiding it (take away 7 for asking, though).

3. Can the Mets hit? Yes.

4. Might the National League MVP race be an NL East affair? Maybe. Well, we do have the guys who have arguably had the two best starts in the league (Chase and Larry Jones), the last two NL MVPs (Howard and Rollins), probably the best offensive player in baseball (Hanley) and two young dynamic all-stars playing in the world’s biggest market (Reyes and Wright … who both can hit, BTW). So yeah, it’s possible that someone from the entire division comes home with some hardware.

5. What players have something to prove in the final three quarters of the season? Everyone? It is three fucking quarters of the season, after all.

SKIP.

Bob Ford also wrote a ‘quarter of the season’ summary. He asked if the Phillies are good or not. He didn’t come to a conclusion, so we’re going to have to continue to go with the conventional wisdom that having Jimmy and Shane back is going to help the offense and that Howard is going to break out of the early-season slump — just like he does every year. Lazy, lazy column. SKIP.

Bill Conlin writes about what other people are writing about Ryan Howard. I’d make a lot more fun of this is if wasn’t kinda my morning routine. Plus, Conlin talks about Duke Snider, which is pretty much the easiest way imaginable to win my favour. READ.

FLYERS

If the Penguins somehow manage to take down the Home Team tonight in Philly, I’m sure I’ll be singing a different tune tomorrow, but today the Flyers have to get a win.

It won’t be easy, of course, as yet another Flyers defensemen — this time Braydon Coburn — looks like he’s out for the game, but a 3-0 hole is never a fun place to be. To do so, they’ll have to get off to a hot start to get the fans behind them, and maybe just maybe stop thinking about the refs and the Malkin hit. No one in Philly is excusing what increasingly looks like a run of bad calls against the Good Guys, but that should be a place where the fans gripe the players on the ice focus on executing.

That said, let the fans focus on griping all they want — we need a riled-up crowd tonight and an angry crowd can be a loud crowd around these parts.

Voices:

Same Donnellon wrote that the "the Flyers weren’t whining as much yesterday as they were honestly answering the questions put to them. And for every jab at calls made or not made in their series against Pittsburgh were four or five lengthy and well-thought admissions that they have been victimized more by their own mistakes than any penalty called or missed." Which kinda makes me feel like a jerk for basically saying they were whining. Still, the column is basically a call for the Flyers to get their swag back. It’s fine for what it is, but what it is can be SKIPPED.

Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette told us that Evengi Malkin doesn’t like having popcorn thrown on their bench, which is good for the guys in the expensive seats to know, I suppose. He then kinda called him a bitch for complaining about popcorn. It is obviously written to a non-Philadelphia audience so it doesn’t tell us anything new, so SKIP, unless you want the ego boost of knowing that we’re rowdy fans.

Tim Panaccio wrote that the Flyers need to play better if they want to win. Thanks, Tim! SKIP.

Phil Sheridan, who is like the Mary Faulker of Philadelphia hockey coverage these days, tried to undercut the Flyers’ catchy "Vengeance Now" motto in 800 words. His point — that the Flyers can’t get revenge and focus on winning the game simultaneously — sounds an awfully lot like the one I wrote earlier, but since I wrote mine this morning, he wrote his last night, and the Sports Complex isn’t even live yet, I’ll give him a pass on plagiarizing. READ.

Les Bowen spent like 1800 words on the relationship between Former Flyer coach Fred Shero and current Penguins GM Ray Shero, his son. It has some interesting tidbits (he compares Flyer Nation to the Ivy Leagues, stories of the GM stealing sticks from Rick MacLeish …) but if you’re hardcore you probably know the stuff, and if you’re not you probably don’t care. Must have been fun to write. SKIP.

SIXERS

I’m late on the link, but there’s the Sixers’ weekly look back at the 1983 season. SKIP, unless you really need a winning boost.

EAGLES

A couple of Eagles-related notes today, which makes sense, because it is May 14.

First of all, Jevon Kearse is blaming the Birds’ defensive schemes for his miserable tenure here, rather than a decline in his ability (or the fact that he couldn’t stay healthy). Personally, I blame him.

Also in the article, their defensive line coach admitted that in Philly, "He’s a punch line of some jokes."

He must’ve seen what Kearse had to say, because before talking about how the chip on his shoulder "has become a boulder" (insert generic  "so that’s what was holding him down?" joke here). I don’t think we really cared about The Freak too much anymore. READ. Get riled.

John Smallwood wrote the relationship between the Eagles PR and sportswriters is, or something. Then he gets to Reid’s recent WIP interview. Apparently Smallwood thought Reid was groundbreaking — I didn’t see it, it’s not like he broke news, and I find the fact that he never answers anything kind of strangely endearing – and that pisses his off because he can’t get a good answer out of the coach. It’s the type of article you only care about if you’re an Eagles beat writer, SKIP.

As for the audio itself, The Level had it rightaway, and agreed with me on the fact that Andy didn’t exactly change the game with the interview.

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the fact that T.O. is playing Flava Flav’s long-lost brother on a show I’ve never heard of that plays on a station I’ve never heard of. Not surprisingly, DN has the scoop. And … SKIP.

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